GIK Acoustic panels

Yep another endorsement from me.

My listening chair is similarly up against the wall and a couple of GIK panels there do a fine job of making the room seem a bit bigger and focusing the sound.

Won't the furniture that is in the way of you putting in bass traps be doing something of a similar job? do you think you have a problem with too much Cagey? Yes something behind the listening position if you are close to the back wall should help

okay I clarify my comment, you won't solve big bass peaks with traps and what are called 'bass traps' are generally not bass traps at all.

You go in the recording room at a studio they often have some huge dampers in the corners but that is because other than some cabs and microphone stands it's a totally empty room. At home you have furnishings - curtains, rugs, padded sofas and chairs and so on. You can't have them in the studio as there's not enough room. So they have to damp the room some other way.

Bass not the same issue when recording as bass guitar or synth would almost always be recorded D.I and you can always damp a bass drum down.

I use some treatment to cure splash and bounce in the corners but wouldn't call them 'bass traps' as they won't have any effect on low frequencies. it just soaks up HF that would otherwise be bouncing around causing late reflections way out of sync with the music.

2 of the corners have full bookshelves in them , the third has a roll of loft insulation and a few foam panels. The corner by the front door is as yet untreated although I do have some panels to put on the door itself. At the moment there's some big boxes there and they work just fine at killing HF bounce.

if I had problems with low frequencies I'd either change the speakers or use EQ. Some little foam panels will make zero difference to low frequency performance.

My point is that there's no way those little foam panels you pictured can affect low frequencies in any way, shape or form.

They might be called bass traps in the literature but they're not. Although they will have an effect on the overall sound, not disputing that.

A preamp with a balance control would sort that.
Heresy for some folks, I know, but surely better than randomly playing with room acoustics which could (and likely would) have all sorts of unintended consequences.

They do have microphone/frequency measurements for each of their products and test setup details. gikacoustics.co.uk/product-category/bass-traps/ click on a product and scroll down to the bit with a tab for test results. Details supporting each graph in a PDF.

Yes I used my denon av amp to test and that’s got a balance knob and yes it was so simple just to give it a tweak.
Oli suggested pulling the speaker out a touch which is certainly easier than making some panels.

That’s not the first time I’ve been told that!

I've spent years trying to cure the 'imbalance' of my room acoustics. I have basstraps 35cm thick (through the middle) spaced about 7cm from the walls with another 7cm panel in front of them. They do absorb the worst of it but nowhere near what is needed for full control. Space between the wall and the 'basstrap' is vital.

I have also tried balance controls and they can improve the image and shift it back to the middle (if that's your issue as it was mine). BUT it does mess with some frequencies in other ways and with some music it becomes very obvious that something is not right.

More energy coming from one speaker compared to the other is never going to yield perfect results. It's basically because one part of the room is likely amplifying the sound a bit (reverb/echo etc) so it appears louder and shifts the image and reflections, the other part of the room where the other speaker is situated is not doing this or is doing it in a different way. Turning this speaker up/cutting the other one's output to compensate is not the ideal 'fix'. Although it can work quite well but it's 'masking' the issues of the room really. Both speakers are not going to be sounding the same, that is the key I think.

In my opinion if you can deal with the room rather than messing with the signal/balance then it will sound better in the long run, it is significantly more work and harder to get right though . . . .

Thanks for the link, you can see though that even their largest trap is ineffective below 100 hz, gikacoustics.co.uk/product/gik-acoustics-soffit-bass-trap/


will help with problems above that but what if the problem is lower down in frequency? Likely to be so unless the room is large. LF will go through concrete walls, a bit of foam won't attenuate it.

The thing with room treatment is that even the experts disagree. Do you treat early reflections because they cause cancellations, or encourage them because they increase perception of soundstage and 'depth'?

It's so complex it's still a black art, whereas cutting a problem bass peak with EQ is easy.