Primer: Acoustics - Absorption & Diffusion

BlueWizard

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In a recent thread titled - "Primer: How much do I have to spend to get a good Stereo?", the subject tuned to Room Acoustic as an aspect of properly implementing a Stereo or Surround Sound system into a room.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/hi-f...how-much-do-i-have-spend-get-good-stereo.html

While I am aware that there is a Room Acoustic Forum at AVForums, I think it is worth discussing here as an extension of your audio system, and as general knowledge to be considered when one places a stereo in a room, or considers what equipment is suitable in a given room.

In that context, I think a discussion of acoustic as an extension of my previous threat, and as an extension of an audio system is a topic worth discussing in the HiFi Systems forum.

Room Acoustics, Audio and Video Calibration | AVForums.com - UK Online

First an overview -

There is a trend in the UK toward ultra-modern ultra-minimalistic rooms, and even I will admit these are attractive, but they are an acoustical nightmare; very reflective with little or no sound absorbing surfaces.

On the other hand, your grandmother probably lives in a very clutter, softly furnished room with curtains, rugs, carpets, and wide collection of odd furniture. This is very probably an acoustically good room. It has both absorption, absorbing of sound, and diffusion, the rebounding of sound in diverse directions.

For general consumer audio equipment, room acoustics only need be given general consideration. However, the more expensive, and more precise and revealing your equipment becomes, the more small things make a big difference. In this situation, you want to give serious consideration to the room acoustics. Bad or poor room acoustics can ruin the sound from an otherwise great sounding system.

So, what do we consider? Reflection is the first killer of sound systems.

How do we deal with it? In one of or a combination of two ways -

Absorption - Absorbing sound in the room to prevent it from being reflected back and interfering with the on-coming main sound from the speakers.

Diffusion - A room must have a bit of echo to it, otherwise it sounds dead and lifeless. So, rather than absorb all the sound, we scatter it in diverse directions.

There are also products that deal with both Absorption and Diffusion to varying degrees.

On the nature of Reflection -

There are two primary aspects to Reflection.

One is at mid and high frequencies. This produces a noticeable echo or reverberation in the room. We want a trace of this to give some life to the music, but too much causes problems.

Next is low frequency reflection; when a wall or wave of low frequency sound comes out of the speaker, travels across the room, and rebounds off the back wall, the rebound then moves toward the front of the room colliding with on-coming sound waves. Depending on the timing of the intersecting waves, they can re-enforce each other, or they can interfere or cancel each other out.

This will either cause areas of intense bass, or areas in the room of almost no base, and these areas can be at best feet and sometimes inches apart. Sometimes just moving our head to the side is enough to move out of a Null and into a Peak.

Absorption can be as simple as acoustic tile on the ceiling. Though most don't realize it, the panels that make up office cubicles are sound absorbing panels, which is why most office spaces have very dead acoustics.

Though, in recording studios or nice home theaters or music rooms, one might use Acoustical Foam Panels like this -

Here is an example of Pyramid foam that both absorbs and diffuses -

4 Inch Studiofoam Pyramids - Acoustic foam sound absorption products from Auralex Acoustics.

Here us an example of Wedge foam -

3 Inch Studiofoam Wedges - Acoustic foam sound absorption products from Auralex Acoustics.

Here is an example of foam in various depth strips that again acts as both absorption and diffusion -

2 Inch Studifoam Metro - Acoustic foam sound absorption products from Auralex Acoustics.

As well as foam there are fabric covered panels -

SonoSuede™ Systems - CLASS A - Acoustic sound absorption products from Auralex Acoustics.

And if you are rolling in dough, there are decorative Sound Absorbing Panels -

SonicPrint by Auralex

The depth of the foam or the depth of the fabric panels determine the depth of frequency that will be absorbed by the panel.

Diffusion breaks up on-coming waves into smaller waves that are diffused or scattered in all directions. This will become evident when you see some of the various Diffusion Panels.

Here is an example of a Home Cinema room that uses a combination of a variety of Diffusion panels plus sound absorbing panels -

Acoustics 101 | Home Theater

This is also an article on the basics of Room Acoustics.

