Do bass traps need to be 2' wide

[steveanthony]

I was wondering if corner bass traps need to be 2' feet wide for a reason. I was planning on building some, then I got to wondering if I could make them one foot wide. I've got some 2" OC 703 that I thought I would slice down the middle, lengthwise, then lay one on top of the other which would give me 4 inches of rigid fiberglass, only 1 foot wide. Then again, would 1 foot wide bass traps in a corner be effective?

Steve

 

[bpape]

1' wide and 4" thick is better than 2' wide and 2" thick (for bass). What you gain from the 2' width is:

- more surface area
- more distance from the hard boundary which puts you closer to the quarterwave distance of lower frequencies where porous absorbers are more effective.

There's nothing magic about 2' - just usually you can use the extra distance and certainly the extra square footage.

 

[Innovations]

I was wondering if corner bass traps need to be 2' feet wide for a reason. I was planning on building some, then I got to wondering if I could make them one foot wide. I've got some 2" OC 703 that I thought I would slice down the middle, lengthwise, then lay one on top of the other which would give me 4 inches of rigid fiberglass, only 1 foot wide. Then again, would 1 foot wide bass traps in a corner be effective?

Steve

I did exactly this to get a bass trap to go in the cieling corner above a door where a two foot wide trap wouldn't fit anyway. Note that since the trap is at a corner angle I sliced the panels at a 45 degree angle so that in fact the front surface is slightly wider then one foot.

 

[SonicClang]

Well obviously if you've got a spot where 2' is too big, like above a door, you gotta do what you can. If that means making the thing not as wide, it's still better than nothing. But theoretically, the more surface area the better.