Question Room Acoustics - Bare Walls

Flyboy583

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Hi All,

Just a quick question on room acoustics. I have a 2.4 x 5.5 room (photo below) This weekend I installed a 5.1 system (Onkyo TX-NR646 and tannoy HTS 5.0 speakers). It is a great improvement on my previous Yamaha soundbar & sub (YSP 2500). I do however now experience an echo that I think is caused by reflected sound?? The culprit I believe is my bare walls.

I have looked at some solutions (Bass Traps, acoustic panels) and just wondered if adding posters on the bare walls would help? Reason being I would like to keep the "feel and look" of the room close to a cinema room as possible.

Any advice would be most welcomed on possible solutions...

Thanks in advance
IMG_1094.jpg


FB
 
Paper (or framed) posters won't help much, but adding some canvas prints could help slightly.

I'm thinking of getting some prints done on acoustically transparent cloth, then stretching them over a 50mm deep wooden frame, then filling the rear with some sort of padding/rockwool etc.

Another option is acoustic tiles, not cheap but a good solution.
 
As said, posters, prints and frames or similar won't do anything.

If you wanted to try some little experimenting that will cost you absolutely nothing, bearing in mind it's just to give you an idea if it helps.

Try taking the seat parts of your sofa or chairs and stand them up against the side and or rear walls and see (hear) how it sounds then.
 
Thanks, @Roohster @DodgeTheViper, pretty much as I thought... Will have to see if I can live with it.. If not, I am sure there is some modern looking acoustic panels or I might steal your idea @Roohster. That sounds like a good plan. Would be interested to know if it works?
 
The cushions idea will tell you if something like that would work in the first place, before you go spending any money.
 
I can highly recommend cloth prints in the style of film posters. @mb3195 had a really impressive solution that solved both your issues and is aesthetically very pleasing.
 
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Thanks, @mikeysthoughts. That sounds very interesting and I can get some posters on the wall!

@mb3195 Would you mind sharing what you did please? Would really appreciate any help/suggestions?
 
Cinema Room - not sure that white walls count :)

Room Acoustics - take your time and do some reading on the causes and potential fix’s which will be best for your room.

Joe
 
@DodgeTheViper 's point is a good one, so worth a shot. Although I see you've got a leather sofa in the pic. Note that if you try that trick with those cushions you'd need to have the leather side facing wall and the fabric side facing out (assuming the undersides of the cushions are fabric). Leather isn't very acoustically transparent so would just reflect higher frequency sound back into the room.

What you're hearing is the effects of a high RT60. The time it takes for sound pressure to decay by 60dB. Home cinemas in small rooms should generally have low RT60s (around 2 seconds), as that helps with imaging, directionality and clarity of detail in complex mixes. RT60 is measurable with a mic and free software - Room EQ Wizard.

As mentioned @mb3195 's solution is probably as good as you're going to get, without shelling out for the likes of GIK art panels, Artnovion or something along those lines.
 
It could be cushions from a sofa in another room. In fact, that’s preferable. Even a mattress from a bed - see were I’m going. It’s just a taster to see if it improves anything.

Even opening/closing the door to see (hear) what affect that has. With a room that size one of the worse things you can do is to completely seal it off, and I mean completely sealed. I don’t think that’s the case with yours though.
 

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