Cylindrical Bass Absorber

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2003 11:06 am

Does anyone here have any experience with these DIY tube bass traps? They look perfect for my room in that they would be fairly easy to place... and move for experimentation.

http://ic.net/~jtgale/diy2.htm

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2003 8:23 am

Lee,

> Does anyone here have any experience with these DIY tube bass traps? <

I haven't built those exact tubes, but I can tell you that generally speaking such absorbers don't really do anything at bass frequencies. The primary absorption mechanism is fiberglass, which is effective only down to the lower midrange. That is, the tube shape may look cool, but it doesn't do anything more than just applying rigid fiberglass to the walls.

The only [slight] advantage a tube shape gives is to space some of the fiberglass away from the wall, which makes it work a little better. But you'd get similar results by applying rigid fiberglass to your walls, leaving an air gap of a few inches between the fiberglass and the wall.

--Ethan

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2003 11:09 am

Thank you for your response, Ethan. I was afraid it was too good to be true. Here's the deal. My room is roughly 12' x 18' x 8'. All 4 corners were cut off when I built the room (in my garage). I used one corner as a double door sound lock leading outside, the other 2 for intake and exhaust for the ventilation system. No corners. I do have one that is unused but still framed and wallborded in (possible location for a trap?). I need bass traps bad. I'm aware of your traps but a little too late unfortunately. Framed 4” panels of 703 board cover a large portion of my walls. Would a polycylindrical diffuser/bass trap in the rear of the room do the trick? The 703 coverage amount was based on F. Alton Everest's calculations and is just enough to sound great, so I need all of it. But I still need bass traps. Ideas?

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2003 6:16 am

Lee,

> All 4 corners were cut off when I built the room (in my garage) ... I'm aware of your traps but a little too late unfortunately. <

Even if you don't have any corners available, you can still apply panel traps to the walls, or put them on the ceiling. If the walls already have a bunch of 4-inch 703, move some of that to the ceiling and put traps on the walls. That might be easier than building traps on the ceiling. Also, where the top of a wall joins the ceiling is a corner. So you could put panel traps high up on the walls but sideways. Likewise low down on the walls, near the wall/floor "corner" and sideways.

If you really need bass traps, you'll have to find some way to get them in there!

--Ethan

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:29 am

OK... Ethan, I've found room for 8, 8'x2' traps by moving some of the framed 703 panels (in my imagination only, so far). The placement would require a non-symetrical placement. All in the rear half of the room.

4 on the east wall
3 on the rear wall (symetrical)
1 on the west wall

This limitation is due to the placement of 2 doors. I'd love symetry, but suspect the needed bass traps are more important. The room, in all other repects, is perfectly symetrical.

What do you think?

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:16 am

Lee,

> The placement would require a non-symetrical placement. All in the rear half of the room. <

The more the merrier, and if you can put them only on the walls but not in a corner, so be it. They'll still help a lot.

> This limitation is due to the placement of 2 doors. <

You can also build bass traps right onto the doors. We did that in my partner's studio and they work really well. His control room has doors on two of the rear wall corners, so we put one on each door, and another onto the adjacent wall in the corner.

--Ethan

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2003 7:20 am

That's it then! I'm going to Home Depot to buy a new saw blade... Thank you so much for your help and insight.

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