Now that I've had a few days
to really listen to the effects of having
TubeTraps in my listening room, here are my findings.
I have three TubeTraps (the fourth
was damaged on shipping, to be
replaced later), two at the front behind my main speakers and
one at the
rear left of the room, plus a custom-built SubTrap under my REL
subwoofer to the right of the r/h speaker. I have positioned each
one
with their most absorptive face towards the centre of the room.
The first noticeable difference is
how much quieter speech is in the
room and the dryness apparent in familiar voices. Finger snapping
also
reveals much less room liveliness than before.
Listening to music, I was struck
by the improvement, not in the bass
area as I most expected to hear, but in the focus and clarity
of detail
coming through. The whole soundstage was as if rendered in higher
resolution, with startling realism. It was exactly as if someone
had
turned the room off. All of that bloat around voices and
the constrained and 'loud' wall of sound as the volume was increased
turned out to be the room's interactions, not inherent in the
recording or system.
The overall sound seems lighter (lacking
any bass boom) and also has
more midrange kick. The lighter balance took a few songs to get
used
to, but is welcome as it allows such transparency in the midrange
and
especially with vocals. The reduction in echo means that hard
hit drums
and other percussion instruments seem lightning fast and have
real
visceral impact.
This lack of echo and flutter has
made my old CDs sound fresh. I wish I
could say the same about some more recent releases but their poor
sound
just does not respond in the same way. I was listening to some
old
David Crosby and Bruce Springsteen and was amazed at the natural
soundstage they create. k d lang's exceptional voice soars and
Leonard
Cohen's raspy delivery puts you uncomfortably close to the action.
As for bass, the effect is interesting.
Where there is little or no
bass in the music, the sound is lightweight and very revealing.
Play
something with serious bass (Air's 10000 Hz Legend or Saint-Saens'
Symphony No. 3, Edo de Waart) and it seems both more extended
and more
powerful. I did not make any changes to subwoofer crossover frequency
or level from before installation of the traps.
One final observation: when upstairs
in our bedroom I'm used to hearing
a very boomy rendition of whatever's playing downstairs. I noticed
today that the boominess is mostly gone with just an attenuated,
more
natural sound coming through the floorboards.
I
really can't think of another way that I could have yielded such
an improvement for so little (relative) cost. I wouldn't advocate
it for a less than optimal system, but it's given me new respect
for what tweaking a room can do for a well set up hi-fi system.
If you're interested, talk to the people at Acoustic Sciences.
They were friendly and knowledgeable and gave me excellent advice.
I
really can't think of another way that I could have yielded such
an improvement for so little (relative) cost. I wouldn't advocate
it for a less than optimal system, but it's given me new respect
for what tweaking a room can do for a well set up hi-fi system.
If you're interested, talk to the people at Acoustic Sciences.
They were friendly and knowledgeable and gave me excellent advice.