Diffusion panels come in a variety of forms, they can be larger or small wedges, the can be waves, boxes, triangles, pyramids, posts, and many other forms.

You can see a variety of them here -

Auralex Acoustics - Sustain Bamboo Diffusors

In the photos above you see large wooden wedges, but smaller wedges are also possible as seen in the video below -





It is also possible to find software on the Internet to help you make your own box or post Diffusers, as the video below shows -





Believe it or not, a simple bookshelf filled with books makes a good Diffuser.

Here is another example of a room with Diffusion. Notice the curve wood panels on the walls and ceiling. These panels will scatter any sound that hits them -

Panama Escape | Home Theater

Though it is not as obvious, this room is probably using a fair amount of absorption as well.

Here is a website that specializes in Wave Diffusers -

WAV-001 Sound Diffusion Panel | Sound Diffusion TechnologySound Diffusion Technology

Again, these would be easy enough to make on your own with some simply PVC plumbing pipe. Since the tubes or waves are round, any sound striking them will be reflect off in a infinite variety of angles. The Wave Tubes could be place on top of some acoustical foam for both diffusion and absorption.

Just as you can make your own diffusion products with a little bit of imagination and some ingenuity, you can also make your own Absorption Panels or Bass Traps. The difference between an Absorption Panel and a Bass Trap is the depth of the panel. The deeper the panel, the deeper the frequency it will absorb.

There are countless videos on YouTube about making your own sound absorbing panels. Some are crude an very inexpensive and use products commonly available to everyone. And some can be more precise and expensive, occasionally requiring a special order of some materials.

If you use ridged Fiberglas insulation or Rockwool, then it is possible to make Frameless panels. With softer fluffy fiberglas house insulation, you will probably need to make a simple wood frame for the panels.

Here is an example -





I've found that Stretch Double Knit fabric from the fabric store works well. It is cheap, strong, and acoustically transparent. You can also use more expensive grill cloth or similar.

OK, so fine, you say, but how do I know what to do, and what do I do?

To start with, you simply look around your room. If you see a lot of bare open flat surfaces, then you need to cover them with something. Put a rug on the floor between the sofa and the music system. Put pictures or better yet, hang a tapestry on the wall. If necessary, you can build your own sound panels as shown in the video.

Even a large plant in the corner can make a difference. A bookshelf can soften the acoustics in a room. Some type of decorative diffusion on the wall opposite the speakers.

In many of the links, by the standards of a common person with a common income, they have gone a bit overboard, but for the average person, you need not go that far. But if you have a big bare empty room, you have to do something to tame the echo and reflections.

Perhaps the Significant Other (wife, girlfriend, boyfriend,...) doesn't like the ideas of bland bare panels hanging on the walls. Well, perhaps you could make a shelf on the lower part of the panel, and your Sig.Other could place objet d'art on them. Any nick-knacks or similar objects place on the panel's shelf simply act as diffusers. Plus, you can always claim that the panel will make the objet d'art stand out.

And remember, the panels don't have to be a solid color. You can find many patterned/printed fabrics at the fabric store that might blend in better. To test any given fabric for acoustical transparency, simply hold it up to the light, the better you can see through it, the better sound will travel though the fabric and be absorbed by the material inside.

Here is an example, of the difference Acoustic Panels can make. Later on in this video, you see a hand-clap test in a large Church before and after the acoustic panels have been installed.





It really gets down to person ingenuity. Every problem has a solution, if you are willing to seek it out.

Acoustic treatments, might take some effort, but they need not be expensive. In some cases, it is simply a matter of how what you have can best serve the acoustics of the room.

That should get the conversation started.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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I found another video that nicely shows the difference progressively increasing Acoustic Treatments can make -



Steve/bluewizard
 
Here is another video by Ethan Winer of Realtraps.com where he does a nice job of explaining and demonstrating Diffusion -





There are a series of video on the RealTraps website about various aspect of acoustic absorption and diffusion -

RealTraps.com - Videos

Steve/bluewizard
 
Worth mentioning REW (Room EQ Wizard) which is a free download from hometheatershack.

