High flyin' room treatment

[Doc B.]

We've been slowly honing our new listening room for a few months now. One of the biggest issues lately has been an overly bright sound. The tweeters measure very smooth, so it seemed that we had a room problem rather than a driver issue. That problem was most likely our vaulted metal ceiling, that goes from about 11 feet at the sides to 14 at the peak. Paul S. suggested that I try a suspending parachute. So today I installed a surplus 15' dia. silk parachute at approx. the 8' level over the listening position and the gear. Quite a surprising improvement considering that the parachute is so thin that it's practically transparent. It sounds much more like a treated room and less like a warehouse. The nice thing is we still have a really nice decay into the large space.

[saildoctor]

Nice! If you ever want to try some different materials I could sew them up into the same shape for you Doc.  How about some 8oz dacron?

[Yoder]

The nice thing is we still have a really nice decay into the large space.

You wouldn't happen to be talking about neural decay in that large spacious cranium of yours would you? Decay resulting from sitting motionlessly for hours on end and doing nothing but listening to music?

Looks good, and probably makes it nice and cozy in there. I have been thinking of doing something similar in one of the rooms that may become my listening room. Instead of a parachute I am thinking of a large tapestry. I want to play around with the walls also and have thought of hanging tapestries. There will be a lot of experimenting as I want to see if hanging a tapestry against the wall vs 6" from or whatever has any effect on the sound. If that doesn't work then I will move to foam or something.

My classroom is like a huge reverb tank, and we have done a lot of experimenting over the years. One of the more unusual set-ups was when we stacked 45-iMac boxes so that we had a nice recording enclosure. Worked great until the CSFD came in and said it violated code.

[Doc B.]

Nice! If you ever want to try some different materials I could sew them up into the same shape for you Doc.  How about some 8oz dacron?

It would be very interesting to compare different materials. The plates and screws in my leg made climbing the ladder to fasten the 18 shroud lines to the walls not that much fun, and one nice thing about this chute is that it only weighs 3 lbs. making it very easy to handle. Silk is supposedly a material that has a fairly even acoustic absorption spectrum (though I have no data to back that up), which is why I decided to try this silk chute instead of a nylon one. But nylon or Dacron might work very well too.

You wouldn't happen to be talking about neural decay in that large spacious cranium of yours would you? Decay resulting from sitting motionlessly for hours on end and doing nothing but listening to music?

Looks good, and probably makes it nice and cozy in there. I have been thinking of doing something similar in one of the rooms that may become my listening room. Instead of a parachute I am thinking of a large tapestry. I want to play around with the walls also and have thought of hanging tapestries. There will be a lot of experimenting as I want to see if hanging a tapestry against the wall vs 6" from or whatever has any effect on the sound. If that doesn't work then I will move to foam or something.

Yup after a few hours on the ladder putting the thing up I spent a couple hours listening to get a handle on what was going on sonically. Once in a while the boss gets to reap a benefit or two.

Large tapestries on the walls make a lot of sense. In this room with the vaulted ceiling it would have been a little difficult to get them positioned on the walls for the best effect, and suspending the chute seemed like the easiest way to go. But in other rooms at the office we have some walls that are 18' high and I am thinking of buying some large rugs to hang on them. Our office echoes like a silo and the lobby is even worse.

[Bodyslam]

Nice! If you ever want to try some different materials I could sew them up into the same shape for you Doc.  How about some 8oz dacron?

For this purpose I suggest natural fibers with a looser weave. The dacron might be the preferred choice for sails, but it seems to me like it would be more reflective than absorbent acoustically.

Doc and I have already spoken about adding another 'chute, keeping two layers in place.  Doc, now that the hardware's in place, will it be easier to rig the second?

[Doc B.]

Doc and I have already spoken about adding another 'chute, keeping two layers in place.  Doc, now that the hardware's in place, will it be easier to rig the second?

If we suspend it just below the first one it should be pretty easy. I'll be down in the kitchen making the martinis. Just holler when you want down off the ladder.

[keto]

Interesting results with the parachute, in that something so (relatively) light could have such a positive effect. I'd been thinking of adding a suspended ceiling of acoustic foam to my studio, which already has carpet on the floor and walls (pic), now I'll go ahead locating screw-eyes where possible, and try something lighter for starters. Carpet on the walls is great acoustically, but then my ceilings are 8', not 18' :-)

[Jim R.]

Regarding tapestries and rugs and such, I have a heavy, very coarse weave cotton/jute 4'x 6' rug (oriented in landscape mode) hung on my front wall above the rack and behind the speakers, and about 3/4" from the wall, and what a very nice difference that made.  Tended to absorb some of thehf reflections, and also act as a diffuser so the sound doesn't sound muffled, but front-to-back slap echo was hugely reduced and the soundstage is enormous now.

I also have many of the tri corners and the wall/cieling corners treated with the older 8th Nerve .

Too many of these though, I'm sure would deaden the room too much, and if I hang another one, it will be on the rear wall behind my listening chair.

I still have a couple of GIK panels and some diffuser panels for the final tuning once I'm ready for that, but as I just moved my Cornwalls into the listening room, I may have to rethink where those will be most effective.

-- Jim

[Grainger49]

   .  .  .   Paul S. suggested that I try a suspending parachute. So today I installed a surplus 15' dia. silk parachute at approx. the 8' level over the listening position and the gear.  .  .  . 

I did this in a dorm room once.  I think it helped, but it was the 1960s and maybe it was just .... my imagination. 

Mmmmmmm... those were the days!

[Doc B.]

Romo found this article yesterday-

http://www.gizmag.com/empa-translucent-sound-absorbing-curtain/18556/

[VoltSecond]

Regarding tapestries and rugs and such, I have a heavy, very coarse weave cotton/jute 4'x 6' rug (oriented in landscape mode) hung on my front wall above the rack and behind the speakers, and about 3/4" from the wall, and what a very nice difference that made.  . .

At my old house, I heard improvement out to about 5 inches from the wall with a thick textured polyester rug that Ms. Volt picked.  It didn't look like a rug. It looked more like a cloth painting.