# How should I acoustically treat my attic room?



## polokolo (Apr 17, 2021)

Hello, I'm about to get top quality monitors but first I want to ensure that my room is treated acoustically so that I can get the best out of the mixing experience My room is quite atypical since I live in an attic with a slanted ceiling on one side with a window in the middle, and a flat wall on the other side. I dont know where to put my Desk and how to treat the room the best way possible. I do not have any pictures since I'm not at home but I found some similar rooms on google. I will post the picture in here for you guys to have a better idea. Thank you for helping me out, appreciate it! 


Compared to the picture, my room has only 1 window which is basically in the middle of the 2 windows on the picture. Also, the sloped ceilings have a smaller angle (more inclined ) on this picture the angle has almost 70 to 75 degrees where min is approx. 45-50 degrees sloped. Remember in front of the bed on the picture is a straight wall (like in my room as well). Right now a have my desk more or less at the place of the closet which makes me mix under the sloped ceiling basically. 

Hope that I gave enough info for a good answer, thank you very much.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 17, 2021)

Bear in mind that acoustic perfection is unlikely in a bedroom, because you also have to live in it.

The first thing is that ideally you want both sides to be symmetrical, whether you face the window (where your bed is) or the opposite wall.

Experience says you will get all kinds of answers here from people referring you to BS on YouTube about killing reflections from the sides, as well as a bunch of people recommending specific acoustic products, and (worst of all) people advising you to buy unspecified "room treatment." Or you'll get references to EQ correction and measurement products. And recommendations for websites. And bass trapping.

My suggestion is that you start by listening for what the problems are in your room before doing a single thing. You may get lucky and not need to do anything!


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## Scoremixer (Apr 18, 2021)

I'll leave the acoustic recommendations to others, because as Nick says, it's a pretty big unknown without actually being there and hearing it. 

I would wholeheartedly suggest spending bigly on some really nice headphones though. No point in going super high end on speakers in a room that will always be acoustically compromised.


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## GtrString (Apr 18, 2021)

Biggest issue is probably bass build up, so some chunky bass traps in the corners will usually help a lot, and then a mix cloud over your sweet spot mixing position.

Maybe some first reflection panels, and maybe some diffusion (furniture) - sofas and book shelves are your friend in the back and sides of the room.

You would probably still need to mix on your headphones, though, so don”t throw a lot of money into an unfixable room. Spend it instead on headphones.


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## Nils Neumann (Apr 18, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Experience says you will get all kinds of answers here from people referring you to BS on YouTube about killing reflections from the sides,


Can you explain why killing the first reflection is not good advice?


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## Saxer (Apr 18, 2021)

Is the window in the middle of the room? Is the room empty? Hard walls (stone)? Carpet on the floor?
Are there any short echos (slap echo) if you clap? I a room like this could happen between the naked side walls. 
Speakers should if possible be placed symmetrically to the room. So better don't place both speakers at a side wall. Probably either have the window in front or in your back from the listening position. And don't place speakers too close to a wall.
Basses are not really predictable. If you don't have any professional room treatment it works basically always like that: you start working and find the problems. Then you try to solve them. As a start: remove the obvious problems first (like parallel naked walls and resonances) by moving your speakers around and listen. Damping basses needs mass. Often a sofa at the right place or book shelfs at the walls helps a lot.


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## polokolo (Apr 18, 2021)

Saxer said:


> Is the window in the middle of the room? Is the room empty? Hard walls (stone)? Carpet on the floor?
> Are there any short echos (slap echo) if you clap? I a room like this could happen between the naked side walls.
> Speakers should if possible be placed symmetrically to the room. So better don't place both speakers at a side wall. Probably either have the window in front or in your back from the listening position. And don't place speakers too close to a wall.
> Basses are not really predictable. If you don't have any professional room treatment it works basically always like that: you start working and find the problems. Then you try to solve them. As a start: remove the obvious problems first (like parallel naked walls and resonances) by moving your speakers around and listen. Damping basses needs mass. Often a sofa at the right place or book shelfs at the walls helps a lot.


