So  , who is the writer and what does this story tell us? Room acoustic is not important??

 

The writer is the Audiophile's wife!

yeah! Synthesis got it right!  Been reading this blog since Wizardofoz posted it in the humour section.. just wanted bring some smiles to such a serious topic.. my wife can relate to alot of the postings.. haha..  my fav is the b&w speakers & art of listening..

 

http://theaudiophileswife.blogspot.com/

Well , what happen if that audiophile actually like to see those panel on wall?  ;)

 

BTW there are many ways to made acoustic panel invisible, for example this room...

 

http://youtu.be/4IPaSBHaJjM

 

....it look like no panel on wall but in actual fact, there a tons of thick panel hiding inside the wall... the question is only, how far and how much money the guy willing to do and spend on room treatment...

 

Room acoustic treatment is just some way to reduce the bad influence of the room by science, as long as it work on the frequency we want it can be any appearance , the reason why Panel are most common because for manufacturer it is easier to sell , but it don't mean all acoustic treatment device have to be panel...

 

That wife should be happy her husband is using 16 acoustic panel instead of bare rock wool panel or egg crate foam like some audiophile I met....

 

:)

 

 

 

something I came across that might be good to know

 

something I came across that might be good to know

 

 

This chart all are acoustic music instrument bro...... nowadays electronic music anytime can range from 10Hz to 20Khz....LOL

This chart all are acoustic music instrument bro...... nowadays electronic music anytime can range from 10Hz to 20Khz....LOL

 

yeah.. I was researching into the instruments used in Adele's 21 especially rolling in the deep cos my system has too much reverb especially at the bass level.. its so frustrating.. have been repositiong my speakers and seating position for the past week but couldnt get it right.. didnt make major changes though with the restriction in the living room..

 

anyway, found out that the reverb in the song was purposely added.. I was like.. wt?? that made the section of the song like being played in a chamber or something! And here's the quote fm the mixer on the irritating bass !!

 

I have always printed stems, so I can easily do alterations to the mix later on. This happened with ‘Rolling In The Deep’, on which Adele added a small vocal section at the end after my master mix and I added some sub to the bass, creating an unnatural and wicked low end in the chorus.

I personally find Adele's 21 recording to be quite compressed. Every time I feel like listening to Adele, I'd pick her Live In Royal Albert Hall CD...it's so much better.

U mean the cd that comes with the BD? Yeah the 21 cd sounds more compressed but I find it more soulful than the one that comes with BD. Btw, its sad to know when the mixer says this abt a recording that sounds compressed :

 

I loved the song and felt that I could bring a deeper, more dynamic sound to the mix.

 

Read the article here

 

www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/it-0911.htm

 

at which stage do u prefer?

 

[embed=425,349]<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cp56A6TcL1E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/embed]

Good example of room treatments, thanks for sharing  ;)

On the contrary I much prefer the Live At Royal Albert Hall version not just because of the sound quality but also because of a great performance where she really poured her heart out and sang with great conviction. Her voice may be more coarse in the live version but that doesn't really bother me much and in fact the imperfection made the entire outing more real.

 

U mean the cd that comes with the BD? Yeah the 21 cd sounds more compressed but I find it more soulful than the one that comes with BD. Btw, its sad to know when the mixer says this abt a recording that sounds compressed :

 

Read the article here

 

www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/it-0911.htm

 

http://www.xtremeplace.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=115215.0

 

Still have some used bass trap, adsorbing panel and diffusor to clear here.... :)

the live CD sounded too distant to me but I luv the BD.. shud be same recording but like huge difference in processing..

 

maybe I need room treatment !! :D

Hi kzone:

 

Nice to see that this thread has some activity after a long pause. I am amazed that you have taken so much effort to do research to find out more about a song which you really like, going to the extent of reading the lengthy SOS article which usually only sound engineers follow. However, I believe that, due to the unfamiliarity with some of the jargon used in the article, you have come to misunderstand the nature of the issue on 2 aspects (bass reverb and compression).

 

Bass Reverb

Original quote:

I have always printed stems, so I can easily do alterations to the mix later on. This happened with ‘Rolling In The Deep’, on which Adele added a small vocal section at the end after my master mix and I added some sub to the bass, creating an unnatural and wicked low end in the chorus.

