First of all, sorry for not reading your thread beforehand. Heaps of information!
I think I'll place the diffuser on the rear wall which is around 5' 9" behind the listening position. Then listen with the diffuser in place and without it. If it does create any weird artifacts, I'll dump it.
The walls are made out of concrete bricks. As you said, I should learn more about measuring my room first.
Thank you so much!

 

What are your thoughts on Sonarworks Reference 4? and their measuring microphone?

 

This is correct for big rooms. With small rooms like this, the more you move your listening position towards the center, the more you get standing waves and exaggerated frequencies. In other words, as it is in his pic, it is almost ok.
One thing though, acoustic panels have to be built and positioned after calculating the frequencies' exaggerations and rolloffs. In such rooms differencies in frequencies can be as much as 20 or even 24db plus or minus or both. Using an inexpensive mic and free or even cracked acoustic measurement software along with the proper mic will yield very good results, about 90-95% perfect tuning. Which of course isn't 100% but small rooms as mentioned before are very hard to tackle with.
Even after tuning such a room to as good as it can get, put a person next to you to work together and because of the very small space, the second person's body acts as a diffusor and the sound can radically change. So if the builder plans to do collabs etc, he has to take this in perspective as well.
Cheers.

 

I will definitely look into room measurement and tackling the problematic frequencies.
I'll not be doing any collaborations, but I never thought another person in the room changes the sound drastically! Thanks for the insight!

 

Sonarworks makes it easy to set up a filter correction. However, you can make these corrections with any room correction software. All you need is a measuring microphone. Take a few sinus sweep measurements at defined points along your sweet spot, average the results, and then use a room correction filter to compensate for the mountains and valleys. Averaging the measurements and filter compensation is done automatically by sonarworks. So it saves 1 or 2 minutes of work.

However, room acoustic software like Sonarworks is not an alternative for room acoustic panels. I guess in your room some frequencies need to be attenuated by 15-20 dB. With software you can't get a handle on that without getting massive phase problems. It's more for fine tuning to get the last percent out of the room after it has been sufficiently treated with acoustic modules.

 

the general consensus on diffusers is that they are more useful behind your listening position. in line with your monitors of possible.. they look cool but will serve 0 purpose behind your monitors where you have them in the design.

i put some up in my barn studio after i built this vocal booth recently because i was getting all kinds of reflections off of the flat wall of the booth bc it was only ab 9 ft from my sitting position and it did make a pretty significant difference.

 

Another option for speakers ($399 US):
Kali AudioIN-8 8'' Powered Studio Monitor
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/IN8--kali-audio-in-8-8-inch-powered-studio-monitor

 

Thanks for making that clear! I will definitely measure my room properly once I get hands on an RTA microphone.

 

Yeah, I updated my design and moved that diffuser towards the back of my listening position!
I will have to check if the diffuser is really necessary or not. Otherwise I'll just drop the whole diffuser idea.
Your space looks so cool man! I'd love to see more pictures!

 

IN8 is awesome, but I'm afraid 8" monitors might be too much for my room. That's why I'm sticking with A5X at the moment.

 

thanks!

https://audiosex.pro/threads/share-your-setup.12751/page-11

thats a link to the share your setup thread where i posted several before and after photos of my studio. i just made a post on there a few days ago of the vocal booth start-finish progress photos on page 12 of the thread. take a look and let me know what you think!

 

CO

Love the way you transformed that barn into such an awesome setup! I'd love to be in such a place all the time!

 

Very much appreciate the compliment. It was ALOT of work. I did all of it solo so it took me about 3-4 months of long evenings after work at my regular job and weekends. That just made it that much more gratifying when it was finished though.

I do spend almost all of my free time out there. My girlfriend hates it

 

stop wasting time with corner traps, rather build proper superchunks, the more volume the better.
If you don't want to seal the traps to avoid rockwoll leaks, you could use caruso isobond or similar.
Only downside of it is that it costs more.

 

Hard work really paid off!

 

I wish I could, but I can only build superchunks for the top corners of the room, as one of the doors are close to the corner and also considering the current budget. I just read superchunks do a better job at controlling 80Hz and below, but top corners are the best I can do. We'll see how it works out!

 

The room has 8 corners and 12 edges. Taking the door into account, there are still 7 corners and 11 edges available. I'm just saying

 

Can't find any supermassive corner-chunks in your design.

 

Yeah, that's true. I will have to move the guitar hangers and compromise the wall art. Please check the attached pictures:

 

Please check the top corners.