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Topic: Room Acoustics? (Read 2753 times) previous topic - next topic
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Room Acoustics?

Hi,

Wonder if any of you have any input. I'm not a music producer, I just do gaming/music listening. I've been thinking about how to place my monitors. I 'm trying to get an equilateral triangle. Tweeters are ear level. I'm estimating the tweeter to be just shy of ear level... 2-3 inches? At ear level it would make the tweeter exactly half height of the room.

Oh right, here is a schematic of my room. It's a work of art! heh




The above is my current room. I can move the bookshelf if need be. The thing is, sitting at my desk, my left speaker has a wall 3 feet away but the right has a wall like 12 feet away. Is that an issue? Issue is I can't move the counter, that long skinny counter. I can move the desk and the shelf and the 2ft tall "desk" I have which my computer is sitting on.

I was thinking about something like this:

That counter is annoying. It's also the kitchen. So uhm... While I can move the speakers 38% of the room's length from the wall, that would make my entire setup awkwardly close to the kitchen. Plus, I'm not sure if the counter counts as a "wall". 3 feet tall in a room with a 7 and a half feet tall roof. :facepalm:

Yes, technically if I sat everywhere in the room and moved the speakers along, that would be a fine way to test the optimal location. But that would take hours with my computer setup, lol.

Under the second picture there would be exactly 3.5ft to the nearest wall for each speaker. The speaker would be approximately 1-2 ft from the wall. Ears approx 23% length of the room from the end.

Sounds like a fun little project, but moving things around is a real hassle. Do you think all of this effort will lead to audio quality that makes a difference or not?

Thanks

Room Acoustics?

Reply #1 –
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I'm not a music producer, I just do gaming/music listening.
If you are enjoying the sound, and it sounds good to you, that's what matters!

Acoustics is a complicated subject, obviously, and nobody can tell you exactly what to do.  I'd recommond you read all you can, and then just start experimenting.  RealTraps.com has some good information on acoustics & room treatment (with only a mild sales pitch).

I recently read an interview from someone at JBL, and the most interesting point he made is that with nearfield monitoring, the room mostly affects the bass (below 300Hz).    He made the point that at mid & high frequencies, most of the sound hitting your ears is coming directly from the speakers.  The bad news is that bass traps are expensive.    The main idea of bass traps is to trap the reflected bass...    Reflections cause standing waves.    At frequencies and places in the room where you have a node (where the bass is added) that can be corrected (to some extent) with equalization.  But where you have an anti-node and the bass cancels, EQ can't help you because it's canceled and there's (almost) nothing there to boost.

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my left speaker has a wall 3 feet away but the right has a wall like 12 feet away. Is that an issue?
That's probably OK. 

The worst thing is a square room with hard-reflective walls, ceiling, and floor. 

Carpet, drapes, upholstered furniture, and things hanging on the wall that absorb sound are good.  It's also good to have irregular shapes to diffuse/randomize  reflections...  A bookcase full of different-size books can make a nice diffuser.   


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Yes, technically if I sat everywhere in the room and moved the speakers along, that would be a fine way to test the optimal location. But that would take hours with my computer setup, lol.
An acoustics expert would take measurements only at reasonable/practical listening positions with reasonable/practical speaker positioning.     

That's one thing the pros do...  They take acoustic measurements before & after position  changes and room treatment  (and, while "tweaking" treatment).    Just listening can be tricky because the time between changes makes it difficult to A/B the changes, and psychologically we are likely to hear any change as an improvement.

If you want, you can get a calibrated mic and the software to make measurements of your speakers in your room.

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Sounds like a fun little project, but moving things around is a real hassle. Do you think all of this effort will lead to audio quality that makes a difference or not?
That's hard to say.  The easiest thing to do is move your chair, or the speakers.  And, moving things around doesn't cost anything.  But if the room is reflective, adding absorption will probably make a more dramatic difference.    I'm not an acoustics expert, but sometimes I clap my hands to get an idea of how much reverb/reflection a room has.    I have no feel for how to translate what I hear into reverb time, but it does give me an idea of how reflective the room is and what the room "sounds like".

Although a dead room is supposed to be better (and is better for monitoring/mixing/production), I've had my speakers in a "dance hall" (with quite a bit of reverberation) a few times, and that's the best sound I've ever heard from my speakers!    In my living room I don't want to hear the small-room reverb, but in a large space it sounds great to me.