Thank you. I plan on putting my desk under the window with the flat wall on my back. I think that it is the only option because of the symetric position. Or i could put it on the flat wall with the window at my back and the downward sloping ceiling


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## polokolo (Apr 18, 2021)

polokolo said:


> Thank you. I plan on putting my desk under the window with the flat wall on my back. I think that it is the only option because of the symetric position. Or i could put it on the flat wall with the window at my back and the downward sloping ceiling


and yes the windo wis exactly in the middle of the room. The room is not empty since i live in there so i have several closets, one dressing, my tv etc. I'll do some picture later and send them in here.


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## polokolo (Apr 18, 2021)

This is the room! Thank you


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## polokolo (Apr 18, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Bear in mind that acoustic perfection is unlikely in a bedroom, because you also have to live in it.
> 
> The first thing is that ideally you want both sides to be symmetrical, whether you face the window (where your bed is) or the opposite wall.
> 
> ...


This is my room manages to get some pictures.


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## polokolo (Apr 18, 2021)

GtrString said:


> Biggest issue is probably bass build up, so some chunky bass traps in the corners will usually help a lot, and then a mix cloud over your sweet spot mixing position.
> 
> Maybe some first reflection panels, and maybe some diffusion (furniture) - sofas and book shelves are your friend in the back and sides of the room.
> 
> You would probably still need to mix on your headphones, though, so don”t throw a lot of money into an unfixable room. Spend it instead on headphones.


This is my room.


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## wst3 (Apr 18, 2021)

Nick's advice is good, except that you need to be able to identify the problems, and if you are just starting out that may be a problem. Or maybe not? I'm not sure about your experience.

There are four "tools" at your disposal:

1) Room geometry - this is where I start, even for an existing space. And if you'll excuse my arrogance, I believe it is where every project should start!


Small rooms are not (despite repeated reports to the contrary) statistically reverberant. Treating them with solutions that are intended to treat reverberant spaces does not work.
What does work? Start with symmetry from left to right. Next experiment with loudspeaker (and ear) placement. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with what you can accomplish with these tricks.
2a) Absorption - turning unwanted sound energy into heat. Yes, that's what it is. There are numerous products that claim to provide aborption - foam, rock wool, even tuned membranes. 

I think panels made from rock wool look nice, but some folks like foam. Rock wool panels are typically a little more efficient, but it depends a lot on how they are made. 
One important caveat - too much absorption is just as bad as too little. 
Another important caveat - absorption needs to compliment the room, for example, if the room is bass heavy then you need more low frequency abso
Last caveat - tuned absorption is a wonderful tool, but it is really difficult to do well! Start with broadband absorption!!
2b) Absortion (again) - managing reflections. In my limited experience it is very difficult to adequately control reflections with absorption. It can be done, but there are better ways. AND, it almost always results it a room that is too dead.

3) Diffusion - the idea is to break up the reflections and scatter them around the room so they are not distinct. It is remarkably effective in a space that is designed to take advantage of diffusion from the start. You really need about 12 feet from the ears to the rear wall to make diffusion effective.

4) Reflection - not sure why so many folks skip over this, it can be a really effective tool, especially in smaller spaces. The idea is simply to lengthen the path that sound travels to manage the arrival times of different reflections.

None of this helps with isolation or "sound proofing". That's a separate topic, and one you are unlikely to be able to control without a lot of money.

None of this addresses ergonomics, or lighting, or power, or half a dozen other things you need to think about. Again my experience only, but dealing with these topics first constrains some of your acoustical treatment choices. That's not always bad!

No one can offer you specific advice without detailed drawings, or being there. Years (decades?) ago I worked remotely on a couple of rooms. I won't do that anymore, it worked, but it took a lot of time, and there was more than a little frustration on both sides.

And while I can't (won't?) offer specific advice, and I shy away from product recommendations I will suggest one solution. ASC makes these bass traps that double as monitor stands. They are brilliant. They are expensive, but I think more than worth the cost in most rooms. They are definitely worth at least a look.

You may have noticed that I haven't talked about measurements, or room correction. Measurements are wonderful, if you know what they mean. If you don't then you will probably be better off without.

