Acoustic Boards and Bass Traps make a difference?

[blushiz]

I find it hard to believe that a flat board and a square thing placed in a room could make a difference in sound quality. I mean, I understand how sound waves reflect off walls and stuff, but how can an object at another part of the room help the sound when the sound reaches your ear the same time it reaches the acoustic panel? How exactly do these things work? I just can't comprehend it.

[richteer]

They work by absorbing bass, helping to prevent over loading a room. Push your speakers against the front wall, have a listen, and them pull them a couple of feet away from the wall to get an idea of the effect.

[yellowblanket]

it's a world of different if you know where to place them, if you just bought a bunch of panel and randolmly put them in a room, not only it obsolete, it will even make it worse.

Go to any local studio, you'd be suprise to see how different it is from a treated room to a non treated room

[Samsang]

To help in visualizing it, think of light as a rough analogy.

Imagine of a room with two windows in one wall. Bright sunlight is streaming in through them. The windows represent the speakers and the light represents sound. Now play with ideas of different surface treatments and their effect on illumination throught the room. How will a shiny vinyl floor act differently from a black carpet? Mirrored walls as opposed to dark fabric wallpaper?

Of course sound propogates differently than light. But simplistic analogies can help us to imagine varied scenarios and the effects they might have. Hopefully some greater understanding will grow from such mental exercises.

One might also imagine making waves in a tropical fish tank. They waves reflect off of all four sides resulting in high spots and low spots. Run with that idea for a furlong or two...

[Big Daddy]

We have a thread on Acoustic Treatments. It has a sticky under speaker discussion.