Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Room Shapes

OK. Now that we have again established the purpose and proper handling of reflections, how does a wider room vs. a narrow room differ in performance?

Most of the recommendations I see for high end listening rooms call for the speakers to be oriented across the short wall (ie a narrow room), not the long wall. In every case, though, these rooms have carefully planned wall and floor treatments to make sure there are not *too* many reflections.

I think the issue is probably very simple. In a narrow room you need to worry about side wall treatments, which most people don't do, while in a wide room you need to worry more about back wall treatments, which tend to come for free because people put all their bookshelves and other junk back there.

My intuitive feeling is always that a wider room should be better, but that doesn't seem to match what I actually see and hear.

Oh, Alan... you're not going to be very popular around here now.

With all respect Alan, I agree that you don't want to deaden a room, that is not what I was mentioning. Standard room furnishings do help greatly, but EQ is not the answer for reducing bass collecting in corners nor fixing first reflection points.

There are many recording engineers/musicians with 30-40yrs of experience that would disagree with your comment regarding being "misguided" when working in a recording studio environments, that just is not the norm. Most of the professionals do include bass traps AND FRZ's in the mixing room. There is a wealth of information and factual proof that this is the case, by those in that field. Not to mention the tests that back these findings performed by reputible laboritories like Riverbank Acoustical Laboritories (RAL) and others.

Anyway, I'm not here to argue, just to say that in my experience since I have added these important treatments, it has made a world of difference on clarity and better imaging. Before my Axiom setup sounded fabulous, that is why I recommend others to purchase Axioms, however, the sound now is like night/day compared to before treatments. That is where the real proof is, your ears. I think the following Axiom members will agree with me: Mrnomas (audioholics writer), Jakeman, Brotherbob, and Royce73 and others, and maybe Bridgman.

Thanks

ps: Amie, thanks for posting my recent pictures, with treatments, on your Wall Of Fame.

I am going to have to agree with Randy. I having been in a mastering studio that has reflective absorbant panels EVERYWHERE to make sure the best possible mix occurs. Mixing engineers do not like reflective surfaces when mastering. Panels provide the best possible sound mix.

Its not to say that once the mix is done they try it out in all scenarios, but the base of the mix is done in a dead room and it sounds incredible.

The same is true for Home Theatres.

-Robb.

I'm with Alan on this. Nobody is saying that the techniques used for recording studios are not appropriate for recording studios... it's just that a recording studio is not the same as a playback environment or auditorium.

Randy, I didn't see Alan actually mention EQ. He was talking more about signal matrixing between the channels and attempting to cancel out cross-channel echos by mixing in an inverted "pre-echo" across the channels.

EDIT -- Randy, I agree completely with you on the value of bass traps and reflection treatments (if not overdone) in a listening room. I only disagree with the argument that "everything which is good for a recording studio is also good for a listening room".

As Alan says, many rooms don't need reflection treatments but the ones which do need them get a huge benefit. Alan is right that adding absorbtion to a room "just because my buddy did" is often a waste of time and can make things worse, but if you add the RIGHT treatments for your room the benefits can be huge.

FURTHER EDIT -- the other difference between a recording/mixdown facility and a listening room is that in one case you want to hear exactly what is going on the recording (minus any room effects) whereas in the other you are looking for the best overall sound, ie if the room adds additional "spaciousness" and that improves the listening experience then that is a Good Thing.

If you over-treat a small room it sounds like a really small room

Thanks John

I don't see where I said "everything which is good for a recording studio is also good for a listening room", but I know what you meant. I was only trying to say that many people believe that Room Treatments should only apply to recording situations, this simply is not true. The same holds true for a HT environments, in many respects.

As I've been working on my HT room, I've tried to get a good balance of "spaciousness", while also controlling the problem bass modes, which all rooms have, and including just enough first reflection wall/ceiling treatments, to improve clarity and imaging. Carpet and furniture by itself is not enough. Believe me, I still have many bare walls/ceiling locations around the room which I plan to leave alone.

One test I discovered recently was by throwing a few throw blankets over the top of my recliners. The leather recliners by themselves skewed the frequency graphs I was creating slightly and affected the sound. With the blankets over the top, it has improved the overall imaging and helped flatten the graphs.

Oh well, time to go mow my 2.5 acres. Glad I bought that commercial zero turn mower.

Thanks everyone, Randy

>>If you over-treat a small room it sounds like a really small room.

I tend to think that you cannot over treat a room. I think with first reflection absorbers you can.

If you treat every 90 degree angle in your room with 703 fiberglass absorbant coated with FRK (I think) material it will only absorb the low frequency and reflect the mid/highs. In my personal opinion (and that of Ethan Winer), every 90 degree angle in your room should be treated with a bass trap. These traps can be coated with the reflective surface so that only low end gets absorbed.

Further treatments such as first reflection pannels should be placed on the roof and on the side walls. This will give you the absolute best listening room possible.

Randy pointed out to me these videos that Ethan Winer made concering bass trapping and RFZ. In his theatre room he has something like 30 pannels (including bass traps).

I have realized that Ethan is an expert in the field of sound in the studio AND listening rooms/home theatres). Here is a link to his videos.
-Hutz

Hi SirQuack,

Bridgman has more or less replied for me (thanks, John). Randy, you've either misunderstood what I was saying or perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I didn't say it was "misguided" to treat studio control rooms; I said it was impossible to eliminate crosstalk between channels when you listen to stereo using loudspeakers. The only way to take the room out of the equation is to listen with headphones.

For control room monitoring, I agree that you do not want a lot of spurious reflections that may cause the recording engineer to misinterpret what he's doing with the mix.

But as Bridgman pointed out, a living room with a mix of some reflective surfaces and some absorbency is generally desirable for the reasons I've outlined, which are reinforced by many years of listening tests and measurements of speakers in different playback environments.

By all means use bass traps to tame the room modes if necessary (I didn't comment on using EQ) but there is a very large industry out there, along with plenty of "consultants" whose vested interest is in getting consumers to purchase room-treatment products or services, the assumption being that every normally furnished room is somehow inadequate or deeply flawed for enjoyable stereo, multichannel music, or Dolby 5.1 soundtrack playback.