Using drapes, carpets, blankets / comforters / duvets as room treatment

this forum says ‘other’, so I’m posting. :wink:

I have some idea’s bouncing around my head that I would like to get your thoughts and expertise on.

my bedroom has unusual dimensions. it is 7ft wide by 21ft long. I have my work office at what we’ll call the front end, where there is a window, which we’ll call the front. it’s on the 7ft wall. coming in from there 11ft there is the door into the room. behind / past that is the portion I have my queen bed and stuff. I would like to talk about the space my office takes up and what can be done, on the sly / cheap to make it sound better and protect the neighbours in the downstairs suite.

speakers are Kanto YU6 and I have their SUB8.

you can usually get lots of these kinds of blankets for cheap from thrift stores (wool army surplus) or 2nd hand shops, etc. and depending, if you do it right, can make things look good to (thinking afghan carpets).

You’re on the right track in my opinion. I’ve always been of the unpopular opinion that you can make carpet on walls look good, so you might want to give that a try. More cushion leads to better dampening, but don’t go crazy as that might ruin the sound for you. Let me know what you end up doing, I’m curious as to how you solve this!

Also books, picture frames made of wood with cloth paintings in them, and other sound absorbing items of different sizes and proportions. Don’t go too crazy or worry too much tho, most of us do not have equipment good enough or sensitive enough to require this much effort. I have recently visited some sound-demo rooms, with equipment in excess of $200K per room and even their sound deadening material and tricks were minimal. If you have no idea where your reflections or phase shifts are coming from or what they sound like personally i think it’s wasted effort. Why worry about a problem you don’t even know you have? Unless someone points out a flaw in my system and explains to me what is wrong i just enjoy listening to it until enlightened. I’m basically saying unless your ear is trained and you know what you are listening for, don’t stress it too much.

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What about DIY wood diffusers? Do they work, how good? Which is better fractal or skyline? I’m thinking of building one since my room is pretty much a echo chamber.

you definitely can make carpet look good on the wall. it’s art!

I have no experience, but considering the # of people that do this on r/budgetaudio, it works.

OOf, finally have a carpet in my HT room playing with “room treatment” sheet foam, 5x7 carpet, couch and curtains. Moving front speakers around 2.2 stereo 4ft from the wall, in the home theater setup 12ft apart L/R 1ft near the wall.

In a stereo config hearing different things and not sure if its good.

How far away do you sit? 12 feet apart is quite wide and if you’re not treating the immediate 1 foot near the wall you’ll get quite a bit of early reflection. Is that the final location for the speakers and you’re force to treat the room to make them work?

Oh, and try some toe in.

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The space is an enclosed L-shape 15x15x20 the nook is 5x9. I plan on running a 110in screen, dead set on 7.1.4 so the couch is about 9ft MLP for HT. Playing with klipsch R series and neumis 5in speakers. Thanks for the tip, will DIY some sound panels for behind the speakers and sides for first reflections. Will do the toe-in.

Aside from the klipsch sounding little boomy and muddled but not jarring during 2.2 music playback in the HT position. no center ch watching movies sounds not bad, imaging is dead center on screen. Its when i pull the speakers stands foward/closer, push the couch back for the stereo triangle configure thingy music listening gets wonky.

Its a dedicted HT so i will throw everthing DIY at it to get the best acoustics possible.

I pulled the klipsch R15 foward 3ft from the wall again, 5ft apart and it sounds like the singer is coming out from the center ch but the AVR is on pure direct. Ewa, they sound like ass.

Should i run room correction everytime i move the L/R speakers position say in 5ft apart 3ft from the wall and in a HT setup 12ft apart a 1ft from the wall ?

Threw my Klipsch RP600m back up for LCR, horsepower cures alot. Im convinced room treatment plays a roll in how a system performs.

I got a bad echo in my room which i think is the source of poor dialog from my center ch. Been reading carpets blankets drapes dont work or only absorb mids and highs but not bass and to be effective all three have to be absorbed for proper room treatment. I want to DYI some panels but dont want to use rockwool or the corning 703 stuff. Also those foam acoustical panels dont work either as sound absorbing but can help in diffusion(wedge pattern). Not 100% certain the dude on Youtube tests are valid. But he did build himself a DIY
anechoic chamber using rookwool, acoustical foam and wood.

Another fella did some backyard sound absorption tests and made panels of bath towels and wood. The guy with the anechoic chamber tested towels and his findings indicate used bath towels are not good sound material. Wonder if i go with combination of bath towel sheep wool or cotton batt and acoustical foam layed in a wood frame. A sound absorbing lasagna.