Well, Raven is cleaning house and asked me to take his Rolling Diffusers lab Styrofoam diffusers with the prospect of fixing them up and selling them or keeping them for a very reasonable price.

My room is now basically lined with diffusers.  Listening in that kind of environment is kind of disorienting as much of the sound is, well, diffused.  The imaging is great and the clarity of the sound is fantastic.  I am just trying to sort out how I like it.

glineus, are you in the Chicagoland area?

If so, I do have more stuff I'm parting with - but a lot of it is real wood and rather heavy, so shipping isn't really an option.

My son was over last night and he listened for about an hour.  I wish I had written down his first response because I think he nailed it.

He said something like it was quieter, allowing you to hear more of the music.  This was also his first time hearing the 25th anniversary amp as well so I don't know which to attribute his comment to.  Probably both the amp and the diffusers.

Inspired by the image of your room, an obvious on-going science experiment that reminds me of some of my past rooms...



In any case, when I look at this image that you have posted and apply the "how can I make this sound better" without complicating it with costs, effort or practicality I come up with some ideas I'd like to share with you. This is kind of my methodology, which is to set the goal high and work backwards from there to a point somewhere in-between the two.

1) six foot wide thing on the ceiling starting about 2 feet behind (and above) your head going toward the speakers.  Could be more diffusers, could be bubble wrap, could be fiberglass or lambswool.

2) put 3/4 MDF or particle board panels that are 1 inch smaller than the ceiling tiles above each tile to add mass.  Trust me you'll hear this one.

3) replace the carpet with a heavy commercial carpet pad and 1/2 inch plush carpet on top from corner to corner.  At a minimum create a large area rug with the same pad under it on top of the carpet you have.

4) Everywhere you see wall paint/drywall cover with 2 inch acoustic foam tiles.

5) foam tiles on top of the sub woofer cabinets to improve imaging.

6) the 360 wood diffusers leaning up against the back wall on each side should be re-located to the floor in front of the audio rack leaning back against the rack like the speaker grill on the left.  Alternately and perhaps even better would be to put them flat on the floor directly in front of each speaker no farther than 2 inches away.

7) create some diaphragmatic bass traps that are 12 x 12 x 48 and put them on the floor along the baseboards on side walls to give you a linear broad-band bass trap down to 60Hz for the room.

If you make it this far and by some chance complete all of the above, you'll have to re-adjust the speakers back slightly.

Also, pointing the subwoofer at the back wall and flipping the polarity both ways to listen to result might be an interesting evening.  Also rotating them 90 degrees to face the side walls and then putting diffusers on the surface facing you might also work well.  Keeps the woofer cone isolated from the back wave of the open baffle which should improve focus.

Your room is too bright at the present.  So as not to dull the diffusion by stretching fabric in front of the diffusers, lets get the remaining flat surfaces softened so they absorb down below 1K.  The floor carpet enhancement is diaphragmatic. It will make an insane improvement in focus. The ceiling will make an insane improvement in the bass quality which will in turn enhance midrange focus.

The journey is the experience.  Why rush it, I agree.

This is not room treatment, but I wondered:
Would placing the tweeters beside the mid drivers instead of above them be worth a trial?

Brian

I don't know if it would help or hurt. But it is the sort of thing I wonder about.  :)

They certainly look like speakers that would have great sound.

Brian

That is good to hear!

I found that to be true with absorbers but not with diffusers.

I've built 3 different types of QRDs and found this on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Wv9eB6wrg

If you have a nail gun, this looks easier than any of the others I've built.  I'm going to build a couple QRD13s using this method.

I priced out the materials and think I can build a pair for less than $80.

Well, I’m going to give it a whirl.  I am going to use clamps to hold the wood in place and turn the pressure on the gun way down.   I cut wood this morning and  out $40 if it goes bad.

A dremel tool with a cut off disk will come in handy to cut the protruding nail points on a blowout. No matter how hard I tried it always seemed to happen sooner or later.

Well the staples can be set with a nail set but the nails can create a lot of frustration. The staples can play hell with the first laminate layer, lifting it with pressure under the crown. I think setting the air pressure to get most of the nails seated just under the surface is the best play. You can always go back a set the nails that are raised. Trail and error! Have fun.
John

Fixed!

You must mean 46.5". I placed 8 of my 1312s on each first reflection point on the sides of the Chariot. Immediate benefit, vocals became more intimate.
I may use this process to build a movable panel covering the big screen. Looks to be light weight.
Good job Pal!
John

I built the second one over the break.  It went a lot faster.  Get your fins a face pieces cut to the right length and it goes pretty quick.

I'd endorse this build method for cost and ease of build if you had a pneumatic nailer.

My only other caution is get the length of your top and bottom frame pieces correct.  i actually screwed the top, bottom and one side of the frame together first, placed all the pieces in to figure out exactly how wide it needed to be and then trimmed the top and bottom pieces before I started nailing.  

I calculated it based on the wood dimensions but with cheap lumber, you can have some variance.  I didn't on the first one, but did on the second.

It's a bummer to get to the end and realize that you made the top and bottom too long/short so its not the right width.