That plus a cheap SPL - I used this - Silverline 633937 Sound Level Meter: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools is all that's required to measure a room assuming you already have a soundcard with a line in.

The software plays a series of frequencies and measures the result of how loud each tone was and how long before it stops.

Ideally, all the frequencies will be at roughly the same sound level and dissipate quickly. In a bad room the room will make some frequencies louder than others and the sound will have nowhere to go (as mentioned above with bass waves stuck in the room) and the graphs will show which sounds your room is messing up.

It takes a bit of getting your head around but well worth it when you get it all working. I found that moving speakers and listening position a few inches can make big differences to the measurements. I then added treatments and compared the results.

My own experience of room treatments was that it was an eye-opener. I thought my system sounded good but decided to splah out an a set of bass traps one day and was stunned by the result. It's more addictive than box swapping.
 
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That SPL looks suspiciously like a Radio Shack meter. I wonder if Sliverline did make the re-branded Radio Shack versions.

It you simply connect the Line Out of the Meter to the Line In of the Computer?

I've heard of the REW program, it seems to be the preferred freeware program for home and hobby.

REW - Room EQ Wizard Room Acoustics Software

On the rights side of the page, note the 4th graph down, the red Waterfall Plot. This is showing the decay of sound over time. The Vertical axis is amplitude or volume, the horizontal axis is frequency, and there is a 3rd axis of Depth to the graph, that 'depth' is time and showing how quickly or slowly a frequency decays over time.

If you click on the graph, you can see an enlarged version. Notice that 25hz and 60hz take a very long time to decay. Where as roughly 100hz decays very quickly. You are looking for short, but not non-existent decay times, and you are looking for a reasonable flat graph on the horizontal axis, though completely flat is nearly impossible.

This graph would tell you that the room has problems at 25hz and at 60hz. These could be peaks related to the room dimensions and/or the placement of the speakers. Or perhaps some other cause.

Thanks for adding that to the discussion. This is a pretty cheap way for the average person to get some sense of where the real problems are in a room.

Thanks again.

Steve/bluewizard
 
Actually, there are a couple of nice graphs that show the Before and After of Room Equalization -

REW - Room EQ Wizard Room Acoustics Software

This is the before graph, notice the peaks at 25hz and 60hz -

http://www.hometheatershack.com/roomeq/images/beforeeq.png

beforeeq.png


And after various types of room corrections have been added -

http://www.hometheatershack.com/roomeq/images/aftereq.png

aftereq.png


Notice there is a bit of a long time decay around 50hz, but overall 50hz is in reasonable balance with the rest of the frequencies. Also notice that the peak at 50hz 300ms out is 20dB lower than the previous 60hz peak. This significantly tames this room. The graph will never be perfect, but you can see huge improvements from the Before graph.

The beauty of a free program like this is that you know what is going on in your room. You aren't left to guess. And when you make changes, you see the results immediately.

A very handy toy for boys who like to play.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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I think it may be the same as the Radioshack that gets mentioned a lot on US sites.

I just use a long interconnect from its line out to a phono > 3.5mm jack and connect it to my laptop's line in.

There are more fancy microphones but it seems consistent and does the job just fine for measuring the low end. Apparently it's not that good for measuring higher frequencies but those are easy to deal with in a room - bass is way more complex to get right.

I have several dozens of graphs like that showing every possible combination of room setup I can manage. A lot more telling than relying on your ears.
 
Here is another video of a guy in Australia who has a home (apparently) voice recording studio. You can hear the echo in the bare room. His sound panels are decorative 'wife approved' and only 25mm thick.

Because they are only 25mm thick, they are not going to deal with bass response or standing waves. But that is not what he needs. He does mostly voice work, and he just need to tame the high frequency echo in the room.



Again, figuring out the problem is probably harder than actually solving it. This guy understood his problem and found a very low cost decorative way to solve it.

