Lol!!!

Thanks, cohibaman.

And yes on "compromise". I'm very lucky. When I started this mission-creep project, I didn't think I was going to get past the wall 244s and Monsters--and even that was a crap shoot. I was lucky because I had main-system traps I could cannibalize to demo the improvement rendered by a basic corner/wall setup. It was step-by-step from there to the first reflection point and then the second. And quite honestly, I think it's when she saw beach towels she'd just laundered hanging from the dresser's top drawers that she just gave up. Hence the 224s fronting the dresser.

What's good about it is that she likes what she's hearing even if Stonehenge Modern isn't quite what she'd envisioned as the room's motif.

--Jim

A revised assessment
 

"Quick listens" can be deceptive. I'd said in an earlier post that I noted no significant performance differences between the single 244 centered in front of the dresser and a pair of 224s separated by a few inches from each other so their outer edges were closer to their respective speakers' inner edges.

Long-term listens comparing the two configurations knock that initial assessment into a cocked hat. There is a difference...and while not earth-shaking, it isn't subtle.

The bottom line is that the separated-224 placement elicits more overall detail, more impactful, better-defined bass (thereby lending more foundational weight to a given performance), and a somewhat greater sense of intra-soundstage space (assuming that the performers haven't been hard-panned into the confines of one speaker or the other).

In this instance--and I put it that way because I consider my experience as descriptive of a particular setup rather than one-size-fits-all prescriptive--it appears that the separated-panel placement more effectively mitigates the SBIR presented by the dresser than the single 244 which leaves a larger reflective surface immediately adjacent to each speaker.

Jim

And a "height matters" p.s....
 

Having set the 224s atop DIY 4½"-tall "stands" (read "cut-to-size wood scraps") so the traps cover the full height of the dresser, I decided to elevate the sitting-on-the-floor first- and second-reflection-point 244s an equal amount.

Since I have lots of wood scraps, I did it just for the heck of it and didn't expect to hear any difference. When I flop on the bed for a listening session, my ear height is about 41", and a flush-to-the-floor mounting puts the 244's top at 48". So, even discounting the panel's ¾" frame thickness, that leaves the "un-standed" 244's absorptive surface extending about 6¼" above my ears. More than enough, right, to deal with the chest-high curtained window on one side and a louvered-wood-closet door on the other?

Uh-uh.

I ran listening comparison tests, using a DSD128 download of Antal Dorati conducting Igor Stravinsky's Firebird (Mercury), a 16/44 rip of Eije Oue conducting the final movement of Aaron Copland's Third Symphony (Reference Recordings), a 16/44 rip of the "Rhythm" movement of Eric Coates' Four Centuries (ASV), a DXD download of William Steinberg conducting the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica") (Command), and a 16/44 rip of Sarah Vaughan singing "Fascinating Rhythm" from her collaboration with Michael Tilson Thomas in Gershwin Live (Columbia).

In each instance, I heard greater focus and clarity and a bit more bass solidity with the 244s elevated on their makeshift stands. The differences were significant enough to rule out confirmation bias as a factor.

I also didn't hear any static. I told my wife what I was up to, she took one look at the elevated 244s, and said, "Oh." That was it. So now I'm going to fashion permanent stands out of some decent red oak.

As always, I present this as descriptive of this particular listening environment and not one-size-fits-all prescriptive. Well, except for maybe one thing. I've always found an understanding significant other to be indispensable with this sort of thing.

Jim

Amazing how many ways sound can be improved. And by tiny increments.

In some respects, audio, like football, is a game of inches.

Now that the trap configuration is set, I'll turn to building a lower-profile, shallower equipment rack to reduce what I can of left-front SBIR.

"...a game of inches..."
 

The next step in my "Stonehenge-the-Bedroom-System" project focused on the following question:

Would a change from this...

http://jimtranr.com/Old_Rack_2.png

to this...

http://jimtranr.com/New_Rack.png

effect a perceptible improvement, if any, in what I hear at my bed-top listening position? If so, to what extent? And would the improvement warrant continuation to the next step, an attempt to reduce SBIR further by replacing the equipment cabinet with an open-frame "flexy" rack to present even less reflective surface, particularly from the rack's right side, to the close-aboard left speaker?

The change you see in the two photos was accomplished by lopping the top five inches off the cabinet (including the cabinet top) with a portable Skil saw.

