Customer Questions #1

I thought I would change things around a little bit. I have some comments, 3 of them on the board from customers. I haven’t changed them, just condensed them, taken away the little words and get the real meaning of it. And we’re going to try to do a series of customer comments and questions. And maybe you’ll see your situation in there and maybe you can learn a little bit about it from other people, too.

So first one, I have measured a 60-90 Hz mode in my room. It is a 2-channel room and I placed “bass traps” in the corners of the room but he still has the problem. And this goes back to people being conditioned to put things in the corners of the room without really looking at what’s causing the problem, what type of treatment they need, how much treatment they need and positioning, where to put it.

And remember, the acronym that we use is called TAP. Type, amount and position. So we want to make sure that we’re locating the problem, we’re locating the position of it, we’re applying the right treatment, the right amount of treatment and more importantly, we’re putting it into the right place. We have a database now, I think of a 140 built rooms, only about 16% of those rooms, the highest pressure areas are in the corners of the rooms.

So the highest pressure being in the corners of the rooms is a room that has nothing in it which is not the case when you’re dealing with an audio room. So don’t look at an absolute situation and try to compare it to your situation because it won’t work. So there’s a good example of why it won’t.

Here’s another one. Oh, we get this a lot. I bought over $5,000 in absorption panels from a well-known company and installed them. My low end is horrible. It’s unchanged. Mids and highs are more defined but the room is too dead. So what’s the problem here? Well, again, type, amount and position. He bought – he used a tactic. He used sound absorbing panels that are really designed for the mids and highs and he didn’t choose the right treatment type and the right amount and the right position for the low end. And I’m sure he was sold this by the company. I’m sure they said “Put all of this stuff in, everything will be fine.”

Well, he gives the fact that the mids and highs are more defined but the room is too dead. So he has too much in there, he doesn’t have the right type, he has too much and he probably has them in the right position for mids and highs but it doesn’t have anything to do with the low end. And I asked him “When you bought the panels from the company did they ask you about your room size and volume? Did they ask you about what you’re doing in the room? Usage?” No, they didn’t. They just said “Put these up and everything will be well.” Alright, well, if everything was well I wouldn’t get a comment like this.

Here’s one that we’ll have a little fun with, kind of at the expense of the client and he won’t care, he’ll kind of get a kick out of it, too. But I think this statement goes a long way to show how confused a lot of us are about what is good quality sound and what isn’t. And we’ve done many videos on reference quality sound, how you have to get a reference in your head when you walk into a room and you divide the energy in the room up into low, middle and high. What characteristics should the low have, what characteristics should the middle have and what characteristics should the high have? You should have that in your sonic memory if you will.

The sound of the room is not too bad but it’s very loud and has an intense reverb. Well, if it’s not too bad it can’t be very loud. And it can’t have an intense reverb. Those are two terms that conflict with a room not being too bad. So you have to be very careful here about what your reference standpoint is. And then you have to be really careful about the solution.

I thought of lowering the ceiling. Well, if you think your room has an intense reverb and is very loud and you lower their ceiling you’ll make both of those worse. So we see a lot of things in this comment and question that go against everything that we’re trying to do in acoustics.

So if your room is very loud and has an intense reverb, believe me, it’s not too bad doesn’t fit. Those are two of the worst characteristics you could ever have in an audio room. So that’s why we do these videos, that’s why we try to educate you and use the correct term.

So 3 examples of some customer questions that came up. If you see yourself in some of these shoot me an email. I’ll help you with your issue and I’ll steer you on the right track. And I promise you I won’t sell you a bunch of panels that won’t solve the problem. And if for some crazy reason we don’t address the problem, pick up the phone and call me. I’ll give you your money back and I’ll send my freight company over to pick the units up. I’ve never had that happen in 10 years and don’t intend on it happening again. I want to make sure you’re satisfied, I want to make sure you’re taken care of, I want to make sure you have the right type, the right amount and the right positioning of all your products.

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This is an unedited transcript from our video series from Acoustic Fields. There will be some errors in grammar and sentence structure that occur during this translation process.

For complete understanding and comprehension, please view the video which is included in this text. For any additional information regarding this topic or others relating to room acoustics, please contact us directly at:

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