Room correction, on the other hand, borders on snake oil! Not because it doesn't work, but because it does not work the way the vendors suggest. You can not fix physical problems with filters, no matter how narrow you make them, or how many you have. It is the wrong cure, and if you start down that path you will be disappointed.

What it can do is mask specific problems in a specific spot in the room (usually your listening spot). Move a little as a few inches away and the problems could get worse. It is a reasonable alternative to mixing in headphones I suppose, I don't care for it. It has been a while since I've tried any of the products, but last time around they all left sigificant artifacts that - to me - were worse than the problems they were solving.

There are studio designers out there who can give you a great design, even remotely, but they are not cheap, and I'm not sure I'd spend that kind of money on a temporary space. If you are building a more permenant space then by all means consult with one.

Be careful! While it is important to treat the space, and spending a reasonable sum on that solution is worthwhile you want to be careful not to spend unnecessarily.


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## GtrString (Apr 18, 2021)

polokolo said:


> This is my room.


Tbh, I would just get a good set of headphones and mix on those.


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## SupremeFist (Apr 18, 2021)

Yep. Slate VSX all the way.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 18, 2021)

Nils Neumann said:


> Can you explain why killing the first reflection is not good advice?



Because they help with imaging. Only reflections coming from the same angle as the speakers - the front - are "comb-filtered." Our brains separate the side reflections from the direct path from the speakers.


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## rgames (Apr 18, 2021)

Taming bass resonances is the only really good use of time I've found in the rabbit hole of acoustic treatment for music studios. I imagine there are lots of tutorials on how to do that.

"Different" is science.

"Better" is religion.

rgames


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## germancomponist (Apr 18, 2021)

rgames said:


> Taming bass resonances is the only really good use of time I've found in the rabbit hole of acoustic treatment for music studios. I imagine there are lots of tutorials on how to do that.
> 
> "Different" is science.
> 
> ...


This!


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## MartinH. (Apr 18, 2021)

Saxer said:


> Damping basses needs mass. Often a sofa at the right place or book shelfs at the walls helps a lot.


So _that's_ what my bookshelf is good for!


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## jcrosby (Apr 18, 2021)

polokolo said:


> Hello, I'm about to get top quality monitors but first I want to ensure that my room is treated acoustically so that I can get the best out of the mixing experience My room is quite atypical since I live in an attic with a slanted ceiling on one side with a window in the middle, and a flat wall on the other side. I dont know where to put my Desk and how to treat the room the best way possible. I do not have any pictures since I'm not at home but I found some similar rooms on google. I will post the picture in here for you guys to have a better idea. Thank you for helping me out, appreciate it!
> 
> 
> Compared to the picture, my room has only 1 window which is basically in the middle of the 2 windows on the picture. Also, the sloped ceilings have a smaller angle (more inclined ) on this picture the angle has almost 70 to 75 degrees where min is approx. 45-50 degrees sloped. Remember in front of the bed on the picture is a straight wall (like in my room as well). Right now a have my desk more or less at the place of the closet which makes me mix under the sloped ceiling basically.
> ...


*EDIT:* Missed the post with your actual pictures initially... At least it looks like you have some width to work with... the conventional wisdom of an A-frame (if I'm interpreting the pics right) is to set your desk up horizontally. I.e. one ceiling angle on your left, one on your right...

ALSO I'd suggest reading below as our rooms are even more similar than I thought initially, right down to a skylight in the ceiling. I really understand what generally happens in a space shaped like this... And please don't take the stuff that sounds negative to heart. I can think of several massively successful drum and bass artists with serious full time production careers that work in a room shaped like yours...

Personally I'd focus on some kind of treatment over the speakers. Great speakers will never sound nearly as great as they should in a difficult room. Add the atypical nature of yours in and they're always going to be a compromised version of what they should sound like. I've said this before... I'd take mediocre speakers in a great sounding room over great sounding speakers in a bad sounding room any day... Acoustics have come a long way and you can make your room plenty workable on speakers...

.......................................................

