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Completed Soffits

5K views 34 replies 6 participants last post by  Bob_99 
#1 · (Edited)
I’m not sure if anyone is interested but here are the results of the soffits that I just built right behind my listening area. I decided to build them so they would be more acceptable to my wife since she was kind enough to let me put up Real Traps in my listening area.

The soffits are 13' long and 12” wide by 10” high with ¾” wood frame. I know that there may be better ways to do this but since this is my first (and only) time, I went for something that would be light. I initially tried to screw the top piece to the joists above the ceiling but even after I crawled up there to measure the distances, it turned out that the joists curved enough from the center where I measured to where they connect to the wall, that I missed them, so I ended up using molly bolts (old house). Molly bolts are a story in themselves which I won’t get into.

For the inside of the soffits, I went with four inches of 703 12”wide on the bottom and 6” high on the side. I had some R11 that I wanted to use up, so I filled the inside with that.



The whole thing is wrapped in poly batting and I put some plastic corner molding on the bottom for a smoother curve.



I have some cloth that needs to be put over the whole thing and then some quarter round molding and end caps will finish it up.

The big question, was it worth it? Here are some measurements using RplusD (sorry REW folks, I’m just use to this software).

Before


And after:



There appears to be some improvement but obviously not as much as I would have liked. It really does take a lot of surface area to reduce decay time at low frequencies. After I finish up the soffits, I’ll take a look at other wall/ceiling corners and see what I can sneak in for treatment. After that I may redo the listening area to cover more of the corners.

Special thanks to Bryan and others for answering many of my questions before I started on this project.

Bob
 
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#27 ·
Bob, sorry to ask this, but what exactly is a "soffit"? Is that a ceiling-mounted bass trap? Or is it the name given to partial drop-ceilings (eg: when drop ceilings run around the wall and have indirect lighting within)?

It'd be nice to use a technical term when I try and explain our new HT room to the plasterers! :nerd:
 
#28 ·
A 'soffit' is a term for where the ceiling drops down around the perimeter of the room. One can have soffit all around, just on the side walls, just on the front and/or rear, etc.

In real construction, it is normally done to hide HVAC ducting, support beams in open floorplans, etc. We do it to make some big bass absorbers look somewhat like part of the original construction.

Bryan
 
#32 ·
Actually, the art is in marking the trim and stuff and then lining up the cut. I gave up on the measurements and conversions. Light pencil marks on walls and ceilings, tranfer to the piece and then go. Having a laser on the saw speeds things up.

I wish I'd known more about room treatments when I built my soffit. I enclosed some HVAC stuff and ran conduit for the speakers and network. That would have been the perfect time to built in some absorption.
 
#33 ·
Update on my room treatment.

My wife decided to paint the living room which is where my listening area is located, so I decided to take this opportunity to re-do my home treatment. I realize this may be a bit much for most folks but I wanted to see what I could achieve by putting in the max amount of treatment. Had I known we were going to paint the area, I would have gone with better colors but since I had already started out with grey, we decided to stay with it :dunno:. In any case, I moved the Real Traps panels from the right/left ceiling/wall corners to the ceiling and replaced them with 8 feet of 17"x17"x24" chunks similar to what I had already done to the front ceiling/wall corner. I replaced the Real Traps tri-corner traps in the left/right ceiling/wall/wall corners with 19" high 24"x24"x34" super chunks. This is a picture of the right side:



The dark grey panels on the ceiling are the ones that were mounted in the wall/ceiling corners.

I re-calibrated the system and while I haven't had time for new measurements, after listening to a couple of movies, I can tell you that the soundstage improved from very good to really, really very good. (New units of measurement :whistling:). I'll try to get some measurements to see if there is really an improvement and if so, how much, or if I'm just hallucinating again.

I also have to order something for the windows and right now I'm leaning towards wood blinds. Not much absorption but should give me some diffraction.

Bob
 
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