Low profile acoustic tiles that actually work

Axe_meister

Given physics is it even possible to have low profile acoustic tiles for room acoustic treatment (not sound proofing).
I recently decorated our loft conversion (slanted ceiling on both sides). My son used it as his own living room/office/recording studio, but now he has moved out I might slowly start moving my own musical equiptment up there as my play room has been polluted by work thus killing inspiration.
Now I can just about stand up in the middle of the room, so low profile tiles would be required. I could make my own pannels out of rockwool, but these would just be too big.
I know the cheap foam ones are crap and do nothing. So any other suggestions that are not expensive snake oil.

thermionic

Studiospares make lightweight rockwool-type panels in a few sizes (I have a mixture of I think, 30x30 cm and 60x60 cm ones). I’m not kidding myself that my room is anywhere near being properly treated but I’m pretty sure they make more of a difference than the foam tiles.

Sporky

Not really. At the wall you have a null point. To absorb energy the treatment needs to be in an active part of the wave - ie away from the wall.

A 4cm thick panel on 4cm standoffs has almost exactly the same effect as an 8cm thick panel. 

Winny_Pooh

Short plain speak answer... no. Material density & weight (and air) proportionally absorb further down in the frequency range the more of either (especially the weight part absorption) you add. It takes at least 6-10cm of acoustic material to start trapping frequencies approaching the low E of a guitar and alot more for stuff below that. 

If the problem is height then ignore the ceiling and have 4-5cm acoustic panels to the left and right of monitors and a thicker one at the back of the monitors (bass is omnidirectional) and the opposite side of the room. 

Tbh for just playing music you need much less treatment than for recording/ accurate monitoring/mixing.

In my bedroom I have two 4cm canvas acoustic panels (one from GIK & one off etsy) with paintings printed on. They dont trap down far but do remove flutter echo (standing echos between two parallel surfaces - clap your hands in a small room, the short echo sounds like a ring modulator) and serve as decor too.

Danny1969

Are you talking diffusion ... to scatter the audio and prevent it bouncing back ? ... you can do that quite thinly ... just covering the area with carpet will dull things down. 

Musicwolf

Sporky said:

Not really. At the wall you have a null point. To absorb energy the treatment needs to be in an active part of the wave - ie away from the wall.

A 4cm thick panel on 4cm standoffs has almost exactly the same effect as an 8cm thick panel. 

This.  At the wall the air mollecules aren't moving, maximum displacement occurs at a distance of one quater wavelength away from the wall and this is where the absorber has maximum effect.  The absorber is basically converting the Kinetic Energy of the moving air molecules into minute amounts of heat.

Thin panels will absorb higher frequencies whilst having little effect on the lows and mids which can make the room sound 'boxy'.

grappagreen

Axe_meister said:

Given physics is it even possible to have low profile acoustic tiles for room acoustic treatment (not sound proofing).
I recently decorated our loft conversion (slanted ceiling on both sides). My son used it as his own living room/office/recording studio, but now he has moved out I might slowly start moving my own musical equiptment up there as my play room has been polluted by work thus killing inspiration.
Now I can just about stand up in the middle of the room, so low profile tiles would be required. I could make my own pannels out of rockwool, but these would just be too big.
I know the cheap foam ones are crap and do nothing. So any other suggestions that are not expensive snake oil.

No it isn’t.. 

You simply cannot treat the frequency/time domain response of a small room in any positive way without lots of absorption. Physics is against you sadly.

If you simply don’t have the room then work with a decent set of headphones and a cross feed plugin like CanOpener.. 

Si

Sporky

And physics is older and better at fighting than you are.