For home theater, if you are somewhat handy and have a good sense of hardware and software, the REW program could be invaluable for setting up a good home cinema system or for setting up a music room for stereo. Or at least finding out where the weak spots are in the room.

Notice when he speaks (near the end) even while music is playing, you can still hear the Echo in his voice, though because the music is a constant, the echo is less noticeable in the music. But trust me that same echo is there in the music and causing the same problems.

Assuming you have tolerable speakers on your computer, you can clearly hear the before and after in this video. And this is a small room where the echo is pretty fast and less noticeable. Yet you can hear it.

Again, figuring out what specifically is wrong with your room takes you a long way toward fixing what is wrong. The Sound Meter linked to is only ÂŁ17. The REW software is free. If you have a laptop computer, it should be a snap to test you room and see where the real problems are.

Steve/bluewizard

For what it is worth.
 
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I stumbled across some very nice videos illustrating the functioning of Diffusers -




The company has SIX similar videos, all short, all worth viewing -

Arqen - YouTube


The same company, on their website, is giving away DIY plans for making your own diffusers -

Sound Diffusers 101: Free DIY Diffuser Designs

Plus it is a good tutorial on the nature of Diffusers.


If anyone else has any videos or photos to add regarding Diffusion, Absorption, Acoustical Room Treatments, Bass Traps, or related topics, please add them to the discussion.

Steve/bluewizard
 
From my reading (largely from Ethan Winer) diffusion is really only of benefit in larger rooms. In smaller rooms (which is what most of us in the UK will have) then the focus should be on getting as much absorption as possible. You can never have too much bass trapping apparently. Diffusion also seems to be quite complicated and apparently it's easy to make things sound worse.

I've watched a lot of the DIY panel videos. I think this is the best design as it will give a really neat finish

How to Build DIY Bass Traps and DIY Super Chunk Bass Traps - YouTube
 
There are a lot of videos on YouTube showing substantial, almost debilitating, echo is, yes, typically larger rooms.

The delay of the echo is relative to the distance to the reflecting wall. If you are in a large canyon, then the time delay between "HELLO" and the echo can be a couple of second or more.

The Speed of Sound is 343.2 meter/second or 1126 feet/second. If you walls are 10 feet away, then you must use 20 feet to get the time delay (10ft out, another 10ft back).

You can also use the room dimensions to get an idea of the frequencies at which the room itself will resonate.

For example, if we have a 10 foot by 15 foot room, we determine what frequencies have those wavelengths.

Wave_Length = Speed_of_Sound / Frequency (Y = S/f)

Where "Y" is the Greek Character Lambda, which is use to designate wave_length unless I'm mistaken.

So then -

Frequency = Speed_of_Sound / Wave_Length. (f =S/Y)

f = S/Y = 1126 / 10ft = 112.6 hz

Next -

f = S/Y = 1126 / 15ft = 75.067 hz

The room is likely to have a resonance at these two frequencies.

Again, too much acoustical damping or absorption will totally kill a room. Think about the last time you were in an office filled with office cubicles; absolutely dead acoustics.

The purpose of diffusion is to allow a degree of reflections to give the room and the music a sense of life. Absorptions, especially deep absorption can help kill standing waves and reduce Peaks and Nulls in a room. However, to truly trap deep waves, takes deep bass traps. A typical 1" or 2" deep trap is not going to do much for bass. We need 4", 6", 8" deep traps or more to effect deeper frequencies.

But in concept you are right, the blend of absorption and diffusion is very much dependent on the specific room, the specific problems being encountered.

In the above video (post#8) this person only needed to deal with the voice range, so for him, 25mm deep traps were sufficient. That cut the echo out of the room, which as you can see from the video is not that large.

I think in recording studios, you most often find Diffusers on the far back wall behind the mixing console to prevent reflection from the rear from muddying up the direct sound of the speakers.

First reflections points near the speakers typically have Absorption. Rear walls typically have a blend of Absorption and Diffusion.

One does not have to typically turn a living room into the equivalent of a professional studio. But Room Acoustics are something that everyone one should be aware of, and should take into consideration, especially if they are considering spending a pretty substantial sum of money on a sound system.

