How To Check : Listening Room Frequency Response is Balanced ?

M

mactreouser

New member
Hi,
How to ensure the listening room with balanced frequencies (Monitors Placement & Listening Position adjusted accordingly) before we judge we tweak we process every single track and the Mix ?
 
Well...you kinda do that when you first build/set-up your room, and apply some basic acoustic treatment...and you do some measurements, and make adjustments...though TBH, a lot depends on the basic room size and construction to begin with.

So what kind of room is it?
 
I see. Basic acoustic treatment is applied. So this is the Size : 12ft x 8ft x 9ft (H). What I feel is Lag of Low (or a little too much of Mid-Hi Mid). 8 inch Monitors without Sub-woofer
 
I assume you mean a lack of low end....?

You probably have some low-end nulls, which is common in smaller rooms....and it takes a whole lot of bass trapping to even recover 5 dB of a null...yet many can be as much as 15-20 dB down. Do you have any kind of low-end acoustic treatment (or any treatment at all)?

At some point though, with a smaller room you will run out of treatment options (you can only stuff so many traps in a small space)...so you'll have to learn to mix with the acoustic issues, and maybe check your mixes in a better environment as confirmation.
 
My monitors, the last five years, face a wall 8-foot away. In my space, I'm in a sweet spot and just have to move forward or back to employ the bass nulls. Right now, there are 8-inch, 3-way acoustic suspension boxes in there with way too much bass across a very broad hump.

I'm not sure you get balanced frequencies, though ? SPL should drop as the freqs go up
 
Thanks dudes for all your efforts!
Do some updates here!
I just did some adjustment. Now, I reseated the Monitors back to the front wall, measurement from wall to drives is 21 inch. Bass/Kick/Low now is back with solid/warm and clear enough!

Question:
1) wasn't it suppose to away further from the front wall to get the better/even/balanced result?
2) away from wall presented lack of Low, closer to the wall MR.Low is back to its duty. From your experiences, what's wrong with my room or acoustic issues?

Your advices are most appreciated!
 
The MFG can suggest placements based on how they design them, but you have to move them around to find what works for you.

The boundary walls couple to your monitors to affect low freq response, but you can take them outside to see what they sound like without boundaries. You want to work towards that non-boundary sound as much as is practical.

You don't say if the boxes are ported front, rear, or off-axis, or, if they are non-ported, etc..

You might think rear ports need to be away from wall and front ports the option for wall placement. Many bookshelf speakers are non-ported
 
mactreouser said:
Thanks dudes for all your efforts!

1) wasn't it suppose to away further from the front wall to get the better/even/balanced result?
2) away from wall presented lack of Low, closer to the wall MR.Low is back to its duty. From your experiences, what's wrong with my room or acoustic issues?
Click to expand...

There is a situation known as Speaker Boundary Interference Response (look it up).
It refers to the interaction of the walls...and can have a significant effect on the low end...where sometimes if you're a little away from the front wall, it's worse than when the speakers are right up against it.
You get the initial low end wave from the speaker, it then also is reflected in a bad way off the front wall...and the two waves end up combining in a bad way...you get a cancellation...a null/loss of that signal.
It's less of an issue with higher frequencies.

So...you have to either find the right, bigger distance from that front wall...and put them up against it, which then helps the reflected and speaker waves combine more favorably.
It's about the math...the 1/4 wave lengths. If you measure your room and find a big null...do the math and see if it might be the SBIR....and try some different positions. Kinda like what people do when they time-align a doubled track in order to minimize the phasing/comb filtering effects of the combined tracks...so you do the same with the speakers.
Of course, every inch changes things for multiple frequencies...so it's hard to find a perfect spot...but you focus on the worst nulls in your measurements.
 
Thanks! It's Front Port Monitors so, it doesn't matter to as close to the front wall? In fact, it supposed to created the FAKE LOW when get closer to the wall if it's REAR Ported Speakers, am I correct? So, in my case, fine to be seated right in front of the front wall?

So, i'm good to Mix now?
 
The port thing is a generalization. The bookshelf speakers in this room have a 4-inch front port.

My tannoy are rear port and I have ports stuffed with plastic shopping bag for small room.

