Need some tips for improving acoustics

[Joza]

Just moved to my new appartment and if the previous one had horrible acoustics, I think this one has even worse.

There are only two rooms so you can't hope for a dedicated mixing room. So the "mixing room" will be the living room and kitchen at the same time and there surely won't be too much room for any acoustic elements. And of course I need to concider decoration too (even ever so slightly) so I can not just put anything anywhere without sacrificing a thought for how does it look like.

Here is the drawing of the room: http://s469.photobucket.com/albums/rr51/Joza90/?action=view&current=mixingroom.jpg

I wonder if anyone got any ideas about how the acoustics could be helped even a little bit (it is obvious that any miracles can't be done with that room).

One thing I could do for example is to lift my home theatre speakers on top of these CornerFill Cubes: http://www.auralex.com/acoustic_foam_cornerfills/acoustic_foam_cornerfills.asp I'd need to get some platform for them anyway so I could as well use those, but would two of those do anything to the acoustics? How much acoustics treatment is needed for room of that size to actually have any effect?

And I suppose the only thing I really should look for is bass traps? At least I've always read that treating the bass frequencies is the most important and also I think the room sounds quite bass heavy.

What about if I can have bass trap in for example only one corner, is it better to have it there or not at all? I've read that it would be most important to have corner traps in back corners, but as you can see from the picture, it is not really possible because the other corner has terrace door and the other one leads to the hallway. I maybe could put corner traps to the front corners, but does it matter how high they are? One could fit on the floor behind the armchair but does it do anything there? The other one could be on top of the kitchen closets, but that would be quite high instead.

And are there some elements that could be on the wall behind the tv? That wall is yet completely empty.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

 

[Joza]

Hmm, actually I could put some corner traps to the back corners just below the ceiling. I guess that would be good? I thought those traps were bigger but looking closely they would actually fit there. Do you think having them in the back corners would be enough or should I have a trap in every corner right away?

 

[Weasel9992]

Let me give you the usual starting list. Do these thing first then move on to fix whatever issues are left over:

• Make sure you setup so that you’re firing down the longest dimension of the room.
• Your head should be placed 38% of the way into the room, centered between the left and right walls
• Your head should also be located at the tip of an equilateral triangle with your speakers. Start at a 5’ width and go from there.
• Use at least 4” bass trapping in all the corners, floor to ceiling if possible.
• Use 4” or 6” bass traps on the back wall; the thicker the better basically.
• Use 4” panels behind the speakers on the front wall
• The reflection points to the right, left and above your head can be treated with either 2” or 4” panels. I prefer 4” panels personally; you can never really overdo bass trapping.

Frank