Anechoic listening seat

Quite a while back, I decided to spend a weekend mocking up some DIY sound treatment for my room. The main driver for this was actually to create a good environment for recording guitar, but while I was at it I thought I may as well have a play. I don't have any major issues with frequency imbalances in my room - that being taken care of largely by speaker placement and the controls on my active subs - but was interested in the potential benefits of reducing reflections arriving at the listening seat.

I therefore built a whole bunch of portable units of varying sizes. The basic approach was to build a wooden frame, slatted at the back. Fix to this some sound deadening underlay tiles and on top of those some acoustic foam treatment tiles. I deliberately built these portable so that I could try them out in various locations.

Over the months, I have tried them in various locations - behind the speakers, to the sides of the speakers, at the sides of the room at the first reflection point, at the sides of the room elsewhere, covering the rear of the room. However, I've now settled on the best position and, against my expectations, I find these most effective surrounding the listening seat. The final result is that I hear a lot more variation in the recorded acoustic of various albums and it is much easier to pick up on these acoustic cues. It all sounds a lot less like musicians in my room and a lot more like I'm in their room if that makes any sense.

Some pictures below of the finished article, front and back, plus one of the unfinished units which shows the rear construction:

 

It all sounds a lot less like musicians in my room and a lot more like I'm in their room if that makes any sense.


Yes i know what you mean. Can be the other way round too if the recording is meant to be that way. Looks very interesting your design and i'm sure its makes an improvement. If i put my hands behind my ears its surprising what a change it makes to the music. Happy listening.

 

yes my gut feeling has always been rear reflections are bad ....I'm in the unfortnate position of having to sit against the rear wall ...moving my head just a few inches away from it make rather more difference than you might at first think.

rear reflection from the back of the speaker to that rear wall are also at 180deg out of phase ...but I've reduced this by moving the speakers 1m into the room ....did you try placing the absorbers /deflectors ? behind the speakers ?

did you use auralex foam ?

 

Hi Zanash, the tiles used were from eBay -same tiles, same seller

I did have a look at Auralex, but the price quickly ruled it out given the quantities I wanted. Now I've settled on something it might be a small project for the future, but I'd need to be convinced that these would be much better than the existing ones. Have you used the Auralex by any chance? And/or the cheap eBay knock-offs for comparison?

I did try the stands in various locations behind the speakers but never had much impact. Maybe room dimensions/speaker positioning play a big role? My speakers are quite a long way into the room - approx. 3m to the back wall in a 10m long room.

 

That's a loooong room!

 

1. That is so wife-friendly. Oy.

2. 10m? That is a big room.