HSF Acoustics - Room Treatment Solutions

SolidSqual

Anyone familiar with these guys? Their room solutions seem well-designed and cost effective.

http://www.hsfacoustics.com/studiopacks.htm

Ricardo

I am not an expert here, but in my research for treatments for my audio room, I've found out that foam might be a good product to put on reflection points, but for bass traps it is not as effective as panels made with other products. I'd like to hear from others here....price is definitely attractive.

Jstas

It looks like those treatments are designed for a recording studio. That has different requirements than a listening room. I agree with HTrookie. If you want to kill resonations and reflections, there are better, more attractive room treatments out there than stapling acoustic foam all over your walls.

tryrrthg

If you are planning on buying some, rather than just making them yourself. This place has pretty good prices.

http://www.atsacoustics.com/

Ricardo

tryrrthg wrote: »

If you are planning on buying some, rather than just making them yourself. This place has pretty good prices.

http://www.atsacoustics.com/

Nice finding; prices are a lot better than www.gikacoustics.com

SolidSqual

Troy the link you sent me has some amazing products. Do you think they would work as well as those offered by Auralex or HSF? I'm just beginning to learn about all this room treatment stuff. Why is the foam not smooth like the panels?

Gaara

The HSF site doesn't give any absorption information to see how effective it is, it doesn't look like it was ever tested. Looks like knock off Auralex, I wouldn't ever buy anything from them.

As for ATS vs. GIK I have no experience with ATS but the prices are not that different. If you want to do bass trapping you need to have an open back to be effective, so a 4in panel from GIK is 64.99 while from ATS it is 52.44. ATS' testing is questionable as they don't seem to post the report, don't say how they were tested, and do very few frequencies.

Even if we assume the test is correct their performance is very poor in comparison to GIK. Hell they don't even do that much better then Auralex foam.

If I was going to be investing money in room treatments I would go with fiber board panels over foam any day of the week. I would also spend my money with a company not afraid to give you all their specs and post the reports themselves. If your going to do it do it right the first time.

Jared

SolidSqual

THANKS Gaara! That's the kind of assurance i needed and the logic I trust. Perfect.

Gaara

No problem, went through all of this a few months back. Did tons of reading on lots of forums, read books (well tried to), and did a lot of comparisons between products. I ended up with GIK

tryrrthg

SolidSqual wrote: »

Troy the link you sent me has some amazing products. Do you think they would work as well as those offered by Auralex or HSF? I'm just beginning to learn about all this room treatment stuff. Why is the foam not smooth like the panels?

no idea. all I know is that people have been using Owens Corning 703 (which ATS uses and/or sells) for acoustic treatments for a long time. if they didn't work then people wouldn't use them. Here is a link I see around a lot of places about diy acoustic treatments. He references the 703 in his article.

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

I've noticed that in the really nice acoustically treated rooms they use almost no absorbtion (except for bass traps, obviously). They use diffusors so they don't deaden the room. You don't see hardly any absorbtion in the infamous Lavigne Room or in the links below, which are pretty good reads.

http://www.ultraaudio.com/twbas/twbas_20050915.htm
http://www.ultraaudio.com/twbas/twbas_20051215.htm
http://www.ultraaudio.com/twbas/twbas_20060215.htm

I've been meaning to try a little of each, diffusors and absorbition, but I just don't have time.

If I were to ever go all out and build my own room I'd do it right and pay Rives Audio (they did the Lavigne room) for their level 1 consulting. The price doesn't seem too out of line considering the room might be the most important piece of equipment in the chain...

Ricardo

Gaara wrote: »

The HSF site doesn't give any absorption information to see how effective it is, it doesn't look like it was ever tested. Looks like knock off Auralex, I wouldn't ever buy anything from them.

As for ATS vs. GIK I have no experience with ATS but the prices are not that different. If you want to do bass trapping you need to have an open back to be effective, so a 4in panel from GIK is 64.99 while from ATS it is 52.44. ATS' testing is questionable as they don't seem to post the report, don't say how they were tested, and do very few frequencies.

Even if we assume the test is correct their performance is very poor in comparison to GIK. Hell they don't even do that much better then Auralex foam.

If I was going to be investing money in room treatments I would go with fiber board panels over foam any day of the week. I would also spend my money with a company not afraid to give you all their specs and post the reports themselves. If your going to do it do it right the first time.

Jared

Jared,

Can you elaborate on the open back for bass traps? GIK has the "tri-traps" for bass that are supposed to be fit in corners without leaving any open space; These are the ones I am planning to use, but your comment is making me doubt now.

Thanks.

tryrrthg

HT, read the link I posted above. I haven't read it in a while but he goes into some pretty good detail about bass traps.

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html