Knowledge is never wasted.

Knowledge is power.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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AVForums.com have a couple of good video on Room Acoustics Examined -








I will say the Equalization has its limits. It can smooth out and refine what is already right, but it can't truly undo a room that is wrong.

To maximize Electronic Room Equalization, you must make a reasonable effort to deal with the physical room first, then refine it with the Electronic EQ.

Steve/bluewizard
 
Here is another tip, though I have already touched on it in another context.

Let's way you place a speaker 3 feet from the side wall on each side of the room, and 2 feet forward of the wall behind the speaker.

What are the frequencies associated with these distances?

S = Speed of Sound = 343.2 meters/second = 1128 feet/second

f1 = S / y = 1126 / 3ft = 375.33 hz

f2 = S / y = 1126 / 2ft = 563 hz


But we can also figure out rebound or echo times.

If our room is 15 feet long (4.572 m), we double that distance for time out then plus time back. So, if sound travels 1126 feet in one second, how long does it take for sound to travel 30 feet?

T = d / S = 30 / 1126 = 0.0266 seconds to travel 30 feet or 26.6ms (milliseconds)

Unfortunately to truly calculate the general reverberation of an entire room, use a more complex equation taking Room Volume, Surface Area, and the amount of absorption into consideration. It can be found here at Wikipedia.

Reverberation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

According to another article on Wikipedia, for there to be a noticeable Echo, as in a slap-back or canyon echo, where you detect distinct source and echo, the distance needs to be 11.3 meters (37ft) or more.

"In comparison to a distinct echo that is 50 to 100 ms after the initial sound, reverberation is many thousands of echoes that arrive in very quick succession (.01 - 1 ms between echoes)."

"When dealing with audible frequencies, the human ear cannot distinguish an echo from the original sound if the delay is less than 1/15 of a second. Thus, since the velocity of sound is approximately 343 m/s ... the reflecting object must be more than 11.3 m (37ft) from the sound source ...for an echo to be heard by a person at the source."

Echo (phenomenon) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I suspect that means for a distinct Echo to be heard by the person.

1/15th of a second is 0.06667 seconds or 66.67ms. Remember this is for a distinct HELLO! ....hello... type echo.

For what it is worth.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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For what it is worth, there are several videos on YouTube demonstrating how to setup and use the REW - Room EQ Wizard software.

This is the start of one series of three video on Step, Calibration, and Measurement.





It actually looks pretty straight forward.

Keep in mind the REW software is FREE.

Steve/bluewizard
 
I will add a couple more concept to this subject -

Isolation vs Coupling -

Coupling - in the case of speaker SPIKES, these couple the speaker to the floor, in a sense making the speaker and the floor one. The concentration of the speakers weight into four very small points create a very high pounds per square inch.

Ideally, the speakers and the room would be cut from one solid block of wood or stone, to maximize the degree to which they are coupled.

But, if your space is attached to your neighbors space then you are coupling sound in to this second space.

A tremendous amount of sound travels between spaces by conduction through solid objects rather than traveling through air.

Which brings us to -

Isolation - Which is precisely the DE-Coupling of sound producing devices from their environment.

This is precisely the principle applied to creating Sound Proof, or more accurately Sound Reduced rooms.

The simplest way to make a sound proof room, relative to the outside world, it to take a very big room and build a slightly smaller room inside it. But to build it in a way that minimizes hard surface contact to hard surface contact. Floors being the most difficult because it is hard to build walls without fastening them to the floor. But if you could do it, you could substantially increase the isolation of sound in a room.

Another way of creating isolation is with floating walls. The interior walls or the room are finished as usual. Then on top of that wall a new framework is built.

On that frame work rubber mounted cleats are installed. Then horizontal channels are mounted to the rubber mounted cleats and the new wall is attached to the horizontal channels. In a sense, the new inner wall only contacts the outer wall at the rubber mounts which absorb vibration rather than transmitting it through the hard surfaces.

