Auralex SpaceArray Diffusors

Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:03 pm

Anyone use these? Are you happy with them?

I have a home studio in a bedroom. Carpet on the floor, sheetrock-based walls, RealTraps Minitraps in the four corners (one up high over the door), window with blinds on one side of the room, mirrored closet doors on the other side, usually covered by a Clearsonic Sorber panel(s). I have 4 (fiberglass-based) Clearsonic Sorber panels that remain in the room that I use for gobos and/or a makeshift vocal booth. I have 40-50% 3" foam treatment in the upper portions of the room, primarily to tame flutter echoes on facing walls. No treatment on the (sloping) ceiling. I have a 6'x4' 3" foam sheet centered behind the monitors, and the same on the wall in the same position behind the monitoring postion.

There's a sloping ceiling. Room dimensions are 12'9" long x 10'8" width. Ceiling slopes from 8'2.5" to 14'4.5" over the 10'8" width. Mixing position is centered lengthwise in the room on the side of the lowest part of the ceiling, with the back to the highest part of the ceiling.

I'm pretty happy with how the room sounds and my mixes are translating pretty well. However, it sounds a little too dead to me, especially for acousic guitar. I know, get a wood floor. I have a carpet mat for the chair that I play over to help with that a little.

But what I was thinking of is to replace the foam behind the mix position with diffusion. I'm fairly happy with the frequency response of the room, especially due to the RealTraps and possibly the sloping ceiling. And according to my ears and unscientific tests, I don't have much in the way of dead spots or comb filtering. My mix position, i.e. me in the chair, is about 6' from the back wall.

So, again, if you're familiar with the product, do you like it? Do you think I could be introducing any issues by replacing that 6' x 4' foam on the back wall with diffusors covering 4' x 4' or 6' x 4'? Any other recommended diffusors?

Thanks,
Steve

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 11:16 am

Steve,

SpiderM69 wrote:

Any other recommended diffusors?

Please forgive the blatant self-marketing:

http://www.realtraps.com/diffusor.htm

--Ethan

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 12:39 pm

Ethan,

No problem, I appreciate any and all input, and enjoy my MiniTraps (I think I was the first to order the grey ones Laughing

).

Please give me some more input though, and I have read a number of posts on this forum re: diffusion.

My basic question is, with my room being < than 2000 cu ft, tracking is done in the room as well as mixing, and tracking/mixing positions will be <= 6 ft from the diffusor, does diffusion make sense? Will I be shooting myself in the foot with diffusion in such a small room, and would be better served sticking with absorption only?

Thanks,
Steve

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 9:40 am

Steve,

Quote:

with my room being < than 2000 cu ft, tracking is done in the room as well as mixing, and tracking/mixing positions will be <= 6 ft from the diffusor, does diffusion make sense?

It's hard to say. We offer a "near" model that can be as little as three feet away, so that's one option. I guess it comes down to your budget. If every penny is important definitely stick with absorption. If the higher cost of diffusion is not a deal-killer for you, it's a little better.

--Ethan

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:06 am

What is the distance between yourself and the rear wall ? Usually if lower then 3 meters/10 ft it is not recommended to use diffusers in the rear wall. Altough literature is quite vague on this and only applies to grating diffusers

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 3:17 pm

andrebrito wrote:

What is the distance between yourself and the rear wall ? Usually if lower then 3 meters/10 ft it is not recommended to use diffusers in the rear wall. Altough literature is quite vague on this and only applies to grating diffusers

Originally posted in topic http://www.recording.org/ftopicp-306128.html#306128 Lowering Low Freq RT60 in control room. All dimensions and diagrams and measurements are included in this thread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have tried some 2” x4’x4’ 703 panels four inches below the floor joists on the ceiling where the early reflections from the speakers would come from and I felt that there was just too much absorption.

The cloud was where the yellow square with the number 5 inside is located in the diagram.

The music seemed to dead and the level seemed to decrease about 3 db in the room. This is not the direction I want to head. I put those panels back into the live room where they do more good.

~~~~~~~~Next Round I am considering~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ceiling is an open 10” deep floor joist on 16" centers. The bottom of the chipboard floor is on the top and some fabric spanning the joists to give a textured look above the lights.

The joists run from behind the speakers to the wall behind the sweet spot.

The speakers and the listening sweet spot make a 7-foot equilateral triangle.

I am wondering about putting some diffusion up into some of the rafters and then recovering the joists so the diffusers would be covered over. I am thinking of using some left over hardboard and/or perforated hardboard (9/64” perfs on one inch centers) and bending them into a polycylindrical diffusor like that described in F. Alton Everest’s Sound Studio Construction on a Budget

I would probably only do 4 –6 joists worth with these diffusors, the ones that would be reflecting right into the sweet spot. Where the fiberglass panels I removed were placed I would start and stop the diffusors inside each joist randomly from joist.

These are my concerns.

1) The ceiling diffusors would be less than 10 feet from the listening position. What negative effects would one anticipate from being this close?

2) How far and how deep should I space the diffusors?

3) Are these two dimensional diffusors diffusing the wrong direction?

Thank you in advance[/url]

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 5:25 pm

We have experience in treating spaces such as yours, and diffusion is definitely what you seem to be seeking. The distance is well within good performance range, so drop us a line, maybe we can help!

Allen Rumbaugh

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 1:22 pm

Quote:

1) The ceiling diffusors would be less than 10 feet from the listening position. What negative effects would one anticipate from being this close?

That depends of the lowest working frequency of the diffuser. Usually it is consider a good distance 5 times the lowest working frequency.

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:43 pm

As stated above I felt putting an absorber above the mix position was a little to much absorption.............it sucked the life out of the music.

Next I designed, built from scrap wood, and installed the absorbers shown in the Humpback,rafter hugging stocatibaiter http://www.recording.org/ftopict-42705.html and put that in the same place. 5x4' worth did all the world of difference. Pulled the whole thing together. I hear the reverbe tails in the recordings that I never could hear with the untreated or absorbed room.

Definitely try some diffusion.

peace
Phil

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:42 pm

srlacoustics wrote:

We have experience in treating spaces such as yours, and diffusion is definitely what you seem to be seeking. The distance is well within good performance range, so drop us a line, maybe we can help!

Allen Rumbaugh

Allen please don't take this the wrong way, but the only time I ever see you around is to promote your company. Heck this is your first post on this board.

Glenn

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