guide on how to analyze a room?

[midijeep]

I'm new to all this. I was wondering if there is a guide on how to analyze a room an what equipment to use to do so. Sorry for the newbie questions. I hope all of you can be patient with me.

[Ethan Winer]

midijeep wrote:

I'm new to all this. I was wondering if there is a guide on how to analyze a room an what equipment to use to do so. Sorry for the newbie questions. I hope all of you can be patient with me.

I use the ETF software described here:

http://www.realtraps.com/art_etf.htm

There's also the REW program supported elsewhere in this forum.

It's not really necessary to measure your room if the goal is simply knowing how to treat the room. All rooms need the same basic treatments regardless of their size and shape:

* Broadband (not tuned) bass traps straddling as many corners as you can manage, including the wall-ceiling corners. More bass traps on the rear wall behind helps even further.

* Mid/high frequency absorption at the first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling.

* Some additional amount of mid/high absorption and/or diffusion on any large areas of bare parallel surfaces, such as opposing walls or the ceiling if the floor is reflective. Diffusion on the rear wall behind you is often useful too in larger rooms.

--Ethan

[bpape]

The advantage of measuring a room comes in properly placing seating, speakers, and subs to get the best frequency response in the bottom end as possible prior to treating the room. It can also tell you any potential direct treatment locations that are out of the norm if you understand how to read the response vs. the room dimensions and seating placement.

Bryan

[Bob_99]

The manual for RplusD which is a replacement (but quite similar) for ETF can be found at this link: (Read it through a couple of times to get some idea of what's involved)

http://www.etfacoustic.com/RPlusDSite/index.html

The link to the REW thread on this forum is: (also very good)

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/rew-forum/

Bob

[Ethan Winer]

bpape wrote:

The advantage of measuring a room comes in properly placing seating, speakers, and subs to get the best frequency response in the bottom end as possible prior to treating the room.

Great point Bryan.