new home for my Magico Q1

Elberoth

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Dec 15, 2012
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Wow, it seems that you did quite a good job soundproofing the room. I have spent many hours researching the subject (mainly reading what was available on the net 8 years ago), but never learned about the BSW products.

1.
Do they have a special line of products dedicated to rooms soundproofing ? Their web page only shows their pro products, for silencing entire houses, railway track beds etc.

2.
Do you have more images showing in greater detail how those aluminium studs are attached to the sidewalls ?
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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thanks for the reply!! sorry for the confusion Sir, WS lam has Magico Q1 a Devialet...and dartzeel !! I like the fact that you did your homework in a rational way. are you talking about the built quality of the Giya or the unstable contact with the floor ?

Guy;-)
Yes, but WS is in HK, I am in Taipei ;-)
unstable contact on the floor, and not really inert cabinet (knock on it and after that go to knock on a Q serie). I have no judgement on build quality except for drivers having a reputation to be fragile (doesn't mean they are not well built, it is more due to the technology they are using, the speaker membrane is very very thin). But again, besides that they are interesting speakers. at least vivid is one of the very few makers which have tried to build their own technology (I am tired of the scan peak me-too and accuton ceramic driver me-too...)
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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Wow, it seems that you did quite a good job soundproofing the room. I have spent many hours researching the subject (mainly reading what was available on the net 8 years ago), but never learned about the BSW products.

1.
Do they have a special line of products dedicated to rooms soundproofing ? Their web page only shows their pro products, for silencing entire houses, railway track beds etc.

2.
Do you have more images showing in greater detail how those aluminium studs are attached to the sidewalls ?

1) BSW produces the isolator foam. Then you need to use this foam in different application. I had a local Taiwanese company design for me what I wanted. It is not very difficult, you just need to get the spec curves of the BSW product and deduct from your specific load what is going to be natural frequency of the isolator and therefore the vibration insulation...
You can also use other products from other companies. Vibratec proposes for example an equivalent product (iso-T) in term of function, where the vibration isolators are already mounted on wooden battens (see pic below), you just screw your plasterboard sheets on these battens.
iso-T from vibratec.jpg

Vibratec has a full range of products focused on this type of application... I didn't chose them because I didn't want to import from Europe, so I designed local solutions.
vibratec range

2) here the design I used. As you can see, the metal rail supporting the walls of the box in box are fixed in a sandwich of BSW isolator. That means hat the junction with outside wall is done only through the isolator.
wall box in box.jpg

The logic is the same for the floor and the ceiling. This is working very well: I can listen to music as loud as I want at any time. The theory is easy. Devil is in the detail of execution.... one single screw which is too long and create a bridge between outside and inside wall, and you can lose 20dB of insulation.... That means you need to think through everything: how do you deal with holes for passing cables, how you will mount electrical plugs, how you deal with sound escape from air conditioning... and in my case even how you want the structure to move in case of earthquake (in taipei, the earth can shake quite a bit....).
 

Elberoth

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Thanks. The design is even more impressive than I thought !

1. Since the wall is essentially floating, did you support the wall at the bottom by isolators as well (where it touches the floor) ?

2. How thick is the HDF layer on the floor ? Is that 1 inch, 3 inches ?

3. Did you put more isolators in the area where speakers are to be placed (to compensate for the extra weight) ?

4. Since the isolators have to be loaded to work best, did you designed that part of the floor with the Q7 in mind ?

5. Did you put a Mass Loaded Vinyl between the two layers of sheetrock ?
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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Thanks. The design is even more impressive than I thought !

1. Since the wall is essentially floating, did you support the wall at the bottom by isolators as well (where it touches the floor) ?

2. How thick is the HDF layer on the floor ? Is that 1 inch, 3 inches ?

3. Did you put more isolators in the area where speakers are to be placed (to compensate for the extra weight) ?

4. Since the isolators have to be loaded to work best, did you designed that part of the floor with the Q7 in mind ?

5. Did you put a Mass Loaded Vinyl between the two layers of sheetrock ?

1) Yes, I have a 3mm thick strip of isolators at the bottom. But to be honest, this is an overkill, because the floor itself is floating, so you could have the wall directly on the floor. Only reason why I added it is because I want the floor to move independently from walls of box in box in case of earthquake...

2) 3 inches. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is mass - you need mass to absorb low frequencies. I dimensioned the floating floor to get 60-70kg/m2. Different sheets and nailed and glued to each other so that they behave as a single layer (very rigid, doesn't vibrate with low frequency)

3) yes, of course. More pads below speakers areas and room periphery (for weight of walls).

4) Number of isolators has been designed with 350kg speaker weight in mind

5) No. Better to do it, but was difficult to source in Taiwan. And the additional gain vs. the 3 layers of sheetrock I already have is very limited, below 1-2dB. You gain more by having 3 layers of sheet rock rather than 2 layers and a vinyl.
 

Orb

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Sep 8, 2010
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Great thread and thanks Stereo for all the info and answering those questions.
Enjoyable read.
Cheers
Orb
 

Elberoth

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Dec 15, 2012
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1) Yes, I have a 3mm thick strip of isolators at the bottom. But to be honest, this is an overkill, because the floor itself is floating, so you could have the wall directly on the floor. Only reason why I added it is because I want the floor to move independently from walls of box in box in case of earthquake...