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Tweeters are ear level. I'm estimating the tweeter to be just shy of ear level... 2-3 inches?
That's not important as long as the "image" doesn't get messed-up to the point where you feel the sound is coming from too far above or below.  It's more important that the speakers are angled toward you.    The vertical angle created by a couple of inches shouldn't make a difference.

I've got a huge "speaker stack" in my living room and the tweeters are near the ceiling.    The image is NOT correct, but it doesn't bother me.  (The tweeters are aimed directly at my head.)

Room Acoustics?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Dark_wizzie on
The above is my current room ... I was thinking about something like this:

Doug gave you lots of good advice. The most relevant article on the RealTraps site is probably this one:

How To Set Up A Room

Your proposed change is a good idea for two main reasons: It makes the front of the room where you listen symmetrical, and it has the speakers fire the longer way down the room which gives better bass response. Here are a few other related articles you'll hopefully find useful:

Early Reflections
Acoustic Basics
Room Measuring Primer

--Ethan
I believe in Truth, Justice, and the Scientific Method

Room Acoustics?

Reply #3 –
P.S. 
Correction - I got my nodes & antinodes mixed-up.  A node is a null where standing waves cancel-out and an antinode is where they add-up in-phase.

Room Acoustics?

Reply #4 –
Hey,

Thank you for the replies.

I was thinking of getting a new subwoofer for the system because my subwoofer is from Logitech (and the volume knob I am obligated to use with it causes a problem that occurs in a few tracks). Do you think getting a better subwoofer would help the audio quality? I read some comment of a guy telling some other guy that if the room is too small, don't put a super duper subwoofer because it'll create standing waves everywhere. Although I think my room is of a decent size.

So if the first reflection spot for the loudspeakers would be the spot on the wall halfway from the distance between my ears and the loudspeaker, that distance is like...1 foot. Which is much shorter distance than somebody in a home theater environment. Maybe if I move my room from the first picture to the second, I can just put the book case  where the reflection would be. Later on in my life if I have the money I want to dedicate a room for my computer, music, and games, which all revolve around my computer setup and my computer audio setup. 

Room Acoustics?

Reply #5 –
Made the change. Listening position is 38% from front, but it's taking up too much space in the room, so I might squish it in a little. So that the sub is 1 foot away, and shave off another foot distance from the computer monitor to the subwoofer. Hopefully that'll be ok. There is a HUGE change in the sound from changing the speakers around, way more than I anticipated.

Room Acoustics?

Reply #6 –
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...my subwoofer is from Logitech ...Do you think getting a better subwoofer would help the audio quality?
Probably...  I'd say you generally need a 12-inch woofer (or subwoofer) for an average living room.  A subwoofer from an audio/video store (or a store that sells studio monitors) is generally gong to be better than your Logitech or anything from a computer store.

The idea is to get deep, smooth, accurate bass.  That takes a reasonably-sized woofer with a well designed (typically large) cabinet, and plenty of amplifier power.    With a small and/or poorly designed subwoofer, you can end-up with either wimpy bass or "boomy one-note" bass.    But there's a lot more to speaker design than size, and a well-designed 8-inch woofer may be adequate depending on room size and how loud you listen and if you want to feel the bass in your gut.   

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I read some comment of a guy telling some other guy that if the room is too small, don't put a super duper subwoofer because it'll create standing waves everywhere.
There is some truth in that.    But the question is...  Is no bass worse than "bad bass"? 

If you were doing production & mixing, no subwoofer is probably better than a cheap subwoofer or a good subwoofer in a "bad space".    Inaccurate ("dishonest") bass is the last thing you want in your studio.  But no bass monitoring isn't so good either and you still need to check your mix on one or more systems that can reproduce bass.   

When listening for pleasure, some "bad bass" is probably better than no bass and it's really a matter of preference & taste.    My home theater system has a pair of nice subwoofers but my home-office computer and my computer at work both have cheap 2.1 speakers (Ligitech on the home computer).    I prefer the lousy bass to no-bass (with most music).  I actually do quite a bit of audio editing with the Logitech speakers, but I'm not doing any original audio production and it's rare that I mess with the EQ, especially the bass, so I don't need super-accurate monitoring.

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Although I think my room is of a decent size.
Again I'm not an acoustics expert, but from what I understand, a small room is harder to treat acoustically.  But, that doesn't mean a bigger room is automatically better.  Reverb in a large concert hall sounds really nice....  Reverb in a small tiled bathroom sounds terrible!  And, it takes more power & bigger speakers to fill a large room with sound.