 

You mentioned:

anyway, found out that the reverb in the song was purposely added.. I was like.. wt?? that made the section of the song like being played in a chamber or something! And here's the quote fm the mixer on the irritating bass !!

 

I believe you have misunderstood what the mix engineer has done. He has not added any reverb to the bass in the chorus, but to make the chorus section sound more outstanding in contrast to the rest of the sections, I believe he has used a sub-harmonic synthesizer to extend the low-frequency content of the bass instrument.

 

These are examples, although he has not specified which one he has used:

http://www.refusesoftware.com/lowender.html

http://www.dbxpro.com/120A/

 

There is also internal evidence that this is so, as he also mentioned:

Adding the sub‑bass harmonic in the chorus in the stem session emphasised that, because it means that the mix opens up vertically as well.

 

From my experience in music production, adding reverb in the bass region is a very rare practice, and I would be surprised if it was done for a song produced at such an international level.

 

Compression and Dynamics

You are right that the track sounds compressed, and I am not surprised because that is the state of how modern albums are produced. (Read Loudness Wars)

 

One important fact which you are probably not aware of is that the mixing engineer is NOT the final engineer which produces your CD! In this quote he also states his opinion about the loudness wars.

 

I’d have sent a reference mix to the record label, using the [Waves] L1 and the UltraMaximizer to beef up the volume, but I took these off when I sent the file to the mastering engineer. As I said earlier, the loudness wars are a daily battle for me, because all reference mixes come in pumped, and I have to compete with that.

 

I speak in defense of his statement:

I loved the song and felt that I could bring a deeper, more dynamic sound to the mix.

 

The song as made available on the "21" CD is not representative of the dynamics present at the mix engineer's desk. A mix engineer's objective will be to produce a track which has the "best" possible sound to meet the producer's artistic direction.

 

However, to finish the album, all songs in the CD will be sent to a mastering engineer who will do a final check and do the loudness processing. How maximizing loudness crushes the dynamics will not be explained in this post, but I believe the Loudness Wars wiki page can lead you in the correct direction.

 

If you are still not convinced, I can provide sample tracks from my project library showing you the exact same material before and after doing loudness processing.

 

 

Room Treatment

From what you post, I am assuming you mostly listen to acoustic music (music recorded from acoustic instruments, not from electronic synthesizers), which have fairly little content in the bass regions. Given your dissatisfaction with this particular track, I am assuming you do not perceive any serious bass problems with most of your other music. Given this information, without hearing your system, seeing your room or taking any measurements, I can only make a rough guess that your room is perhaps between 40 to 80 cubic metres in volume.

 

If there is no bass issue with most of your music collection, then an option would be to ignore the problem with this track and skip the room treatment.

 

However, if you want to try your hand at some bass trapping, you can try the used LENRDS and MegaLENRDS which joamonte is helping to sell. I would recommend the MegaLENRD as joamonte has stated that it is effective down to 50Hz, which I suspect is closer to your problem region. Although it is at a good price, it is unfortunate that only 2 units are available.

 

Since I also do acoustic treatment, I do not use these two specific units, but what I have in my room is the rough equivalent of 16 MegaLENRDS. Hence, in the "full package" that was initially being offered on sale, you see that there is a variety of other types of treatment being used, including LENRDs (which I suspect is being used instead due to space or budget constraints), 4" foam and assorted diffusers, which although not specifically optimized for bass trapping, would help slightly by absorbing and breaking up the room dimensions.

 

However, my recommendations are based on guesswork. There is a possibility which your problem lies below the low-frequency limit of the MegaLENRDS, which would be solved best by a resonator-type bass trap, such as joamonte's custom Helmholtz Resonator Bass Trap as pictured in an old photo in his room. (Don't mind me ripping off that image!)

grarrgrarr, thanks for the very informative reply!  yeah I'm quite clueless on the this topic and u r right that I thought the mixing engineer decided how the final production shud be!

 

I've also only just been reading abt acoustic treatment and will be flirting a little with it at my current rental place with a view to do something more comprehensive when I move to my new home. Your posts on acoustics along with Joamonte's, Jason Yeo's and 1AM's have enlightened me quite abit but there's still lots to learn abt.

 

I listen to quite a wide range of genre but yeah, tend to prefer acoustic musics and I do have issues with other music but this Adele's CD trouble me more than others. I especially like someone like u & don't u remember. If u have access to the mixing engineer's version, is it possible for me to buy a copy?