21-inch is good distance from rear boundary. Your desk is another boundry
 
After you get the room treatment in, spend days listening to all your favourite albums to see if they sound good and there no sound problems. Get used to listening to music in the room, if need be play with the room treatment.

When I set up my control room, and after some later mods, I had music playing in there every time I was in the building for days, just to get used to the space. Every type of music you could imagine.

Alan.
 
Front/rear port, distance from wall, ideal listening position... It really doesn't matter unless you already know what matters.

The ideals are just a starting point. Research the advice given and make your choices based on that.

So much information on this site. I have learned and benefited from this resource in huge ways.

But don't ever stuff shopping bags in ports. WTF garww? You have to stop saying shit like that man....
 
garww said:
The port thing is a generalization. The bookshelf speakers in this room have a 4-inch front port.

My tannoy are rear port and I have ports stuffed with plastic shopping bag for small room.

21-inch is good distance from rear boundary. Your desk is another boundry
Click to expand...


Plastic bags? Dood, stop giving advice like this please. It is not even possible that that is a good idea...

Please PM me. I think we should talk.

Jimmy
 
They've been doing it since porting and it is quite common. If there is a heat issue, then one would know better. Better models can actually ship with restrictors for fine tuning. Do you live in a cave, or, something : )
 
garww said:
They've been doing it since porting and it is quite common. If there is a heat issue, then one would know better. Better models can actually ship with restrictors for fine tuning. Do you live in a cave, or, something : )
Click to expand...

I don't know. Ports are designed to optimize a speaker's frequency response. If you put stuff in the ports you end up changing the response characteristics. I can't think why you would want that, unless you are trying to adjust the speaker's response to cope with a peculiarity of the room, e.g. an unhelpful node. However, that's a very crude work-around, and a very poor alternative to proper room treatment. So who are the people doing this, and why?
 
Generally, I would call it room correction.

here is some talk;
Blog - When Should You Use Port Plugs? | Axiom Audio

You must of had a stroke when you heard someone put tissue paper on the NS10 tweeter. Whoops, I may have just caused a stroke : )

Maybe some have never heard of L-Pads for room correction, either. Here they are;
 

Attachments

  • P1080947_crop_700.jpg
    P1080947_crop_700.jpg
    107.4 KB · Views: 7
Actually I did the port stuffing once and I think a few rare speakers even came with like rubber plugs.I know the port plugs are sold. Nothing new.

For me I was comparing a set of DynAudio BM5 Asomething or compact? to my Yorkville YSm1 and plugging the port matched the DynAudios better...which as you said very likely was influenced by the room and placement too. But the goal was to get as close to the DYN AUDIOS as I could because I liked those best but couldnt afford them. I thought the port plug tightened it up well. Like my KRK US V6 I disliked the tweeter and put in a cloth focal tweeter from the original passive KRK (focal built the speakers at first for early KRK) and it was like a new speaker and I have had these "modified" KRK for a long time.

Making the room fit the speaker is a lot harder to do imo. surely its ideal to have a well done room but like garrw mentions the NS10 and the toilet paper, no doubt it helped remove that shrill ear spike effect for some.

the YSM1p's are still working perfectly after a trillion hours! it seems....amazing piece and build. Too bad the Yorks were obsoleted as they were up there with the DynAudios at half price. I might look up here when I got them? 2005?2000? All the rage of the Yorkvilles YSM1P and YSM1A...ha the ports are still stuffed. I adjusted the back room settings to match the DYNAUDIOS too.

think of it as a Fender Stratocaster being "custom shopped"...thats my mind set. Its ok to tweak to personal sound preference and personal ergonomics.

a lot of speakers dont require toilet paper over the tweeter...that is hilarious. then I recall gearheads even argued over which ply and brand of toilet paper was best.

port plugs, solid or foam...or toilet paper?
 
Well, there is also how well the port can be implemented and there might be some tuff choices on dinky boxes. Somehow, they got the ports on the front of the KH120 ! hahah

Other ports wont be so crude. My first ever ported boxes had the Jamo CBR system and I decided to go for a ported box for the first time
 

Attachments

  • baspoort.JPG
    baspoort.JPG
    45.6 KB · Views: 7
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top