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Alright, I must admit, after another weekend of sub testing, both in and outdoors, I have had it with houses. I find it simply incredible what bass does to homes, after extensively treating a place with felt stickers and moving furinture so there are no more discernable rattles and continuing to find them in untreatable places, I am forced to conclude that the only way to get halfway decent bass response is with a completely redesigned, ground up approach to an HT room. After the anguish of all this (going from place to place, trying out different placements, ect) and still not getting halfway acceptable results, I feel like just going outside to enjoy my speakers. The problem? Theres rattles and noises outside as well!
Heres some of the issues I discovered
1. Definetely the biggest problem, the fireplace. If you have a fireplace with a chimney open to the outside, get ready for the mother of all chirping and chuffing, they try to equalize the pressure between inside and outside and in doing so, will create a huge headache. After stuffing the downstairs one, I had to deal with one UPSTAIRS, it was simply incredible that I could hear it as well.
2. Windows: Definitely the second biggest problem, the rattle and tremor with room modes, different passages affect them differently, sine sweeps relay the problem frequencies, the only way I can think of to fix this, outside of trying felt at various problem spots is bass traps, and thats not even a guaranteed fix. Good luck with these, I don't know what to tell you.
3. Light fixtures. Yup, they rattle vicously as well, especially can lights in recessed lighting, they LOVE to rattle. Fixing these may be as easy as tightening things down or repositing them, to as hard as replacing the fixture entirely or taking them down, treating them, then re-attaching them. No guarantees here either, treating stuff is a pain.
4. Shelving, bookcases: The best fix for these is removing them
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aside from that, trying to secure them helps, but they will still want to rattle.
Anything else not ultimately bolted down, I have even seen furniture rattle from within, that is particularly annoying. After this, the real problems start to set in! Sheet rock rattling, (it happens even at moderate spl's) and things in various other rooms of the house rattling that can't be treated. It seems that the only way to get a decent HT would be use double walls with special sheet rock, special light fixtures, special everything, it all wants to shake! The annoying thing is that you can have the best sounding sub(s) in the world and get awful sound from your room. Treating your room for bass is every bit as important if not moreso than treating it for your speakers (first reflections ect)
Heres some of the issues I discovered
1. Definetely the biggest problem, the fireplace. If you have a fireplace with a chimney open to the outside, get ready for the mother of all chirping and chuffing, they try to equalize the pressure between inside and outside and in doing so, will create a huge headache. After stuffing the downstairs one, I had to deal with one UPSTAIRS, it was simply incredible that I could hear it as well.
2. Windows: Definitely the second biggest problem, the rattle and tremor with room modes, different passages affect them differently, sine sweeps relay the problem frequencies, the only way I can think of to fix this, outside of trying felt at various problem spots is bass traps, and thats not even a guaranteed fix. Good luck with these, I don't know what to tell you.
3. Light fixtures. Yup, they rattle vicously as well, especially can lights in recessed lighting, they LOVE to rattle. Fixing these may be as easy as tightening things down or repositing them, to as hard as replacing the fixture entirely or taking them down, treating them, then re-attaching them. No guarantees here either, treating stuff is a pain.
4. Shelving, bookcases: The best fix for these is removing them
Anything else not ultimately bolted down, I have even seen furniture rattle from within, that is particularly annoying. After this, the real problems start to set in! Sheet rock rattling, (it happens even at moderate spl's) and things in various other rooms of the house rattling that can't be treated. It seems that the only way to get a decent HT would be use double walls with special sheet rock, special light fixtures, special everything, it all wants to shake! The annoying thing is that you can have the best sounding sub(s) in the world and get awful sound from your room. Treating your room for bass is every bit as important if not moreso than treating it for your speakers (first reflections ect)