 

My listening area is in the living room measuring 6.3m x 4.8m x 3.5m ceiling with an opening in the middle to a walkway. Based on simple test tones, the problematic range is between 53-65 hz.

I definitely don't have the mixing engineer's version! The owner of the song, her record label "XL" has all rights to the material and the best way of getting the mixing engineer's version would be to write to them. However, I highly doubt that they would release it.

 

Some reasons why the mixing engineer's version would be recalled would be in the event of a re-use of the song in another CD requiring remastering, or perhaps if another artist within the label, or from a label with a business relationship, wanting to use say the instrumental track, or some of the tracks, in their own music.

 

 

You have a room with good dimensions, close to the best case scenario for a room its size. You mentioned that you played with speaker positioning for a whole week. Let me give you a theoretical solution which could possibly result in near perfect bass for you (ignoring imaging and soundstage concerns).

 

If you cannot achieve the seating positiong due to layout concerns, you can still try it out by placing the speakers accordingly, and try to squeeze through your furniture to the correct location just to have a temporary listen.

 

 

Nic, Bro Kzone place his speaker facing the long side, I think because of his fixed projector screen....you can see his set up in the "audiophile in the east" thread."..

 

 

Anyway, exactly like what you said, I told him his room shouldnt have too strong bass standing wave(well... with this newly brought much bigger speaker I am not sure now.. ;D) or early reflectiom problem like our small room, his should consider to treat his room reverberation first....

 

:)

 

This is a email I reply to a customer today, I think it would be good to post some of my own concept of Room acoustic treatment for audiophile music room (non mastering/mixing  studio ) here.

 

 

Hi,

 

I mention  in yesterday sms that you have make some common mistake as most audiophile did in their room acoustic treatment , I am going to post it in the Room treatment Thread so I will go into more detail than usual

 

2 common mistake

A) Only treated the early reflection point/area but did nothing to reduce room reverberation

 

    In Room acoustic treatment , room reverberation(late reflection) treatment is as important as the Early reflection treatment , it is all depend on the ratio of the speaker size and the room size, in fact, when the room is very much larger compare to the speaker, late reflection treatment can be even more important than the Early reflection treatment  ~~ generally speaking, the larger the room size compare to the speaker,  the more important the late reflection treatment it is ; the smaller the room size compare to the speaker( using big speaker in small room) the more important is the Early reflection treatment.

 

  The way we treat the Late reflection is by spreading the adsorbing material around the room ,the boarder bandwidth the absorbing material the better , and usually when putting the absorbing material at upper part of the room , the more effective the absorbing material can be.....the reason of the higher placement position work better is due to most of the lower part of the room is occupied with furniture, audio rack, chair or even human body , that able to " Break"  or reduce the reflection of the sound wave; while at the upper part of the room , most of the time nothing is on the wall surface or in the middle of the room to break the sound traveling path, and so the sound reflection can move freely and take longer time to decay, this longer decay seriously affected the sound quality of the Audio system.

 

  For Bigger room that treated well on late reflection, when using smaller speaker, sometime, even without any Early reflection treatment, the sound is already very enjoyable.

 

  Most of the article in the audio web site only talk about early reflection treatment  , so many audiophile when think of Room acoustic Treatment they only think of putting adsorbing or diffuser panel at first reflection point ....So very often when I demo the effect of treating the late reflection treatment to them , they are very surprise by the improvement it can bring ..... of course, very big room will need more absorbing material spreading around than smaller room , but it is to be caution not to put too much absorbing material on one area/wall or else instead of reduce the room late reflection "balancely " , we are creating a even more unbalance late reflection pattern in the room.

 

 

 

 

 

B) Asymmetric room condition ,

 

    "Sound stage" in 2 channel audiophile playback is largely an illusion that created from the reflection of the Audio room's wall , the reason we hear the "improvement" of layering and sound stage depth when we place the speaker away from back wall , is because of the continues/consistence reflection sound wave from the back wall of speaker ~~~ this reflection had reduced in SPL and delayed in timing gradually because of distance it travel, and when it is integrated to the direct sound from speaker , the "additional" sound stage/layering (that is not originally inside the recording) is form.

