vendors for acoustic treatments

[WildEstate]

Does anyone have any recommendations for vendors in the Dallas TX area that have installed acoustic treatments in media rooms for Martin Logan ESL's? I've found it difficult to get someone who knows what they are doing and is willing to install acoustic treatments. I'm aware I could do it myself, but if I rely on that, it won't be done for several years and I'd like to get the room sounding like it should this year.

I got a quote to design the acoustic treatments for $10k to $15k, but they don't purchase or install the treatments; that sounds expensive for design alone.

 

[JonFo]

Wow, that's an expensive design cost. And they probably know very little about the requirements for line-source dipoles, which are very, very different from monopole point-source. And this is true for most acousticians and commercial acoustic 'designers'.

Companies like GIK Acoustics or Real-traps will help with design for low fees, which are often credited when you buy more than $x worth of product. So, it's basically free.
They can also recommend local installers or at least give you criteria for what to look for in contractors.
However, as noted above, they sometimes give recommendations that result in massive comb filtering with hard-surface models behind the speakers.

I recommend that you share whatever design you do get here for some constructive feedback, as many of us have implemented extensive acoustic treatments for our rooms.

 

[WildEstate]

Thanks for the advice. I got quick designs from GIK Acoustics and Real-traps, the latter thinking I could use nearly the entire $20k budget, but GIK designed something lower cost and implied I didn't need the full amount.

Room: 21'2" x 21'5" with 10' ceiling in front, 9' ceiling in the rear - no I don't want to add a fake wall to make the room less square, though I wish I knew more when building the house.
AVR-X3800H 7.4.4
Front: 13A Expressions
Center: ESL C34A
Subs: 2 BalancedForce 212, 2 Dynamo 800X
Surrounds: 4 35XTi
Atmos: 4 MC8
Acoustic Treatments: None, other than carpet and leather chairs.
Usage: 75% movies/25% music

Surprisingly for being a square room, we are very impressed with the subwoofers in movies. Having 4 separate subwoofer outputs may have helped with some of the normal issues caused by square rooms.

The 13A's had much more of a soundstage when we auditioned them in stores, so that is the primary concern that we want to address with the acoustic treatements.

For WAF, the GIK 244 bass traps on the rear wall are the only acceptable option (of the two proposed) as the aesthetics of the Far Style Diffuser Modules don't work for us. I obviously like the GIK price better, but I don't want to buy something now and upgrade later if it doesn't meet our expectations. The diffusers on the rear wall are the primary cost difference between the two options, so if we replace those, the real-traps option may not be as expensive.

1. Do you expect the higher price for the Real-traps design to result in a much better listening experience?
2. Would you recommend any changes to either design?


GIK ($8,000, photos attached)
Corners: 8 Soffit bass trap (I can only fit 6 as I have a door in the back left corner of the room)
Front Wall: 10 Sound blocks (with scatter plates)
Ceiling: 6 (3'x3') 244 bass traps
Side Walls: total of 12 (2'x4') 244 bass traps (no scatter plate)
Rear Wall: 10 Sound blocks (with scatter plates) We have a 42" bar in the back, mostly blocked by large chairs in front, so our rear wall doesn't have as much space to cover as you might think.

Real-traps ($18,000)
Corners: Three 10-foot stacks of MegaTraps, one stack in each wall-wall corner except the rear left where there's a door. I'd have to reduce the back corner to 8' since we only have a 9' ceiling in the back
Front Wall: Nothing?
Ceiling: Six HF Style MiniTraps arranged as two 4x6-foot ceiling clouds, also mounted using post bases
Side Walls: Twelve HF Style MiniTraps, six on each side wall, mounted 3 inches off the wall using our Post Base Mounting KitsRear
Rear Wall: 7 6' Far Style Diffuser Modules lined up in front of the rear wall.

