# bass treatment help



## fridge011 (Jun 15, 2011)

hi, im in need of some advice. i have my ht set up in my living room and im having a problem with my subwoofer placement. my setup will be aperion floor speakers for fronts and center and in ceiling surrounds with either an mfw-15, rythmik 15, or an epik legend. i have a nice size room 27x15x10 and its mostly open to my kitchen which is roughly the same size, except for a 9 foot wall that starts right behind and to the side of my main listening position. it bisects the 15' wall that my lr and kitchen/dining room share. the best place i have found to put my sub is right on the outside of the right main speaker (which is actually a small bookshelf holding up a polk monitor 30. it sounds great right there from both sides of the couch that makes up my main listening position. but when im sitting on the right side of the couch, the bass is blasting my right ear while the left ear isnt getting anywhere near the spl the right one is. it is due to the reflection off the wall that is on my right side. i want to end up with two subs and im planning on putting one of them right there where i have it. im attaching some pics to show you what im talking about. can someone please look at the photo and give me an idea what i can do to get rid of the reflection? id like to maybe put a panel on the wall, but it has to be something the wife will approve of and maybe something i can build myself (hopefully). any ideas are appreciated. one pic is of the corner with the windows and fireplace im talking about. the rest are just to give you an idea of room size, if it helps. thanks


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## fridge011 (Jun 15, 2011)

i guess i could always sell my house and get one with an extra room for an ht. or could i?


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

That wall on the RHS will be causing some problems. Although I don't see how it would be limited to the bass only. It should affect everything?


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## fridge011 (Jun 15, 2011)

It does cause other problems also, but I thought if i could tame the bass it would tame the other frequencies also. Do u think I should make a panel or two to put on the wall? Is there anything else I could do in that corner?


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

I have not used panels, although I have done a lot of reading on them. Your room is very asymmetrical with the wall to the right and the open area to the left. Some of the other folk here will be able to offer advice on how to deal with that.
Cheers,
Bill.


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## fridge011 (Jun 15, 2011)

Can anyone else help me with this?


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## Velocitymj (Jun 18, 2011)

If you're just looking to work with what you have for a system, here are my suggestions:
Your sub woofer doesn't have to be directly in front of you, but could be located anywhere in the listening area of the room. 
Besides the obvious room treatments (like rugs or carpets under and in front of the speakers, and installing spikes on the bottoms of your speakers) have you tried moving your speakers out from the wall a couple of feet?
The exact math for placement of your front speakers from the rear wall, is to measure your ceiling height in inches and multiply that by 0.618 and that will give you the distance in inches from the rear wall to the front of your speaker cabinet. (But that maybe a bit intrusive for your living room).
That will improve the imaging and help with defining your bass more, as well toeing in the speakers (aiming the tweeters more towards your seating area).
But for sure replace the standard feet with speaker spikes. That will tie in the floor to the speaker and help with the lower frequencies and tighten up the bass response. 
Then there are room treatments, for controlling your bass frequencies; like "Tube Traps" RPG Skyline diffusers..


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## fridge011 (Jun 15, 2011)

Im gonna toe in the speakers. I'm just wondering if I could build something that could lessen the reflection of the bass in that area. I might just be unlucky but want to try what I can


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## Velocitymj (Jun 18, 2011)

Perhaps you might want to take a look at "Tube Traps". 
To my eye, it looks like a treatment that can be copied. 
On their website they provide quite a bit of information on bass frequency / room acoustic relationships and the application of their particular room treatment. 
Unfortunately, I'm a new member here and I am unable to post the link to their website page that pertains to "set up". 
But I have no doubt that you can easily search their website and go to that page.
From your photo, it appears that the sub is out farther in the room than your speakers. 
Also, from the photo, it appears that the set up is out of balance in terms of not having all things equal on your ears.. Because from what I can see, the tweeters and mid range cones are higher than what it looks like it would be ear level when you sit on your couch. So now their firing over your head and you're underneath your treble and timber frequencies and closer to your lower bass resonances. I.e. the timbres are firing over your head, while the bass is firing closer to your the level of your ears and so the bass is standing out and louder than if it was mixed in better with the other frequencies. 
For sure, I would think about stands for your existing monitor set up, with the height of the stands putting the tweeters at ear level. And moving them out in the room a bit along with toeing them in.
Obviously you're going to have to buy longer speaker cables (it looks like you're using zip cord?). 
But that will help make them more transparent and create the sense of having a center channel along with tightening up the bass frequencies. 
For what it's worth, I was at T.H.E. SHOW a couple of weeks ago, which is a high end audio event.
And the most memorable sound to me was in HSU Research's room. 
They had some really great sound coming from a pair of 150.00 monitor speakers, with a sub woofer and wired up with 16 gauge zip cord and an Onkyo front end. If they hadn't had any music on, I would have seen that and walked out because there is no way at a high end show one could see that and take it seriously.. But they did have music on and it sounded amazing for what it was (and I had just walked out of a room with a 50k stereo that I listened to and enjoyed and a 200k stereo in the room before that). It was set up similar to what I'm telling you and it threw a nice deep, holographic sound stage. 
Their set up was as I'm describing how your set up should be.. Everything was lined up with the listeners ear height and set up with balance of sonics in mind. With an inexpensive pair of speakers and a cheap front end, they had a very beautiful sound, with a tight in focus bass and incredible imaging...


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

Thanks for your input Velocitymj and welcome to Home Theatre Shack.


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## fridge011 (Jun 15, 2011)

Thanks velocity. Your right my setup is a little out of wack. putting the speakers on the shelves are a temporary thing until my Aperion floor standers come in. I'll definitely take ur advice on my setup once they arrive. My sub is rear firing so I moved it further from the wall. I'm getting two sealed subs soon and hopefully they will even things out. I'll check out tubE traps and see what they have going on.

Sorry robbo, I'm not sure what I wrote last night due to alcohol being the devil


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

Sorry - been on vacation out of the country with spotty connectivity. Yes - if you get more broadband type of absorbers, they will help with a variety of issues. One thing to remember though is that left to right symmetry between you and the speakers should be maintained as much as possible.

Bryan


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## fridge011 (Jun 15, 2011)

thanks bryan. looks like the only thing i can do is put a panel or two on the wall and maybe corner traps by the fireplace. am i out of luck with the windows? do you think a panel and/or corner traps will be enough? rather do these bass traps work pretty well?


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

If you're limited to the number you can do, make each panel count as much as possible. While for pure reflections, 6" isn't any better than 2", they would help more with overall deeper bass decay times if that's ok aesthetically.

Bryan


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