 

.....using Acoustic treatment like diffuser and some absorber panel behind speaker, do able to do roughly the same thing as pulling the speaker away from the back wall (more or less... still have some different but to go further is too complicated to discuss here)

 

  So, since the reflection of the room wall is so important for creating sound stage and imaging, it is also important to try and arrange the front and left/ right side wall reflecting condition as symmetric as possible~~~ Sometime we see audiophile hanging curtain on one side and totally bare wall at the other side wall; or sometime we see audiophile putting full height bookshelf on the back wall of one speaker and leave the other side totally bare......in those situation, if the listener is critical enough, he will feel that the sound stage is off side with the imaging , he might still able to get correct center imaging (Vocal for example) , but the instrument at left and right, the hall ambiance will be off to one side for sure.

 

:)

 

This is a email I reply to a customer today, I think it would be good to post some of my own concept of Room acoustic treatment for audiophile music room (non mastering/mixing  studio ) here.

 

 

Hi,

 

I mention  in yesterday sms that you have make some common mistake as most audiophile did in their room acoustic treatment , I am going to post it in the Room treatment Thread so I will go into more detail than usual

 

2 common mistake

A) Only treated the early reflection point/area but did nothing to reduce room reverberation

 

    In Room acoustic treatment , room reverberation(late reflection) treatment is as important as the Early reflection treatment , it is all depend on the ratio of the speaker size and the room size, in fact, when the room is very much larger compare to the speaker, late reflection treatment can be even more important than the Early reflection treatment  ~~ generally speaking, the larger the room size compare to the speaker,  the more important the late reflection treatment it is ; the smaller the room size compare to the speaker( using big speaker in small room) the more important is the Early reflection treatment.

 

  The way we treat the Late reflection is by spreading the adsorbing material around the room ,the boarder bandwidth the absorbing material the better , and usually when putting the absorbing material at upper part of the room , the more effective the absorbing material can be.....the reason of the higher placement position work better is due to most of the lower part of the room is occupied with furniture, audio rack, chair or even human body , that able to " Break"  or reduce the reflection of the sound wave; while at the upper part of the room , most of the time nothing is on the wall surface or in the middle of the room to break the sound traveling path, and so the sound reflection can move freely and take longer time to decay, this longer decay seriously affected the sound quality of the Audio system.

 

  For Bigger room that treated well on late reflection, when using smaller speaker, sometime, even without any Early reflection treatment, the sound is already very enjoyable.

 

  Most of the article in the audio web site only talk about early reflection treatment  , so many audiophile when think of Room acoustic Treatment they only think of putting adsorbing or diffuser panel at first reflection point ....So very often when I demo the effect of treating the late reflection treatment to them , they are very surprise by the improvement it can bring ..... of course, very big room will need more absorbing material spreading around than smaller room , but it is to be caution not to put too much absorbing material on one area/wall or else instead of reduce the room late reflection "balancely " , we are creating a even more unbalance late reflection pattern in the room.

 

 

 

 

 

B) Asymmetric room condition ,

 

    "Sound stage" in 2 channel audiophile playback is largely an illusion that created from the reflection of the Audio room's wall , the reason we hear the "improvement" of layering and sound stage depth when we place the speaker away from back wall , is because of the continues/consistence reflection sound wave from the back wall of speaker ~~~ this reflection had reduced in SPL and delayed in timing gradually because of distance it travel, and when it is integrated to the direct sound from speaker , the "additional" sound stage/layering (that is not originally inside the recording) is form.

 

.....using Acoustic treatment like diffuser and some absorber panel behind speaker, do able to do roughly the same thing as pulling the speaker away from the back wall (more or less... still have some different but to go further is too complicated to discuss here)

 

  So, since the reflection of the room wall is so important for creating sound stage and imaging, it is also important to try and arrange the front and left/ right side wall reflecting condition as symmetric as possible~~~ Sometime we see audiophile hanging curtain on one side and totally bare wall at the other side wall; or sometime we see audiophile putting full height bookshelf on the back wall of one speaker and leave the other side totally bare......in those situation, if the listener is critical enough, he will feel that the sound stage is off side with the imaging , he might still able to get correct center imaging (Vocal for example) , but the instrument at left and right, the hall ambiance will be off to one side for sure.

