What is the most effective room treatment for my home theater?

Question

I have a 7.2 setup with great speakers and electronics. My room is killing me! The bass is hardley there, and the highs are too bright. I'm looking to add a combination of mid/high absorbtion (early reflection point), bass absorbers and diffusion. Anybody out there have any expeirence with this?

Answer 1

How about pictures of my car and me all over the room..........................................HA!!!!!!!! (just kidding)

Answer 2

With the bass not being there, you can try a different placement of the subs. Usually corners work best. Also make sure that one sub is not cancelling out the other by adjusting the phase outputs to opposite settings. There also could be a setting in your processor that could increase the bass as well.

As for the highs being bright, first check the settings in your processor and make sure they are level. If they are, or that doesn't do it for you try adding heavy fabric somewhere in the room. Whether it be curtains, drapes, padding on the walls, whatever. The only down side to this is that most highs are direct line oriented. They deal with line of sight. If the speakers are not part of the decor, you could try hiding them behind a sheer cloth, or sound permeable screen. In fact if it is a designated theater room with a drop screen, they make screens like those in the movie theaters that have tiny holes in them for passing through the sound. They aren't cheap though, but then again neither is a 7.2 setup.

Another thing to consider is what the source is that you are playing on them. If you are playing compressed music(mp3, iPod, etc.) then they will sound bright no matter what you do. It's a downfall of the format. It cuts off the top end of sound that we don't audibly hear, but we feel. Same with the bottom end. It also guesses how the sound wave should be put back together and tends to leave a shrill feel on a nice setup. In case you couldn't tell I don't like compressed audio. It could be another cause. Finally if none of this helps, go to a local high end audio store, and ask if they have someone who can adjust your setup to ISF calibration. Either that, or get one of the ISF calibration discs and an SPL meter and give yourself a half days free time.

Answer 3

When people run TWO sub-woofers, the subs usually cancel out each others bass...Each sub has to be set up EXACTLY right, or it won't work...I'll bet if you only play ONE sub, your bass will be louder.

And if you're running 2 subs, and your receiver doesn't have 2 sub outs, I'll bet you're splitting the signal...Every time you split the sub cable, you loose 3 dB of signal...This cuts your power in HALF.

Also, you need to set all of your speakers to "SMALL" and the sub to "YES"...This will send the bass to the sub...And try placing the sub(s) in different corners of the room.

And make sure your EQ is set completely FLAT...Don't have the bass or treble turned all the way up...And try this speaker placement diagram...Click this link: http://www.whydoesmyhometheatersuck.com/speaker.html

Answer 4

im no expert but it does rely on the quality of the speackers. also if you want to absorb sound you would need more objects to absorb it(kinda like when you move into a new house and its all empty and you can hear your echo)

Answer 5

I'm not really sure. I think that this one might help you though.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ah9jQLEqyaFO92z.0qoX2yHsy6IX?qid=20070319000515AABU5BI

Answer 6

Novocaine. If that does not work please try Valtrex®.