I also have an atypical room. I actually have similar multi-angle walls like in your photo, however they're shorter and slope up to a 'sideways A-Frame.... They're also on both ends of my room.

The 1st thing to understand about a room with a non-conventional box shape is the acoustic math falls apart somewhat. While the modes in terms of normal room dimensions will exist, the extra angles alter how those modes might amplify or lessen the modal issues. And you'll almost certainly experience additional modal issues that relate to the extra angle in some way...

The short version is that when I re-did my sidewalls and ceiling I reached out to several acoustics companies and asked each one about my how my ceiling affects my room. They all had the same answer, that the extra angles make it too difficult to predict. There were some general things I could do that would have an impact, but to what extent they couldn't say...

The longer version is I can tell from years of working in this room, (treated, untreated, and poorly treated; and at different areas of my room, including hunched toward one of those walls similar to the one in your pic)... The wall where your bed is essentially acts like the knee of a compressor, in that all of my low end issues were massively amplified by the extra angle. The slant essentially forces a whole bunch of extra reflected energy right back at you no matter where you sit. (True of any room, but there are two angles of reflection, and they merge into one big ball of rear wall/front wall bounce).

If your speakers are on the opposing wall and face the angle, sound is directly reflected back at you. If you work inside the angle anything omnidirectional is also reflected directly back at you. Again, true of any room, but the additional angle, (at least in my experience) creates additional room gain, especially in the lower end of the spectrum. It's basically like both reflections compound together into an even bigger reflection.

CASE STUDY (I.e. my room...)

I have 5 feet between my actual front wall and a DIY false front wall I face. My false front wall is 4-6 inches of 705 (Equivalent to 8-12 inches of 703 more or less), my corner traps are 12 inch thick DIY traps made of a mix of 703 and 705. Short version... My front wall is waaay more treatment than would be placed in 9.9 out of 10 home studio. The extra space also adds plenty of room for low energy to additionally lose energy before getting bouncing back, then getting re-absorbed.

I also have a crawl space at the front and rear walls with the door removed that essentially works like an additional cavity for low end to lose energy... There's a passive absorber over where the door was; super deep stuff under 50 can escape into there and lose a little more energy... It gets absorbed a small amount on the way in, and re-absorbed a small amount when it bounces back out.

My rear wall is, no shit, 18-24 inches of 703 and 705. My sidewalls and ceiling are paneled with 4 inch traps, the ones flanking my speakers having a hardboard membrane on them to extend the range of absorption. (I also have various panels with B.A.D. on them to prevent the room from feeling like a murder room  ) The actual ceiling is tiled with 4 inch traps literally end to end between the false front and rear walls. Basically you could say I have about as extreme of an example as possible of what can theoretically be achieved with passive absorption.

Where am I going with all of this? I still have a 3-6dB low end boost below 90 Hz... The extra angle amplifies low end. My mids are more or less handled, but the low end is always going to have a lift. Sitting under the hutch (where my friends/clients sit...) it might as well be like having a sub woofer strapped to your head... Even with the ridiculous rear wall treatment...

That said... All rooms are flawed, especially any home studio. If you enjoy working on speakers part of the time and your mixes tend to translate well already then I'd personally at least think about doing treatment in favor the speakers. Perhaps working toward new speakers at a later date...


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## Nils Neumann (Apr 19, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Because they help with imaging. Only reflections coming from the same angle as the speakers - the front - are "comb-filtered." Our brains separate the side reflections from the direct path from the speakers.


Makes sense, thx!


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## polokolo (Apr 19, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> *EDIT:* Missed the post with your actual pictures initially... At least it looks like you have some width to work with... the conventional wisdom of an A-frame (if I'm interpreting the pics right) is to set your desk up horizontally. I.e. one ceiling angle on your left, one on your right...
> 
> ALSO I'd suggest reading below as our rooms are even more similar than I thought initially, right down to a skylight in the ceiling. I really understand what generally happens in a space shaped like this... And please don't take the stuff that sounds negative to heart. I can think of several massively successful drum and bass artists with serious full time production careers that work in a room shaped like yours...
> 
> ...


thank you this was so useful. Have you seen the picture of my room i've posted? the one with white walls and TV? or are you refering to the first picture ive put in the first question on top?


