Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems HiFi and Home Theatre Photos

Sorry for the late reply! Been away on vacation.

The difference that the GIK room treatment made was huge. The room before hand was un-listenable. The room sounds fantastic now. I wouldn't mind adding some 3D diffusors at a later date.

As for the 244 panels I used these on the side walls as first reflection panels. The tri traps were stacked and positioned in the rear corners of the room behind the rear speakers.

I really recommend investing in room treatments before $$$ in the source components.

+1 on what he said !! I have also done some GIK additions recently. Will write it up when I get chance.

I already had several DIY Panels in my listening room.

I have just bought 2 GIK 244's with limited range Flex Range tech.

I have these in the front corners of my room.

I have not measured the speakers responses yet but I can say its made a really big difference to an already partly treated room.

I do plan to add more to the back of the room - probs tri traps and I probably if funds allow replace the DIY with more GIK's as I dare say they will sound better.

Really helpful service from their Europe UK based office as well

Continuing with the room treatment theme...

I had a re-think about systems last year and decided to go back to a 2.0 setup. I had previously evolved to a 7.0 DSP system of 8k/7.2c/5.2/5k. As many folks find you have to orient this around the TV placement and TV placement is not a free choice in many rooms.

Originally I had TV on the short wall facing the big windows and garden. Effects of sounds reflection from the opposite wall was just too bad. No amount of extra curtains etc would work (with WAF also). I elected to put the TV (50" Kuro) on the long wall and arrange around that. There it stood for quite a few years.

Moving back to 2.0 gave me the option to dislocate the L&R 8k's from the screen. Whilst that flies in the face of convention it made sense to me. 99.9% of why I have this system is music. Where SkySports sound comes from really doesn't matter that much.

Here's the layout.


Problem....the same sound reflections were causing problems again....from the wall that faces the 8k's. Certain bass and low-mid frequencies would either disappear or sound way too fat. Lean forward from the couch and it would all change.

The interference effects at the listening position were just killing the potential SQ I knew the system should be delivering.

In a moody moment one Saturday afternoon, I decided to test what a 'treatment' on the back wall would do. 5 minutes later the double mattress and duvet from our spare room had gently floated (NOT) downstairs and came to rest behind the main listening couch.



The effect ? AWESOME !!! Really.

Hard to over-exaggerate the impact this had. Bass was immediately stunningly clear. Lower. Faster.

"Mrs L - come here and have a listen to this". I hadn't mentioned the mattress at this point so she was a little surprised to say the least. She does have very good ears and instantly picked up on several differences.

All good. Mattress stayed there for a few weeks whilst I figured out what to do 'for real'.

I contacted GIK Acoustics in the UK (thanks again Ludwig for that lead..the mattress is now available again should you need it ). I got some advice from them by email to begin with and then spent quite a few calls talking with Dave Shevyn.

There are quite a few things to consider - what SQ needs fixing, where you sit, where is the kit, what can you do, what can't you do, etc etc. Dave was great.

WAF is key here. Mrs L had a free hand in fabric selection. The choice of cloth at Camira is very good.

I ended up with 5 Monster Traps and 3 soffit traps. 2 of the soffit traps were intended to stand vertically in the rear corners, but, they are huge and did not pass the WAF test. So, they are now dealing with the wall/floor boundary along the back wall. Pretty much out of sight behind the couch.



The Monster Traps are hardly out of sight. However, reaction from the auxiliary WAF committee (Mrs L's mates) has been very positive.



The impact? Again very, very positive. I think you don't realise what impact the room is having on what you hear until you fix it. The confusion and disruption to the troublesome bass notes that run length-ways up and down the room have gone. You can so much more easily now follow what is going on. Soundstage is improved. Speed, tightness, timing....all really good.

What I am most pleased with is the depth of the bass and the control it now has. That perhaps seems counter-intuitive when you install bass-traps. But the effect is very clear to hear.

I think I've covered all the key learnings. Hope you find it helpful if you are also, like I was, wrestling with the room.

Highly recommended.

Hi Nick,

I thanks for sharing this, I must say your room looks superb and I'm pleased it passed the WAF test.

Regards,
Carl

Very interesting read indeed. Thank you for the pictures, give a great impresion! I notice 1 soffit behind your left speaker and none behind the right one, is that because the window has a similar effect or just practical?

Cheers.

Ah... that soffit is a radiator.

PS... The advice from GIK was to try and use treatments as symmetrically as possible. Especially in first reflections and major points of absorption. Lack of symmetry would result in a unbalanced soundstage.

Very interesting. We're about to change the layout of the house over here & will be locating the screen / DSPs in another room so it will be a good time to get the thing sorted properly. I just had a quick look on GIK's website and the prices seem very reasonable. I'm guessing the total spend was hundreds rather than thousands?

Thanks for the post.

It's great to see people are testing out bass traps a little more.

You can spend literally THOUSANDS on source components and speakers BUT if the rooms not right you're simply wasting money. Just 1-2K would fully kit out any room to the MAX and have it sounds phenomenally better.

I could not believe the increase in sound quality when I installed 13 of them into my small room and that only cost be about 1100GBP.

Best money I have ever spent!

Well, having been inspired by Nick's mattress behind the settee and having had a chat with him and the good folks at GIK I have been playing with the conservatory furniture, stuffing duck down filled settee cushions and seats behind my mains, on the back wall and at first reflection points.
BB King Eric Clapton riding with the king album. Track 5 "three o'clock blues".
I took it all down after this track and played it again.
The result, the whole thing was Fuller and Richer (SWMBO's words) with the ad hock treatment.
The whole thing seemed just smaller on replay. The piano notes, which with treatments were hanging like large droplets in the air just fell flat.
This is a great quality track, and it still sounded good, but by comparison nowhere near as good as it was.
So it looks like some montster panels will be winging there way here soon as the start to my room treatment.
Thanks for your help Nick.
Chris

Hi all, just fitted my Monster bass trap panels on my rear wall.
First impressions, I don't have the words really and I do need to listen more but it all just sounds sublime.
Vocals are placed properly, bass feels right, firm and full. Treble details are there, piano notes hang in the space.
This was listening via my MC200, I haven't tried movies yet.
I wish I had the space to add front corner bass traps as it would only improve things.
Whilst re running MRC I had a failed attempt which I fixed by setting my sound level meter to the 80 range, when previously it had been in the 90 range.
So something changed.
Thoughts for now, Chris

In this thread we need: Photos, Photos and more Photos.