That lowered the laptop (and its opened-out-during-playback reflective screen) about six inches. The chop job also allowed me to lower the left-corner 244 two-and-a-half inches so that it now hangs at the same height as the front wall's center Monster and right 244 and lowers it relative to the left Paradigm Studio 20 so the speaker "sees" a tad more of the 244's absorptive surface behind it.

I frankly didn't expect to hear much, if any, difference in the sonic presentation, since the laptop's open screen still presents a substantial reflective surface immediately behind the speaker.

Whoops, was I ever surprised. No, the bedroom wasn't transformed into the Concertgebouw as I listened to familiar rips and hi-rez downloads with the "five-inch tweak" in play. But more instrumental and spatial-cue detail became evident on the left side, "opening up" the overall presentation and rendering it a more coherent whole, both laterally and fore-and-aft, increasing the sensation of "step into the soundstage and touch someone" where the mixing engineer hasn't gone pan-pot crazy.

Well worth the sawing and sanding time...and an impossible-to-ignore incentive to get cracking on the open-frame rack.

Jim

One last thing that had to be done...via DIY
 

Preface: Because this last project was DIY, I considered posting it as a new item in the Acoustical Treatment forum. But since the project itself completes the treatment of the bedroom audio system as a minor supplement to the existing GIK installation, I'm posting it here to put it in its overall context.

The bedroom audio system's original acoustic treatment complement was predicated on the assumption that the two jewel cases parked atop the dresser on either side of the center Monster would eventually be moved out of the room. But after due consideration, my wife concluded that for practical reasons the cases would stay where they were. As suggested by the first photo, the proximity of each case to its respective speaker presents a not insignificant SBIR problem.

http://jimtranr.com/Mini_Trap_case.jpg

I knew going in that covering each case with an appropriately-dimensioned 3/4"-thick slab of on-hand packing foam was hardly a solution, though I soldiered on with that yeah-they're-only-there-for-looks arrangement for several weeks before deciding that I had to get real.

Based on an earlier email discussion with Bryan Pape regarding the SBIR issue presented by the dresser's massive wooden front which resulted in the purchase of two 2'x2' 244s, I decided that I'd need a 12"x15" rough equivalent of a 244 to front each jewel case. My wife rolled her eyes...but ultimately it came down to "Okay, Jim, if that's what you really want."

With DeWalt table and miter saws in my tiny basement workshop, a heavy-duty Stanley staple gun, a scrap hardboard panel to square-form the fabric cover, and an old futon frame from which to cadge pine slats I could fashion into a basic frame, I figured I could go DIY. I ordered a single 2"-thick 2'x4' Knauf 6 PCF acoustic "board" and then went off to the local Jo-Ann Fabric store. There I got some muslin ticking and a host of other-customer funny looks (I was the only male in the store) as I held up bolts of cloth to the light to get an idea of their acoustic transparency.

Here's the back end of one of the workshop results.

http://jimtranr.com/Mini_Trap_Back_1a.jpg

The front end with two Knauf batts, one behind the other, forming a 4" trap. In cutting the Knauf panel, I found a utility knife useful only to perform the initial scoring of the surface. Using a hacksaw gave me the reasonably square cuts I was able to make.

http://jimtranr.com/Mini_Trap_Front_1.jpg

The trap covered. I did the get-it-tight stapling, but my wife's the real hero in figuring out how to fold the excess fabric corner-tight and then doing it like the good sport she is.

http://jimtranr.com/Mini_Trap_covered.jpg

Finally, how the new traps fit in the big picture. Please pardon the tilt--I shot this while sprawled out on the bed.

http://jimtranr.com/Mini_Trap_Bedroom_1.jpg

The end sonic result? Nothing subtle about it. Much better, woolly-free bass definition. Better overall sonic resolution. And, where the recordings embed it, a greater sense of space.

Happiness is...

Jim

Any possibility of too much absorption and too little diffusion up front?

If the speakers were dipoles, that might be an issue. But to these ears, the front-wall trap configuration doesn't deaden, darken, or close up the sonic presentation. To the contrary--and this may seem counterintuitive--there's more ambient and upper-frequency "air" evident in well-recorded program with the new "mini" traps in place. I attribute that to the clearing out of low-end "mud" that obscured to at least some degree what was occurring further up the frequency ladder.

Note that the room isn't quite 'enry 'iggins' undiscovered tomb. Scatter-plated 244s are on the rear wall, and the closet to my listening-position right is fronted by wood-slatted folding doors that also provide some scattering.

Jim