The
tri-corner of a room acts to transform and compress all
of the acoustic energy in a sound wave into pure pressure
fluctuations. Tube Traps are designed to take full advantage
of the acoustic pressure zones created in the corners of
a room. They convert the pressure changes into air movement
within the dense walls of the Tube Trap. Through regulated
friction in the walls of the Tube Trap, energy is damped
out of the wave.
Because of how it works the Tube Trap is
known as a "pressure zone bass trap." The diameter
of the Tube Trap, not the length determines the low frequency
cutoff. Only Tube Traps have built-in diffusive reflection
panels to maintain ambience control. Tube Traps work best
in areas where there is heavy bass, such as the corners
of the room.
Room
Modes
When
low frequency sound is injected into a room, the waves reflect
back and forth. At certain frequencies, the reflection patterns
begin to overlap and lock into a synchronized condition
with each other to produce standing waves. Whenever this
pattern overlaps the speakers we get "room boom",
an overpowering emphasis by the room/speaker arrangement
to play only a few, very strong bass notes.
Nothing can actually get rid of room modes, short of removing
the room entirely. But adding bass traps will even out the
bass response and improve transient attacks and decay. Although
every mode has a unique pattern of pressure zones distributed
throughout the room, all modes have pressure zones in the
tri-corners. ASC is the pioneer of corner loaded bass traps,
and the Tube Trap remains the unsurpassed upgrade for all
high performance audio acoustic systems.
Boundary
Reflections
When
a woofer is located near a wall, its freefield frequency
response becomes distorted. The nearby reflection drives
a pressure wave back over the speaker cone. Walls, floor
and corner reflections produce 5 to 20ms delay signals that
mix with the direct signal at the driver to induce comb
filtering effects into the bass range of the speaker and
as well, side lobe beaming patterns.
A Tube Trap located at each of these reflection points
will reduce the strength of the reflection. This reduces
the comb filtering and side-lobing effects in the bass range.
But not all wall reflections are bad. Speakers located near
walls deliver better deep bass. Our boundary conditioning
Traps are bandwidth limited to allow them to defeat comb
filtering and beaming effects but not at the expense of
wall loading in the deep bass range. Diffusive strips in
the Traps are oriented behind the speakers to better develop
the ambience.
Bass
Loading
Tube Traps can also be used in the open, close coupled to
speakers in order to improve their performance. By stacking
Tube Traps to expand the effective size of the speaker baffle
board, the effect of increased bass directivity and efficiency
is achieved. This works with sealed, front ported or dipole
speakers, flown or stage mains, hi-fi, studio monitors,
portable PA and nightclub systems.
In addition, the Tube Traps can be stacked in a forward
stepped array that casts an acoustic shadow to the side
of the speakers. The diffusive strips of the Tube Traps
are oriented away from the front of the speaker for color-free
horn loading. This shadowing technique protects on-stage
mics from feedback, small room listening from side wall
reflections and halls from excessive reverberation.