These inner walls do NOT contact the floor or ceiling. They stop just short and all gaps are filled with soft caulking. Frequently a special caulking or sealer make just for sound proofing.

However, any screw that contact both the inner and outer wall is considered an Acoustical Short Circuit. It destroys the isolation; it creates a solid path by which sound can transfer from the inner all to the outer wall. So it is important there be no connection between the two walls, beyond the rubber mounted cleats.



On additional way to block sound from escaping is to create an unforgiving barrier. There are types of Drywall (sheet rock, wall board, etc...) that sandwich a layer of aluminum between two thin layers of normal sheet rock. This one layer is the equivalent of 11 standard layers of wall board.

I've seen others that sandwich a layer of dense concrete into the wall board.

Of course either of these work better if they can be glued on rather than screwed or nailed. The glue creates a resilient layer that does not easily transfer sound.

So, one must ask, how do principles of Isolation and Coupling apply to the average user who is not interest in literally soundproofing a room?

Consider the simply placement of speakers on the floor. If you Spike speaker to a finished wood floor that floats as opposed to being nailed down, then, in a manner of speaking, that floor becomes a large drum head. As some frequency the speaker will cause the floor to resonate in a bad way.

When that occurs, you have to find some way to Isolate the speakers from the floors. This could be as simple as replacing the Spike feet with Rubber feet. Or, it could involve constructing some type of isolating platform or plinth for the speakers.

As previously mentioned, concentrating the weight of the speakers on sharp spikes creates a high per square inch contact. Some people have had good luck simply reducing the per square in pressure. They use on feet and simply place the speaker on the floor. Or they use a large granite block, usually a cutting board, and spike the speaker to the granite which in turn spread the weight out to a larger surface area. In some case, a thin layer of softer material between the granite and the floor increase the effect (felt, vinyl, rubber, etc...).

On the other hand, if you have carpets, then placing the flat bare speaker on the carpet is not going to lead to a very solid placement of the speaker. The carpet in a sense is going to be wobbly; the speaker will not sit solidly.

And that is where spikes come in. The Spikes reach down through the carpet to the solid floor underneath, and hold the speaker firmly in place.

So, when evaluating your setup and room, as well as considerations of Absorption and Diffusion, also consider how Isolation and Coupling come into play.

This Isolation/Coupling can also hold true with placement of Equipment stands, the placement of equipment on stands, especially so with the placement of turntables.

These are all factors that can weigh heavily on getting the best from the equipment you have.

Knowledge is never wasted.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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I think you all understand it by now, but I found another video that demonstrates Diffusion very nicely -





On the flat surface, the balls are all reflected together in a group. They all have the same rebound time. But when the balls hit the diffuser, not only are they scattered in direction, but also in time, and that scattering in time seems to grow as the balls move farther from the rebound point.

Steve/bluewizard
 
Here is another very good video demonstrating how and why Peaks and Nulls form in a room, and how Acoustic Panels can help minimize this problem. Though bare in mind that these are mid-range tones.





Hopefully people are getting something out of these videos.

Apparently embedding has been disabled on the video, but on the video, on the bottom right, you will see a YouTube logo, if you click that, the video will open in YouTube and you can view it there.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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What would be the solution for speakers on a carpeted wooden floor?

I am thinking some kind of high mass isolation platform - high mass to avoid carpet wobble, but with isolation to avoid vibrations being transmitted to the floor. Something like two granite slabs with sorbothane layer in between.

Does this sound about right?
 
What would be the solution for speakers on a carpeted wooden floor?

I am thinking some kind of high mass isolation platform - high mass to avoid carpet wobble, but with isolation to avoid vibrations being transmitted to the floor. Something like two granite slabs with sorbothane layer in between.

Does this sound about right?

That is pretty close to what I would do. Though if you have carpet with rough wood floors, just spike them, but if isolation is important due to circumstances, then I think you are on the right track.

I've considered using two marble or granite floor tiles, I think you can get them 460mm x 460mm, and most tile shop can cut the down to more specific dimensions. Granite is hard than marble, but that particular choice is up to you. I was planning to sandwich the membrane between the two tiles, though I might put something like felt on the bottom.