 

[WildEstate]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[music again]

Does anyone have any recommendations for vendors in the Dallas TX area that have installed acoustic treatments in media rooms for Martin Logan ESL's? I've found it difficult to get someone who knows what they are doing and is willing to install acoustic treatments. I'm aware I could do it myself, but if I rely on that, it won't be done for several years and I'd like to get the room sounding like it should this year.

I got a quote to design the acoustic treatments for $10k to $15k, but they don't purchase or install the treatments; that sounds expensive for design alone.

Have you looked at the Acoustic Fields website? https://www.acousticfields.com/

If nothing else, you will get a Graduate Degree in acoustics and gain a solid understanding of the what, and more importantly the why, of acoustic treatments. Yes, it's pricey, but most everything else these days is, from eggs to subwoofers! Seriously, I think the owner, Dennis Foley, knows what he's doing and his products look to be top notch and do the job. I did purchase his open celled acoustic foam and am very happy with it, especially on the front wall, behind my Summits. Anyway, I highly recommend checking out their web site. And no, I'm not affiliated with them in any way.

Good luck in your pursuit!
Joe M.

 

[JonFo]

First, sorry for the delay, I've been pretty busy this past week or so.

Second, a square room definitely needs treatment and, just as importantly, the four subs you have. I suggest placing them in the four corners to balance the room modes.

On to the treatments. First, the GIK package. They missed by including scatter plates on the units for the front wall. You do not want reflective elements for treatments behind a dipole used for multichannel setups, as they destroy imaging and allow significant comb-filtering.
Having scatter plates on the rear wall is less noxious, as the side and rear speakers are monopoles. But the reflected energy from the fronts hitting the rear wall might be an issue for the folks in the second row, so I suggest having scatter plates on only four of the blocks there.
The rest seems appropriate for dealing with square room resonances.

The Real Traps suggestions missed treating the front wall, which is the critical one. I suggest MiniTrap HF's placed everywhere you can, that's what my front wall is like.

And the rear wall should be at most two Abfusors, and the rest are Minitraps HF covering the rear wall.

I agree with the ceiling, sidewall and corner traps, and you are correct, the rear stacks can only be 8'.

Maybe some more thoughts tomorrow after coffee.

 

[JonFo]

The area behind the C34 should definitely be absorptive, as any reflected energy will come back through the panel, causing comb-filtering and smearing of the sound. Same for the Expressions.

In your list of gear, I don't see a multichannel amp, are you driving it all from the 3800?
I have a 3600X in my media room driving Elac UniFi's and it barely keeps up.

 

[WildEstate]

The 4 subs are in the corners as you suggest. I have 3 of the Emotiva XPA HC1's for the LCR, with the 3800 powering surrounds and atmos.

For Real Traps, the side walls and ceiling shouldn't be the HF mini traps?

It looks like the HF mini Traps do better with higher frequencies than the Sound Blocks, so I'm leaning towards Real Traps and just using the HF mini traps on the back wall with no Diffusor Modules.

 

[JonFo]

I have 3 of the Emotiva XPA HC1's for the LCR, with the 3800 powering surrounds and atmos.

Ah, that's cool.

I'll be replacing the 3600 with a 3800 and a MCH amp for the L/C/R when I switch out the speakers for KEF Metas all around.

For Real Traps, the side walls and ceiling shouldn't be the HF mini traps?

Side walls definitely need to be the HF variant, but given the dispersion characteristics of the ESLs, very little high-frequency energy hits the ceiling, so those could be non-HF variants. The ones above my Monoliths and are regular MiniTraps. The others are Mondo traps.

Your plan for the rear wall is sound (pun intended ).

 

[WildEstate]

If I were to upgrade some of these to the Mondo, is the front wall the most important?

 

[JonFo]

MiniTraps HF is preferred for the front wall, as the Mondos have a limp mass (reflective) in them, IIRC.

Since you have high ceilings like I do (10"), I would suggest four corner Mondos for the wall/ceiling intersection. Like those in my HT that you can make out along the side walls. The rear corners have 6" thick Mondo stacks.
The corner mondos have beveled edges, which make them perfect for this application. Of course, they look best against a black ceiling.

