chadbang
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2001
- Posts
- 5,998
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- 33
I was 'thinking tweak' this weekend and I decided that I would try putting some foam on my walls. I live in a condo-type home with the typical plaster over cinder block walls that you find in Asia. They suck. You can't even hang a picture. Anyway, I figure that if there were 'reflections' going on. I'd be a prime candidate.
I'm overseas so I had to take what I could get, which was some genuine acoustic foam that was just okay-looking. Definitely not as professional looking as Sonex Foam which you guys can get pretty cheap back in the states ($150 to cover a large area of 64 sq feet, I think), but I figured it would do the trick.
Now, I'll admit thinking: "Am I blowing $50 on black magic?" I'm a skeptic (although not as much as I used to be since coming to Head-Fi!) But if anything is based on science, taming refections is. The thing is, you don't really hear these reflection. How could you? They're buried along with the sonic information coming out of your speakers. And if you have hard walls without coverings, you're literally getting a 'wall of sound' (apologies to Phil Spectre) hitting your ears. The soundwaves from your speakers, plus the reflections from the walls around you. Think what happens when you shout in your room. Hear an echo? Sure, and your speakers are "shouting" when you play them creating plenty of small echoes. That's the idea behind using foam. To kill some of the stray reflections that are screwing up the soundwaves you only want to hear -- those coming from your speakers.
The Work:
I invested a total of $40 bucks in eight 1 1/2 foot by 1 1/2 foot squares of foam. I just used one nail to hang each piece (and it was a bitch even getting enough nail into the plaster to hang foam!) I placed them on the walls directly behind my speakers and extending out to the sides of the speakers. Later, in pictures on the web, I noticed that most people don't put the foam right behind the speakers but, rather on the wall in-between the speakers. I can't figure this out. Sure, the soundstage is there, but wouldn't the soundwaves coming from the speakers hit the walls that are closest to them the strongest? Well, my speakers are about 2 feet from the wall, and I figured that directly behind the speakers was where the most energy would be reflecting from, so I went with my method. (Someone please corrected me if I'm completely wrong - but remember I have real 'problem walls') But based on what I'd seen around I later I added two sheets of foam in-between the speakers and it was beneficial. And to prove how effective foaming is -- I realised that only one sheet was the perfect number. And that two was too much!)
The Effect:
Well, it was FANTASTIC. This is the best tweak I've ever done. If you haven't 'prepared' your listening area -- do it today! This is what sold me immediately: I'd always heard that with good imaging speakers (like my Spica TC-50s) that a great soundstage will extend outside the speakers. Outside the speakers? I never could believe that. How was it possible? Well, with this foam up on the walls, suddenly I was hearing soundstaging that extended to the outside of the speakers. The soundstage was twice as wide. Literally twice as wide! It makes sense now that I think about it. If any acoustic information was to be muddle by interferring soundwaves from the rear walls, it might be the most delicate ones towards the edges of the soundstage. With the foaming, the soundstage and depth of the image is hugely improved. Heck, the only thing that I though could have made such a big improvement would have been changing the speakers themselves!
So I highly recommend doing the 'ultimate tweak' (it should be the 'essential tweak') which is to forget about your stereo for the moment and tweak your room. There are several articles about it on the web which may help you. Just give a look. I didn't mark them this weekend when I was reading, so I'm afraid I can't link to them right now.
Go for foam and use your ears. Like I said, when foaming in-between the speakers I found that too much foam over-deadened the sound. So don't wrap yourself in a cocoon from the get-go!
Cheers.
I'm overseas so I had to take what I could get, which was some genuine acoustic foam that was just okay-looking. Definitely not as professional looking as Sonex Foam which you guys can get pretty cheap back in the states ($150 to cover a large area of 64 sq feet, I think), but I figured it would do the trick.
Now, I'll admit thinking: "Am I blowing $50 on black magic?" I'm a skeptic (although not as much as I used to be since coming to Head-Fi!) But if anything is based on science, taming refections is. The thing is, you don't really hear these reflection. How could you? They're buried along with the sonic information coming out of your speakers. And if you have hard walls without coverings, you're literally getting a 'wall of sound' (apologies to Phil Spectre) hitting your ears. The soundwaves from your speakers, plus the reflections from the walls around you. Think what happens when you shout in your room. Hear an echo? Sure, and your speakers are "shouting" when you play them creating plenty of small echoes. That's the idea behind using foam. To kill some of the stray reflections that are screwing up the soundwaves you only want to hear -- those coming from your speakers.
The Work:
I invested a total of $40 bucks in eight 1 1/2 foot by 1 1/2 foot squares of foam. I just used one nail to hang each piece (and it was a bitch even getting enough nail into the plaster to hang foam!) I placed them on the walls directly behind my speakers and extending out to the sides of the speakers. Later, in pictures on the web, I noticed that most people don't put the foam right behind the speakers but, rather on the wall in-between the speakers. I can't figure this out. Sure, the soundstage is there, but wouldn't the soundwaves coming from the speakers hit the walls that are closest to them the strongest? Well, my speakers are about 2 feet from the wall, and I figured that directly behind the speakers was where the most energy would be reflecting from, so I went with my method. (Someone please corrected me if I'm completely wrong - but remember I have real 'problem walls') But based on what I'd seen around I later I added two sheets of foam in-between the speakers and it was beneficial. And to prove how effective foaming is -- I realised that only one sheet was the perfect number. And that two was too much!)
The Effect:
Well, it was FANTASTIC. This is the best tweak I've ever done. If you haven't 'prepared' your listening area -- do it today! This is what sold me immediately: I'd always heard that with good imaging speakers (like my Spica TC-50s) that a great soundstage will extend outside the speakers. Outside the speakers? I never could believe that. How was it possible? Well, with this foam up on the walls, suddenly I was hearing soundstaging that extended to the outside of the speakers. The soundstage was twice as wide. Literally twice as wide! It makes sense now that I think about it. If any acoustic information was to be muddle by interferring soundwaves from the rear walls, it might be the most delicate ones towards the edges of the soundstage. With the foaming, the soundstage and depth of the image is hugely improved. Heck, the only thing that I though could have made such a big improvement would have been changing the speakers themselves!
So I highly recommend doing the 'ultimate tweak' (it should be the 'essential tweak') which is to forget about your stereo for the moment and tweak your room. There are several articles about it on the web which may help you. Just give a look. I didn't mark them this weekend when I was reading, so I'm afraid I can't link to them right now.
Go for foam and use your ears. Like I said, when foaming in-between the speakers I found that too much foam over-deadened the sound. So don't wrap yourself in a cocoon from the get-go!
Cheers.
