Bass issues with room

Nightfall

This is very crude, obviously, but here it is:



Problem is with bass I just noticed today. If I stand in the little "cubby" where the sink is, it sounds like I have a massive subwoofer. From the couch, and the rest of the room, really, the bass is there but not a ton of it. It's like it's all being directed to and trapped in that little space there. What's the deal, speaker placement? How can I get the bass that is trapped in that cubby to be heard from the couch?

RTA12's are on either side of the TV with enough toe in so that the tweeters are pointed towards your L and R ears, respectively, from the center of the couch.

Edit: The wall with the closet and front door is NOT angled like that, just lazy and quick photoshop job.

audiocr381ve

Nightfall wrote: »

This is very crude, obviously, but here it is:



Problem is with bass I just noticed today. If I stand in the little "cubby" where the sink is, it sounds like I have a massive subwoofer. From the couch, and the rest of the room, really, the bass is there but not a ton of it. It's like it's all being directed to and trapped in that little space there. What's the deal, speaker placement? How can I get the bass that is trapped in that cubby to be heard from the couch?

RTA12's are on either side of the TV with enough toe in so that the tweeters are pointed towards your L and R ears, respectively, from the center of the couch.

Edit: The wall with the closet and front door is NOT angled like that, just lazy and quick photoshop job.

I have a similar issue with my room. That little area at the sink is acting like a bass port and sucking all the bass energy up.

I'm guessing bass traps aren't an option (especially if you're married) which are ideal for this type of thing, so you'll either have to move the couch closer to the rear wall (that doesn't look like a possibility with the fridge being there) OR add some subwoofers.

Nightfall

I'd imagine a fabric curtain isolating the sink area from the rest of the room wouldn't do much, if anything, to reflect low frequencies?

Geoff4rfc

Toe-in on the 12's are great, how close to the wall do you have them, and how far apart do you have them?

A foot to two feet (three ft optimum) from the wall is a nice place to have the 12's. How far from the couch are they? Equal distance from the couch to the width of the speakers is a good place to start.

unc2701

Actually, it doesn't get "trapped" there; what you're experiencing is a standing wave. The bass bounces off the walls and returns into the room at the opposite phase. Depending on the exact ratio of the frequency to the dimensions of the room, some spots will get double the bass and other spots will have the bass canceled out when a reverse phase hit the original signal.

SO: an effective bass trap for purely absorption needs to be about 3+ feet deep for the lower frequencies. Those 4-8 inch tube things you see people build aren't going to do the trick for truly trapping and eliminating deep bass (the waves are far bigger than the traps). What you can do is get well placed treatments that break up the bass waves. When you have a standing wave, you're going to have high pressure spots and high velocity spots: the treatments go where the high velocity is; they break up the air movement and tame the issue. This tends to be in the corners for bass.

Head over to http://realtraps.com/ read up on their traps & where to put them, then buy some, or you can DIY. If you DIY, the stuff to use is Owens Corning 703, put it in a frame and cover it with speaker cloth (or some other acoustically transparent material). There's cheaper alternatives, but searching for 703 will get you to them.

Plan B:
If you have multiple bass sources placed at different spots, it prevents the standing waves from forming. So buy another sub or 4 and move them around until you have uniform bass.