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## wst3 (Apr 19, 2021)

rgames said:


> Taming bass resonances is the only really good use of time I've found in the rabbit hole of acoustic treatment for music studios. I imagine there are lots of tutorials on how to do that.
> 
> "Different" is science.
> 
> "Better" is religion.


Agree 100% on the second part, not entirely certain on the first.

Taming bass resonances is not simple, and many of the tutorials offer solutions that won't work.

Taming other problems can become a rabbit warren, but it doesn't have to be.

Love the "Different vs Better" thing though.

(Grossly over-simplifying for brevity)
There are two schools for treatment of a small, critical listening space:

Make the room as close to typical as possible
Make the room disappear
Proponents of the first school point out that listeners do not listen in perfect environments, so why bother trying to create one? Instead create a space you enjoy. This is at the heart of Dave Moulton's work. And it works, or rather it can.

Proponents of the second school believe that since you can not, by definition, create a typical listening space you are better off making the room disappear. And you know what? This can also work.

I find it interesting that neither of these solutions addresses the low frequency problems. Which is, I think, the dividing line between what one needs to do and what one might like to do.

I've worked in well designed rooms from both schools. Remarkably (to me) I found it somewhat easier to mix in rooms based on LEDE(tm) or RFZ(tm) - rooms where one doesn't really hear the room. It is counter-intuitive to me, but it does work.

That said, I've spent way more time in rooms based on the first school of thought, and for the most part my mixes translated well to other spaces. Sometimes I found it difficult to make decisions about reverb, or overall spectral balance, but even if I wasn't thrilled with the result it still translated well.

TL;DR
Treating low frequency problems is difficult, but essential, and it really should be the first thing you do when creating a small, critical listening space. Don't expect perfection, just get rid of the big problems.

If you choose to go beyond that think carefully about what school of thought you'd like to follow, and then stick to it. There is nothing worse that a room that is half one & half the other.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 19, 2021)

Bill, that's certainly not my argument! Nor is it Moulton's.

I like rooms that don't have horrendous frequency imbalances. That's why I find the generic "buy room treatment" and "you need bass trapping" so silly: you are far more likely to screw up your room's frequency response!

And you *can't* make the room disappear, nor would you want to. If that were the goal we'd mix in anechoic chambers or (if walls and ceilings are bad) outdoors.


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## jcrosby (Apr 19, 2021)

polokolo said:


> thank you this was so useful. Have you seen the picture of my room i've posted? the one with white walls and TV? or are you refering to the first picture ive put in the first question on top?


Yeah, the edit was to update stuff I posted initially when I skimmed your OP and didn't catch the bit about the photo being from google as a rough example...bI'll also keep this as short as possible since my post yesterday was just a hair long 

The shortest version of what I'm getting at is that speakers are highly impacted by the room you put them in. Expensive speakers in a complicated room like yours will loose all of the theoretical wow-factor you might get out of them...

There's a bit of a stereotype in the hifi world, but it's true and sums it up really well... There are guys that chase expensive hifi, (especially insanely expensive speakers), They'll chase swapping out one expensive set of speakers for another only to find that the sound quality doesn't match the upscale price tag.. After finally giving the room some attention they tend to be content with the speakers they have...

Placement's also key, especially with atypical geometry... I'm still not completely sure if you have an a-frame of it you have a slant only on one side? If you have a slant on one side and have the angled ceiling to your left (or right) you'll have a lopsided stereo image with no real phantom center... You basically have a ton of room gain coming from one side... Add a lopsided listening position to weird acoustics and there's essentially no point in spending a ton of money on expensive monitors on their own...

With a room like yours, my experience has been to either spend the money on dealing with some of the issues in your room or learn work with cans as a way to to compensate. Short angled ceilings and/or severe asymmetry can be just as tricky as cube shaped rooms. (A cube being a worst case scenario if not familiar for any reason...)