In my project I have all walls floating / decoupled from each other, including ceiling and floor:

DLR_20.jpg

(this image shows how ceiling is decoupled from the adjacent walls; the walls are also decoupled from each other, although this particular image was taken when the space between the walls was already filled with a elastic filler - looks and feels like silicone, but is paintable; same filler was later used to mask the gap around ceiling perimeter)


I wonder what is the more correct way to do it - float the whole box or all walls separately. :confused:
 

Elberoth

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2) 3 inches. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is mass - you need mass to absorb low frequencies. I dimensioned the floating floor to get 60-70kg/m2. Different sheets and nailed and glued to each other so that they behave as a single layer (very rigid, doesn't vibrate with low frequency)

Yes, I know. That is why we went with 50mm of concrete.

We didn't you use concrete ? Building floors not strony enough to support it ?
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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Yes, I know. That is why we went with 50mm of concrete.

We didn't you use concrete ? Building floors not strony enough to support it ?

Yes. 5cm of concrete would give 120kg/m2. And not so good to add too much mass on a rooftop in a region with earthquakes.
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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In my project I have all walls floating / decoupled from each other, including ceiling and floor:

I wonder what is the more correct way to do it - float the whole box or all walls separately. :confused:

It doesn't matter, provided you apply the filler properly. Potential problem with your method is that if you leave a very narrow air gap, you don't have enough space to inject silicone into the full width of the gap. So you may have a 3.5cm deep wall (with good bass isolation), but at the junction between walls you may have in reality only 2mm deep of silicone and then a gap behind it.... This would decrease quality of the sound isolation, in particular in the bass.
On the other side, if you float the full box, in case you end up not floating properly one single wall (e.g., one screw not placed properly and creating a link with external box), sound waves impacting any walls will end up traveling as vibration towards the non well isolated wall.... and then towards the outside box.
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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Fantastic room Stereo , Congrats on a job well done, are you using 2.86 volts when measuring from your listening position ?

Not sure I understand your question.... I am not trying to measure sensitivity of the speakers, the SPL on the curves is indifferent... I am just feeding the speakers with a signal loud enough to have the mic operating in the right range....
am I missing something?
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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Just visited Dartzeel factory in Geneva and got my Dartzeel 108 back from upgrade. I am looking forward to go back to my room in 10 days and be able to do a comparison on the Q1 driven by Dartzeel 108, APL UA-S4 amp and Devialet.
 

stereo

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Sep 1, 2012
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looking forward to your impression of the Devialet/Magico combo.

Guy;-)
Right now i am using the Devialet and it is sounding very well. But since it is a new room, I have no other reference... the Dartzeel may very well sound much better, who knows? (it should at more than twice the price). One thing I have learned with all Magico speakers, is that they are never the limiting factor, you can keep getting better sound by upgrading the amp, cables, etc.
 

A.wayne

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Jan 14, 2011
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Front Row Center
Not sure I understand your question.... I am not trying to measure sensitivity of the speakers, the SPL on the curves is indifferent... I am just feeding the speakers with a signal loud enough to have the mic operating in the right range....
am I missing something?

Hi Stereo ,

Just wanted to see what reference voltage being used. IMO, you should select a reference voltage, this voltage could be 2,3,4 or 5 volts, as long as you use the same voltage, every time, your reference voltage so to speak, Necessary when comparing curves after changes, its the most correct way to compare curves (changes when tuning resonators) etc...

Regards,
 

stereo

Well-Known Member
Sep 1, 2012
407
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Hi Stereo ,

Just wanted to see what reference voltage being used. IMO, you should select a reference voltage, this voltage could be 2,3,4 or 5 volts, as long as you use the same voltage, every time, your reference voltage so to speak, Necessary when comparing curves after changes, its the most correct way to compare curves (changes when tuning resonators) etc...

Regards,
ok, clear, will remember it next time. Matts Odelmam from SMT was doing all measurements, not sure if he selected a constant reference voltage..... he did hundreds of measurements for 3 days.
 

Roysen

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Aug 6, 2011
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Congratulations, Stereo. This looks really nice. Matts from SMT visited me on Wednesday. We are making plans for how he can finetune the acoustics in my living room where my Q7 will be playing. We are also planning the studio in my garden where my two other systems will have their homes. That studio will be designed from scratch by Matts and we will use much of what you have accomplished in your room as inspiration. We also plan on building a room in a room.

BTW, do you plan to attend the High End show in Munich this year?

All the best,
Roysen
 

Mctwins

Member
Feb 1, 2013
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Hallo, my first post here.

Congratulation to your new acoustical treatment and a very nice room you got there.

You made the right choice using SMT way in treating a room acoustically. He seems to be the only one who can tame those modal resonaces and alter the peaks and deeps to flat freq response below 100Hz.

I myself, (with my twinbrother) have a dedicated litening room with SMT treatment. Those Helmholtz resonator is great and effecient when properly tuned.

Just sit back and enjoy your room.
 

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