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.