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## jcrosby (Apr 19, 2021)

wst3 said:


> TL;DR
> Treating low frequency problems is difficult, but essential, and it really should be the first thing you do when creating a small, critical listening space. Don't expect perfection, just get rid of the big problems.
> 
> If you choose to go beyond that think carefully about what school of thought you'd like to follow, and then stick to it. There is nothing worse that a room that is half one & half the other.


100%. 'Treating the room' should always start with managing the low end. In a room like they have some kind of low end acoustic issue no matter where they sit... The extra angles essentially creates additional sound pressure, pressure that increases in intensity the further you move into the angled area.

It basically functions like a parabolic mirror where the two reflections converge and the reflection is concentrated.

.....

And sorry @Nick Batzdorf but no, if you do your homework when treating a space and start by dealing with low end first you cannot and will not screw a room up. Modal issues reach up into and skew midrange issues. And many midrange Reflection-based issues are often improved simply by dealing with the low end. E.G. Trapping low end hot spots often kills most flutter echo simply because of the materials and mass used.

Absorption is also not necessarily synonymous with deadening a room. Hard surfaces can be added to an absorber, or added after the fact to bring life back into any room. There are also plenty of affordable commercial treatment options that include hard surfaces. Not only do they retain a sense of liveliness, they also extend the range of low end absorption, sometimes by an entire octave.

I'd never suggest anyone start by slapping panels up at the (conventionally assumed) '1st reflection point'. The reality is the actual 1st reflection happens at whatever surface(s) are closest to the speaker. (Including a desk, console, etc. Consoles and desks are notorious for introducing additional comb filtering. And it can be pretty extreme. This is why mastering engineers are neurotic about furniture with as little acoustic footprint as possible.)

Treating any wall close enough to create SBI can't screw your room up either. How affective it is is another story and depends on a bunch of factors, but you won't have a worse sounding room by dealing with the surfaces that low end bounces off of 1st. You might not like that it sounds damped, but that's easy to solve by choosing something with a membrane, a B.A.D. surface, etc.

SBI is often the hardest issue to treat. As I mentioned in another post the paper below by RPG's founder has a whole section about SBI:

https://www.ime.usp.br/~kon/acmus/relacionados/AcousticDistortion.pdf

And I'm reposting the video below. Not only does it have a convenient simulation of what happens with boundary reflections and room gain, it actually demonstrates it happening in the real world:


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 19, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> And sorry @Nick Batzdorf but no, if you do your homework


Okay, I'll come back when I've done it.






It's one thing if you're talking about low freqs, and console splash can be a problem. But note that's because the sound is coming from roughly the same angle as the sound from the speakers. That doesn't happen with the sides, which is why I'm always repeating myself about how absorption on the sides is sticking a lowpass filter in the response of your speakers.

I also tend to look sideways when someone writes "flutter echoes" - not because *low* freqs can't be a problem, but because flutter echoes from the sides are pretty much impossible to excite with speakers that aren't designed for wide dispersion.

And we don't know how much bass will escape out the window or other places in that room, nor do we know how things in it will affect the sound. That's why I hereby triple down on my advice not to do anything to a room until you hear what the problems are.

Treating rooms is very important, but the analogy is medicine: you need the right treatment for the affliction!


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## jcrosby (Apr 19, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Okay, I'll come back when I've done it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't disagree with you necessarily... It does makes sense to treat the sidewall directly parallel to the speaker if it's the closest surface to the speaker though, but even then there are so many factors...

And of course you need to be in the room to have any real idea of what to expect. But there are also some basic things you can do in any room scenario that works. Placement being the 1st step. Minimizing room gain. (See above).

Sure some bass will escape out the window when the window's open. That doesn't account for when the window can't be opened. It's also only a fraction of the ceiling and low end doesn't conveniently leave in the 1st available exit..

I can also say from 12 years working in a pretty damn similar scenario what the general behavior is in a room like that is, working at multiple location of the room, the room being treated, untreated, and poorly treated. The extra slant means low end converges and concentrates like light does in a parabolic dish. Some kind low end treatment wouldn't hurt anything. Whether any gains were meaningful is a complete unknown. 