 

:)

 

 

Hi Joamonte,

 

Would like to seek your advise on a small room condition as i am living in a typical HDB flat. I have a pair of Dynaudio focus 110 and due to space constraint i have to place the speakers approximately 1.8 meters apart and facing a bare wall.  Both speakers are about 2 feet away from the rear wall with acoustic foams directly behind them. Speakers are on a stand of height 25inch.  My right speaker is at the corner of my room is about 1 feet beside the window and my left speaker has a bookshelf beside it against the wall. I have my thick mattress on the floor just 5 1/2 feet front of the speakers beside the bare wall.  I'm planning to place acoustic foams on the bare wall facing the speakers to absorb *correct me if i'm wrong* late reflections. The acoustic foams are all going to be the same height as the speakers. I would appreciate it you would be able to advise me on having the acoustic foams directly in front of the speakers on the bare wall, and any more treatment i could do to improve the sound with such constraint in floor area.

 

Any bros with any ideas please feel free to chip in. Thanks to all!

Hi Joamonte,

 

Would like to seek your advise on a small room condition as i am living in a typical HDB flat. I have a pair of Dynaudio focus 110 and due to space constraint i have to place the speakers approximately 1.8 meters apart and facing a bare wall.  Both speakers are about 2 feet away from the rear wall with acoustic foams directly behind them. Speakers are on a stand of height 25inch.  My right speaker is at the corner of my room is about 1 feet beside the window and my left speaker has a bookshelf beside it against the wall. I have my thick mattress on the floor just 5 1/2 feet front of the speakers beside the bare wall.  I'm planning to place acoustic foams on the bare wall facing the speakers to absorb *correct me if i'm wrong* late reflections. The acoustic foams are all going to be the same height as the speakers. I would appreciate it you would be able to advise me on having the acoustic foams directly in front of the speakers on the bare wall, and any more treatment i could do to improve the sound with such constraint in floor area.

 

Any bros with any ideas please feel free to chip in. Thanks to all!

 

Bro a photo sometime better tan a thousand words......Maybe you can post a photo of the 4 walls of your room here? It would be more easy for us to understand your question. :)

Best to arrange bro Joamonte to your place. It will be your best hifi $ ever spent  :)

Bro a photo sometime better tan a thousand words......Maybe you can post a photo of the 4 walls of your room here? It would be more easy for us to understand your question. :)

 

Here you are bro,

 

Speaker placement. Pardon my Cable management it still is a work in progress.

 

 

My bare wall facing the speakers Intention is to place acoustic foams here at speaker height.

 

 

My right speaker beside the window

 

 

Thanks for the advise in advance!!

friend to be honest , this type of layout no way you can get the soundstage and imaging right.

 

If you are serious in geting good sound,

 

-Suggest you shift the whole system to the center of the window's wall, hang curtain for that whole wall...not only cover window, cover the wall part also.

 

-and than get a longer single layer normal table to put you LCD monitor, 2 layer table affect the sound.

 

-try shift the speaker away from all wall surface

 

With above you will get a much better sound than using this layout with what ever panel, if you want to improve the sound quality after that, you can hang some absorbing panel on 2 long wall above speaker height level to quiet the room or some basstrap at the window wall corner to tighter the bass...

 

Get the layout right 1st....if the basic thing already wrong, you are just waste your money and time to get little improvement.

 

friend to be honest , this type of layout no way you can get the soundstage and imaging right.

 

If you are serious in geting good sound,

 

-Suggest you shift the whole system to the center of the window's wall, hang curtain for that whole wall...not only cover window, cover the wall part also.

 

-and than get a longer single layer normal table to put you LCD monitor, 2 layer table affect the sound.

 

-try shift the speaker away from all wall surface

 

With above you will get a much better sound than using this layout with what ever panel, if you want to improve the sound quality after that, you can hang some absorbing panel on 2 long wall above speaker height level to quiet the room or some basstrap at the window wall corner to tighter the bass...

 

Get the layout right 1st....if the basic thing already wrong, you are just waste your money and time to get little improvement.

 

 

Thanks bro! I know that there is a problem with this placement and have been looking at shifting the speakers. As i sleep in this room i really have a space constraint. Will go figure out where to place my mattress and shift the necessary. Thanks for the advice again!

may I know if a open window and open door room concept work well with acoustic treatment

 

just like link23

 

but about 70 cm from wall and window(with curtain)