Notice I even put a foam absorber on the front surface of my PJ mount
Old pic, the current PJ is JVC NZ8/3100, a much bigger beast.

 

[JonFo]

More info on my HT's room treatments, might run across something helpful: https://www.martinloganowners.com/threads/room-treatments-–-part-2.6931/

 

[WildEstate]

FYI they said they can make any of their panels HF, including the Mondo.

 

[ejspain]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I went with GIK and couldn't be happier but I scaled way down from what they recommended because I felt it overtreated my room. My space is 13'W x 19'D x 12'H. I do about 60% music, 40% movies. I know most suggest floor to ceiling bass traps but it just didn't work (sound good) in my room, so my front and rear corners are half-trapped. I also removed the recommended absorption from behind my 11As because I felt it killed everything coming from the panel. I have abfusers starting at the second reflection points on the side walls, cylinder abfusers in the rear and some absorption in the ceiling.

 

[JonFo]

FYI they said they can make any of their panels HF, including the Mondo.

Good to know; that opens up more possibilities.

 

[WildEstate]

I didnt realize you could over treat a room. I've got a square room, so very likely the 3 corners I can treat need to be floor to ceiling. However, maybe that should give me pause of upgrading the front wall to HF Mondo's, and just stick with the recommendation of using HF Mini Traps. The Mondo's just fit better as I have 38" between the corner treatment and the screen, so it would look like the full wall was covered.

 

[JonFo]

I didnt realize you could over treat a room.

If there are zero reflections in a room (i.e., an anechoic room), then yes, it is a very uncomfortable space to be in for a long period.

But it's kind of hard to go that far in a regular room with treatments alone, as there is furniture that breaks up sound (leather seating surfaces are very reflective) and some amount of exposed wall and ceiling (I assume floors are carpeted).

For monopole point sources, people add some diffusion along the side walls and back walls. But since large dipole line sources project such large, intense beams of sound into the room, managing that radiation is key to what kind of soundstage and resonances (or lack thereof) you will have.
As I continually harp on, for multichannel music and movies, and especially Atmos, preserving the radiation from the front of the panels and mitigating / suppressing the rear wave is critical to good imaging.
For stereo music, especially with very dry recordings, more reflected rear signal does spread out the soundstage, but at the price of head-in-vise positioning for stable imaging.
So, dampening the rear wave is also an answer to a wider sweet spot for listeners.

As seen in that link to my room treatments above, I have a literal ton of them in my room, but I can still make it ring if I crank the volume. Those 2'x4' Monolith can put out a LOT of energy. I'm considering replacing the RPG 3D diffuser on the rear wall for some MiniTraps HF to mitigate the ringing. It should also help with Atmos localization.

 

[R.I.P]

If there are zero reflections in a room (i.e., an anechoic room), then yes, it is a very uncomfortable space to be in for a long period.

Curious to know why a long stay in an anechoic chamber may not be comfortable..

There is ample oxygen and light and a comfortable listening chair. Why would a clear and clean sound be uncomfortable?

Would be uncomfortable for the listener if he/she suffers from claustrophobia.

Curious and would like to know why a few hours in an anechoic chamber cause discomfort.

 

[R.I.P]

For monopole point sources, people add some diffusion along the side walls and back walls. But since large dipole line sources project such large, intense beams of sound into the room, managing that radiation is key to what kind of soundstage and resonances (or lack thereof) you will have.

Electrostatic speakers, if I am not mistaken, produce diffused less intense beams of sound than monopole dynamic speakers.

An analogy I came across very long time ago that was first half understatement and second half overstatement stated that electrostatic loudspeakers fill up a room with sound like a candle lights up a room whereas dynamic monopole loudspeakers fill up a room with sound like a torch lights up a room with comparatively intense narrow beams of light.