So I live in an old building in DC (~WWI, it's even got external electrical wiring). my living room is an acoustical mess. (michael aka lil kim jong il can attest to the room issues in my living room). hardwood floors, plaster/concrete walls and ceiling, 9+ foot ceilings, 3 doorways into the room and a 6 foot bank of windows on one wall. i've known for a long time that some room treatments would really help, but i found the whole idea pretty intimidating. I had checked out some DIY suggestions that were out there, but couldn't really tell what was based on research and what involved people just talking out their ass. So i never really did anything about it. A couple of months ago, i started looking into it a bit more seriously, following some links in threads on this site and doing some other net research. I also talked to a salesman in a local high-end store who suggested some corner treatments from Michael Green Audio.
After doing further research, it turned out that many people had come to the conclusion that the 2 main problems in a room of my type were first reflection points and the corners & wall seams. It appeared that the biggest problems would be in the 4 ceiling wall corners, the ceiling/wall seams and the corner where my left surround speaker is mounted (as it is the only corner without a doorway). Treating first reflection points would be extremely difficult to do in my room given the layout (other than the ceiling), since the left wall is just a wall of windows, and the right wall is the passageway to the kitchen. plus, i'm not all that excited about completely treating a very visible wall. so i decided to spend some money to treat the corners and possibly wall seams or wall/ceiling seams.
After doing some research, I found a number of very positive reviews of Eighth Nerve Room Treatments. (
http://www.eighthnerve.com/). They are a company based out of nashville that makes 2 lines of treatments: Response and Adapt (
http://www.eighthnerve.com/products.html). They are similar in their approach to treating room issues: they try to trap the distorted audio information that gets emitted from corners and creates phase distortions at the listening position. They are sold through dealers, so I was going to seek out a set of 4 Response corner treatments (the more affordable line), but i discovered a clearance on the eighth nerve site for a set of 4 Adapt corner triangles in black, so i emailed the company and quickly got a response back from nathan loyer (the owner of eighth nerve, i assume). He informed me that he also had one adapt rectangle in black on clearance that he would include in the deal. I decided to take it, so i ordered 4 Adapt Triangles and 1 Rectangle. Nathan told me that the wall/ceiling seam on the wall above the speakers was often a trouble area and i should try to install the rectangle there. I received the shipment this week and installed the Triangles yesterday. Unfortunately, i am not able right now to mount the rectangle on the wall above the speakers as the ceiling is plaster over concrete and i do not have the proper screws to mount it there. so for the time being, i am using the rectangle mounted vertically in the wall seam below my left rear surround.
I spent a lot of time listening to a wide variety of music yesterday and i can say without a doubt that these treatments have made a remarkable difference. while it's not smack-you-over-the-head difference in the fundamental sound of my system, the detail is improved somewhat, the low-end is tighter, cleaner and punchier and the biggest improvement has been in the cohesiveness and depth of the image and soundstage. The initial differences were kind of subtle, but then as i was listening more and more, i started hearing things i hadn't heard out of my system before. The biggest difference was in the three-dimensionality of the soundstage. I have trouble describing what i hear in words, so this may not be entirely clear. the instruments were far more precisely placed side-to-side and front to back. the image extends further out to the sides than it did before. A great example here was the A Love Supreme SACD. Coltrane's sax seems to soar in from the left, while the bass just seems to be dancing behind and just off-center to the right, while the drums seem to be sitting middle-back and to the right.
Additionally, there was much more detail in the midrange. Vocals especially seem to have a renewed depth and a deeper timber than they did before. The SACD version of Norah Jones' Come Away with Me is just incredible. Her voice contains so much more depth and character than it did before. The difference here was really amazing.
What kind of surprised me the most, though after looking back on some of the links it makes sense, is that bass response appears to be improved. Just listening to music, i immediately felt the need to turn down my sub to a range that seemed ineffective before. This was confirmed when i ran the AVIA calibration DVD and went through the bass response test tones. the setting that i had been using before now generated a test tone about 9 db louder than it did before. also, the dvd contains a test tone where it emits a constant level tone starting at 200 Hz and winds it down to 0. the goal is to have the meter reading vary very little as the frequency descends. prior to installing the treatments, i would get variations of more than 10 dbs (starting with a 200 HZ tone that registered 80 db on my spl meter). as the frequency descended, the tone would dip at certain frequencies to around 71 or 72 dbs, and at certain frequencies, jump over 90 dbs. when i ran the test this time, the tone was not completely flat at 80 db, it's obvious that this room is not perfectly neutral. but the peaks and valleys were far more constrained. the bigges jump i saw was about 5 dbs and overall the response was just way more consistent. This was the clincher for me, cause i wasn't sure if i had just been hearing what i wanted to hear when i was listening to music. This was much better evidence to me that the treatements were indeed having such a remarkable effect.
I am getting a new reciever soon, which i had expected to have by now, but it had been backordered. In the end, i'm actually pretty happy that it got delayed a bit so i could hear the difference on the system as it stands that i know very well. it gave me a really good insight into the difference that the right treatements can make. There are certainly other things that can be done to improve my room, but i'm pretty happy with the difference these treatments have made.
4 adapt triangles and 1 rectangle that were on clearance as "seconds" directly from eighth nerve: $380.
Topic: Eighth Nerve Adapt Room Treatments (Read 2295 times)