But the idea that you can make a room worse absorbing low end is pretty entertaining.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 19, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> But the idea that you can make a room worse absorbing low end is pretty entertaining



It's not that you're likely to make a room worse by absorbing *low end* (assuming you're not using Helmholtz resonators tuned wrong), it's that you may not have too much bass - especially if your speakers don't have a lot of it in the first place.

Bill's advice to use those ASC speaker stand traps is good (was that in this thread?). They work really well.

Really, though, what I'm arguing with isn't you, it's the stupid advice you read without fail in every thread on the Internet when someone asks how to treat their room.


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## polokolo (Apr 20, 2021)

wst3 said:


> Agree 100% on the second part, not entirely certain on the first.
> 
> Taming bass resonances is not simple, and many of the tutorials offer solutions that won't work.
> 
> ...


thank you very much. As you mentioned, I should not expect perfection but get rid of te big problems. Now what is you advice if you gave a look at the picture i posted for my room? i think the placement of my mixing desk is the first concern for instance.


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## jcrosby (Apr 21, 2021)

polokolo said:


> thank you very much. As you mentioned, I should not expect perfection but get rid of te big problems. Now what is you advice if you gave a look at the picture i posted for my room? i think the placement of my mixing desk is the first concern for instance.


Placement's the 1st thing you need to decide. Where you're sitting now for example means that your left speaker reflects sound downward at you. Then again, you have a little nook on your right directly near the right speaker... These both color the sound in different ways, you almost certainly have quite a bit of comb filtering happening that you're not aware of... Bottom line, just by sitting where you currently are you have some pretty messy frequency and stereo imaging issues working against you.

You also have the speakers on the desk. Having them on the desk means the desk is basically a giant resonator that amplifies certain frequencies. These really should be at ear height and on stands. If you were/are stuck working in that area, and stands weren't possible this would be an even greater argument against 'top-quality monitors'. Good speakers really need to be set up correctly or you're losing out on so many of the theoretical benefits they'd bring... Sure the range would be wider, but that only means the imperfections continue further down the spectrum. The speakers in your pic look small so it's not all that crazy to assume that bigger speakers with a wider range would also make any existing low end issues more pronounced...

One other quick example of how your current placement affects things...

Think about how the ceiling's angle... If you were dealing with light and you placed a bunch of mirrors on the ceiling, then shined a light at it head-on you'd get a reflection that shot downward. The same law of reflection that applies to light applies to sound...

Symmetry's your best friend for a good stereo image. (In your case it also most likely plays a role in the perceived volume of each speaker. I'd imagine that your image leans in one direction if you've set the speaker's volumes to the same level...) You're never going to have perfect symmetry obviously, but you should have some general symmetry on your left and right... Basically the ideal listening position in your room is setup horizontally (centered), either along the tall wall with the ceiling behind you, or the opposite...

The short version is I'd sort out a better listening position if possible before even thinking of any kind of treatment. (Or new speakers for that matter)... Where you sit not only affects your image, it has an enormous impact on which frequencies peak/null when you listen.

If for any reason you were locked to your current position treatment would still be smart (more-so if anything...), but the treatment used, how much, and where you might place it would be totally different than if you were set up symmetrically on one of those other two spots.

Can you move to either of these spots?

If you can you should immediately hear a difference. And don't disregard the speaker height. This has a huge impact on stereo imaging, depth, even color... You really want them at ear height to make any proper decisions...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 22, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> The same law of reflection that applies to light applies to sound...



With the context that I agree about ceiling reflections (where diffusion is probably the best medicine)... but still taking this isolated quote out of context: that's my argument. Ears, mics, and eyes are five different things.

Again, unlike a mic, the sound has to bounce from the same angle as the speakers to comb filter with it in our brains. Dave Moulton, the guy who explained this to me years ago, always uses the example (not analogy, example!) of a grossly reflective gym: you can hear exactly which direction every sneaker squeak is coming from.

It has to do with phase and who knows what else (someone probably does know, but I believe how we localize sound isn't fully understood).

But I spent more nerd time experimenting with this than I care to admit. It's true - within frequency limits.


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