My Listening Room

[JCD]

So, after finally getting of the roommate who had a boatload of "stuff" in my garage, and finally being fit enough (spranged my foot in late Dec.) to finish cleaning up and rearranging the garage, I've gotten to the point where I can actually sit down and listen to my speakers.

Of course, I'd like to arrange this room to the best advantage with the EXTREME limitations I have. To that end, I thought I'd solicit some opinions on the room layout, placement of the sheets of 2" fiber glass that I have, etc.. Please note, I can't remove any more "stuff" from the garage, I can only rearrange the layout.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some pictures of the room as is:

From the speakers looking back to the listener. The item on the left is a wine fridge, the items on the right are a desk with a rip saw

Admin edit: I removed this first picture becuase the license plate number was readable on the car

Right speaker from about the seating position:


Left speaker from about the seating position


Pictures from outside the garage into the garage






Some of the dimensions are as follows:
From seat to speaker ~82"
From tweeter to tweeter ~64"
From tweeter to wall ~19"
From tweeter to back wall (behind listener) ~119"
From floor to tweeter ~45"
From back of speaker to OC703 ~15"
From ceiling to tweeter ~45"
From seat to back wall ~50"

My plans for the fiberglass sheets were to put:
- 1 on each side wall at first reflection point
- 1 on the ceiling at first reflection point
- 1 behind each speaker
That leaves me with two more sheets to play with.


I will also be getting an area rug for the concrete floor (soon).
At some point, I will be covering the walls and ceiling with fabric
At some point, I will be walling off that back area and installing an IB
At some point, I will put in some CD racks above the wine fridge

One other thing, the wall on the right is 1/2" plywood that has a gap of about 10" between it and the concrete wall it's convering. You can see an exposed section that they didn't cover with plywood (for some reason) in the following picture:



Can this be used as a bass trap somehow?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Jacen

[basementjack]

I think you have all the bases covered.

if this is going to stay as an unfinished garage, I'd put a piece of fiberglass on the floor when you're listening, instead of the rug.

as long as your ceiling remains unfinished you won't have the usual first reflection point problem you usually would.

also since there's nothing behind the speakers, the insulation behind them might not be doing much - you might try moving those pieces to the sides - directly to the left and right of the speaker and just in front...

so long as this is an unfinished garage, there shouldn't be much need for a bass trap.
if your intention is to build a permanent wall over the exiting garage door, then it might make sense to stuff that 10 inch space with insulation.

[JCD]

so long as this is an unfinished garage, there shouldn't be much need for a bass trap.

First of all, thanks for the info..

I've been digesting your post, in particular the quoted part about.. I'm sure my reasoning is, in the end, of the same "stuff" as the final form of all digested "material".

Anyway, my thoughts were that a small room, especially one with as much concrete as I have, would need even more bass traps. The bass frequencies would be bouncing around even more than normal and don't have much of an escape route.

I've been trying to get REW to work with the equipment I've got, but I've been thwarted so far -- my results have been inconsistent, so I have to go over the instructions again to be sure I've done every right. That being said, in my original seating position, there is a HUGE bass peak. Moving my chair forward gets rid of the peak, but, and maybe it's a placebo effect of some sort, seemed to decrease the soundstage some, or maybe made it less "deep".

Anyway,thought I'd clarify the bass trap issue.

Thanks again for your information.

JCD

[Prof.]

JCD wrote:

Moving my chair forward gets rid of the peak, but, and maybe it's a placebo effect of some sort, seemed to decrease the soundstage some, or maybe made it less "deep".

JCD

If you move your normal seating position forward or back, you will need to realign your L & R speakers to give the same toe-in as previous.
Otherwise, your soundstage and imaging can be affected..

[JCD]

Prof. wrote:

If you move your normal seating position forward or back, you will need to realign your L & R speakers to give the same toe-in as previous.
Otherwise, your soundstage and imaging can be affected..

Duh.. Don't know why I didn't think about that. Well, that's one issue solved! Thanks!

JCD

[basementjack]

Bass boom is usually caused by sound waves 'doubling up' on themselves.

Depending on how thick that garage door is (it looked thin from the photo), Low bass will likely pass right through it.

Now you'll get some bass off the back wall, but your pictures show such a random environment behind that I would expect that not to be much of a problem.

anyhow moving seating is one way to change what you hear.
moving the speakers could be another.

You just have the main 2 right - no sub?

[JCD]

yeah, just the two speakers -- no sub yet -- although, I think they go decently low. And I would have thought the bass frequencies would have gone right through the back door as well, however, when I opened up the door, the bass boom was gone. It lost something more than just the boom -- it was just generally thinner sounding, which is obviously the high freq stuff escaping as well.

JCD

[basementjack]

you've got a really unique situation there and I bet it'll be really cool once you get some measuring done to be able to qualify what you're hearing.

I know measuring can be tough - I started a website on it, and I haven't gotten far - every time I sit down to do something it seems there are a million options, ways of configuring the hardware, etc...

Thats interesting about the garage doors, I wouldn't have expected it.

Is there any possibility that you can mount a rigid fiberglass panel not directly to the doors, but spaced out say 2 inches? That should go a good way towards cleaning up the bass boom.