If the tiles have rough edges like typical tile it is not that hard to use some sandpaper to polish the edges. Just don't breath the stone dust.

Others have had good luck using granite kitchen cutting board, which are pretty cheap. It just depends on the specific size you need.

I make no guarantees to this method, but similar methods have worked for others.

I've also seen thin boxes filled with sand, with unsecured tops on them. The sand acts as a pretty good acoustical barrier to sound passing though. I saw one guy who made a plinth for his turntable using this method.

Just one man's opinion. Others are free to disagree.

Steve/bluewizard
 
Thanks Steve. I was thinking of a couple of chopping boards with isolation between.

Spikes are out as I have two young kids who have a habit of pushing past one of the speakers and can't risk a spiked foot.

My main problem seems to be the floor resonating, so isolation seems to be the way to go.
 
I have a wooden floor on top of a suspended wooden floor.

I use a granite chopping board under each speaker stand with foam sticky pads underneath.

This definitely worked better than stands onto the wooden floor.
 
I've had the cheap laminate in my lounge ripped up and replaced by carpet. Definitely an improvement acoustically in reducing hi frequency reflection off the laminate.
 
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Thank you for all the above, very interesting reading.

Sorry to resurrect the thread, but I thought it was best rather than creating a new one.

A quick google search show a few companies in the UK offering acoustic panels and acoustic art prints. The links above seem to be American companies. Living in an open plan, "modern" house, I do apreciate the need for some acoustic panelling but it does need to match the furnishings. I have a number of photos of my own that I would be keen to use. There are a few websites that will print acoustic panels, but does have anyone have any experience or recommendations of any companies that they have used?

After having some photos printed on standard canvas and large print, there are large variations in quality of some companies. I appreciate the cost of the panels are less than the cost of my interconnects that my local hifi shop insisted I get, but I don't want to be put off by getting something that looks substandard.
 
AURALEX which is an American company, but is readily available in the UK, and pretty much everywhere else in the world. While I haven't check recently, Dolphin Music has Auralex Foam panels and does sell the SonicPrint panels. Though they may need to be ordered. The Auralex SonicPrints can be made from a large selection of their available art, or they can be made from your photos or artwork.

I did see a company that would print movie posters on to Acoustic Panels, but I'm not sure how they work out copyright issues.

Keep in mind the SonicPrints are not cheap. But most real artwork is not that cheap either.


Here is an example of a guy who used his own photographs to print onto Acoustic Panels -

Escapist Retreat: Contemporary Theater Reflects Homeowner’s Love for Florida Keys | Home Theater

Here is a room that uses more sedate and less obvious Acoustic Panels -

http://www.hometheater.com/images/acoustic1.jpg?1297456137

Note these and similar panel blend in with the decor, in many cases, you don't even know the Acoustic Panels are there.

And the accompanying article about Acoustic Panels -

Off the Wall

Here are some other examples -

Acoustic Art | Home Theater

Acoustic Treatments: Ugly Duckling No More | Home Theater

As to where to find them in the UK, that is just a matter of searching. Likely if you contact any of the many custom Home Theater Installers in the UK, they can help you out or point you to a source.

They've always been a bit out of my price range, so I've never done a deep search on them. Since Auralex is so popular, I simply found those by looking on their website.

Auralex Acoustics - World-Class acoustic foam sound control products at real-world prices!

The foam panels come in a variety of colors and styles, that can be artistically place on your walls.

The Sonic Prints come in the artwork of many artists and styles -

SonicPrint by Auralex

Each thumbnails is a link to dozens of print in all styles by the artist. So, literally hundreds of designs to choose from from modern to classical -

SonicPrint by Auralex - Artist: David Derr

SonicPrint by Auralex - Artist: Jonathon Rattenbury

SonicPrint by Auralex - Artist: Ali Cook

I know there are many other companies that are going this Art Print concept, but like I said, always out of my budget range, so I haven't done an extensive search.

For what it's worth.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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