Acoustic panels for garden room

[toasty]

I’ve got a new 5x3m garden room being built for an office/listening room and wonder if it’s worth adding some acoustic panels considering 4m of glass on one side of the room.

The system is Naim Atom and Kef LS50s with REL sub.

Anyone got any experience with this?

[996owner]

Have a look here

https://www.studiospares.com/studiopanel-single-ac...

the youtube video is a good demo, im going to order some for home soon

Edited by 996owner on Monday 12th June 10:35

[toasty]

Many thanks, I’ll have a look.

[thebraketester]

toasty said:

I’ve got a new 5x3m garden room being built for an office/listening room and wonder if it’s worth adding some acoustic panels considering 4m of glass on one side of the room.

The system is Naim Atom and Kef LS50s with REL sub.

Anyone got any experience with this?

For what purpose? I would start with nothing and see what it sounds like. If you've got a hard floor a rug is a good idea.

[toasty]

thebraketester said:

For what purpose? I would start with nothing and see what it sounds like. If you've got a hard floor a rug is a good idea.

A bare room is going to sound echoey and awful. A rug is a good idea for the floor but that still leaves the walls and 4x2m of glass on one side. I figure if I’m going to spend a shed load on a posh shed, it might as well sound good too.

Plus, I really like some of the woodblock art acoustic panels on Etsy.

[Lucid_AV]

toasty said:

A bare room is going to sound echoey and awful. A rug is a good idea for the floor but that still leaves the walls and 4x2m of glass on one side. I figure if I’m going to spend a shed load on a posh shed, it might as well sound good too.

Plus, I really like some of the woodblock art acoustic panels on Etsy.

The Etsy wood block panels look nice, but you should be aware that these quadratic skyline diffusers can be tuned to work at specific frequencies. The shallower the depth of the blocks then the higher the frequencies they diffuse, but that also means they don't work that well at lower frequencies that might be where you have more of an issue. The answer here is to have someone come in with a calibrated mic and the right software to measure the room response.

Room treatment gear relies on a mix of three techniques: diffusion, absorption, and dealing with standing waves which is mostly about reducing bass problems.

[toasty]

Lucid_AV said:

The Etsy wood block panels look nice, but you should be aware that these quadratic skyline diffusers can be tuned to work at specific frequencies. The shallower the depth of the blocks then the higher the frequencies they diffuse, but that also means they don't work that well at lower frequencies that might be where you have more of an issue. The answer here is to have someone come in with a calibrated mic and the right software to measure the room response.

Room treatment gear relies on a mix of three techniques: diffusion, absorption, and dealing with standing waves which is mostly about reducing bass problems.

Thanks Lucid, I’ll look into this once the build is complete and the furniture is in.

[thebraketester]

toasty said:

thebraketester said:

For what purpose? I would start with nothing and see what it sounds like. If you've got a hard floor a rug is a good idea.

A bare room is going to sound echoey and awful. A rug is a good idea for the floor but that still leaves the walls and 4x2m of glass on one side. I figure if I’m going to spend a shed load on a posh shed, it might as well sound good too.

Plus, I really like some of the woodblock art acoustic panels on Etsy.

Yes I get all that. Ive got a 4x3 studio in my garden. You need to get everything in, fix your listening position and take it from there. If you want it doing properly then I would get someone in to do it. Otherwise it's guess work and you could end up spending a lot of money on stuff which doesn't fix anything. Where will the glass be in relation to your listening position?

[somouk]

I have studio spares panels in my office and they have made a big difference how it sounds when on meetings and stuff. I find I'm using my headset less and talking on the microphone more.

Not sure how much of a difference they would have to audio quality but also consider ceiling, floor materials etc if it is a big concern.

[Lucid_AV]

somouk said:

I have studio spares panels in my office and they have made a big difference how it sounds when on meetings and stuff. I find I'm using my headset less and talking on the microphone more.

Not sure how much of a difference they would have to audio quality but also consider ceiling, floor materials etc if it is a big concern.

It's significant. About 5 years ago I was approached by a guy prototyping acoustic panels with printable fabric covers. This small one was about 2ft squared. I took it to a friendly Hi-Fi dealer who I knew was already using panels in his dem rooms. We took out his panel (2ft x 3ft) and listened to the room bare. The Hi-Fi sounded fine, but when things got busy in the mix then stuff started to get a bit lost.

We put the prototype panel in. The difference was unmistakeable. Without a point of reference, the bare room sounded perfectly fine. Once the panel was in and placed leaning up against the front wall and mid-way between the speakers the room character changed significantly. The bst way I can describe it, imagine listening to a DJ in an empty church hall. You're about 60ft away. The sound fills the space but you're aware of the distance. With the panel in place it was like someone moved the DJ rig 40ft closer. It felt like the room shrank. Everything was much more immediate.

The dealer told me that this new panel was better than the one he was using. The guys behind the product never got it off the ground. But this absorber panel really worked well.

[Diderot]

Look at https://gikacoustics.co.uk/

They will also advise you on what you will need. The two biggest issues you will encounter are standing waves, (especially if you have a sub), and flutter echoes. Hopefully your garden room isn’t square!