Ceiling Acoustics Question
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
The RT60 versus frequency is just a generic indicator - I am sure she has taken much more information from measurements.
Ron,
There is only one solution that makes any sense. The hell with the floor above! You always wanted a cathedral ceiling your listening room anyway, right?
Marty
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Ron, looking at the photo that you posted on your other thread, it looked like you had a very tall ceiling ( and one that was not sloped) at the wall that you were going to place your speakers in front of??? Did you somehow change that?
Photos would be great.
The REW application should give insight as to what needs to be done to compare the left vs right channels in the room.
Thank you for that great idea, Marty! ?
Steve is correct: there is a garage above the ceiling of the listening room.
Nothing has changed. The photo did not show a lower ceiling from the left side for about three feet which hides some ductwork and a beam.
Steve is correct: there is a garage above the ceiling of the listening room.
Nothing has changed. The photo did not show a lower ceiling from the left side for about three feet which hides some ductwork and a beam.
Ron,
There is only one solution that makes any sense. The hell with the floor above! You always wanted a cathedral ceiling your listening room anyway, right?
Marty
I'm with Marty on this, screw the garage! That's a big height difference Ron, its hard to make any recommendation without seeing proper pictures of your room but you already know what that ceiling is doing after all these years, not going to change.
david
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
well having been there, it is his garage overhead however Ron you do have your separate car port down the hill from your house. Maybe it is an idea worth exploring but if you do I wouldn't do a cathedral ceiling
Thank you, David. The ML Prodigys are narrow such that both speakers were under the 14 foot high part of the ceiling. A wider speaker would be at least partially under the 9 foot high section of the ceiling.
Gentlemen: Before we have a party here and you break out the axes and jackhammers to remove the ceiling please know that, if anything, I'm trying to increase interior square footage, not reduce it.
I appreciate the suggestions of each of you, but is there really no consensus as to whether absorption or diffusion more successfully makes a section of wall or a section of ceiling "disappear" acoustically -- as though such section of wall or ceiling were literally not there?
Last edited:
Can the speakers not be put together under the lowest part of the room and the listening chair against the high wall , assymetrical is a challenge and my intuition would say some absorption at least on/under the low part
The best room i ve heard was assymetrical , the sidewalls for that matter
The best room i ve heard was assymetrical , the sidewalls for that matter
Last edited:
If the panel speakers are 6 1/2' tall, my ceiling would be 2' above one speaker and 7 1/2' above the other speaker.
Don't know if there's a consensus, but to make it "disappear" requires absorption. Diffusion "breaks up" and redistributes the energy but will not "hide" a significant height difference -- more energy will come from the lower ceiling and that side will be perceived as "louder". I have dealt with similar issues in the past (many times) and my measurements and experience support my opinion. The big caveat is planar speakers radiate little from top and bottom so are less impacted. However, if the goal is to make the ceiling "disappear", then IME/IMO you should place absorbers on it.
Note Martin Logan's curved panels still radiate little top and bottom, but the curve means they do radiate to the sides, unlike a flat panel.
FWIWFM - Don
Absorption is the right solution to asymmetry. It would have to be broadband which means at least 4 to 5 inches thick.
Diffusion sends those waves to other places. I suspect what comes out from the top of your speaker does not have good timbre compared to what comes out from the front. So I would not use diffusion even though it will look much prettier.
The above assumes you have not created a very dead room already. If you have, then adding more to it on the ceiling would make it even more dead.
Here is what I suggest Ron. Do as MikeL has done. Get a temporary thick pillow and tape it to the ceiling and listen. If it improves things, then you are golden. If not, leave it alone. The psychoacoustics of what you have is quite complex. The ears are the right tool to analyze acoustics above a few hundred hertz.
One more thing. If you go with diffusion, for them to be broadband you are talking about 8+ inches deep. The 4 inch ones people put in are only effective at higher frequencies and will screw up the response of the speaker.
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
.Measurements don't work above a few hundred hertz because a single microphone can't hear what two ears hear. Once the wavelengths get smaller than the size of one's head, then the head becomes an acoustic shadow, creating very different signals in each ear. The brain then adjudicates what that means. This is used in our everyday life for detecting direction of sound for example. Dogs use them frequently to detect height:
By tilting their heads, they force a different signal to go into one versus the other (due to delay), and hence able to figure out the height of the source of sound.
Similar threads
 | Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator |  | Ron Resnick Site Co-Owner | Administrator |  | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |