What product to reduce treble?
 

What product to reduce treble?

Long narrow room, ~1000 sq ft ~20 ft x 50 ft, and open on one side to a big hall and staircase. A lot of glass windows (with plantation shutters) along the right wall, I have no room treatments yet.
The room is carpeted.

The room drowns bass, the mids are thin, the treble is strong.

Am I looking for absorption? Or diffusion and absorption?

And if I use absorption panels will it take away the treble only? Or will it reduce the mids too?

Where are your speakers - How far from back and side walls.
Where's your listening chair - whats the distance between your ear and the speakers.
Id turn off the centre channel for the moment and just work with left and right.

Sonus Faber's dont like to be placed too close to rear wall.
With a 20ft wide wall, try placing your speakers 5.5ft from side walls and 8.9ft from rear wall.

Start with your chair about 7ft back from the centre point between the two front woofers.
Toe in the speakers so you have a straight line from your tweeter to about 6inches outside of each ear.

Sit and listen. Slowly move the chair closer and see if you like the way it sounds.The bass should be more integrated with the mids and highs and centre image more defined.

Report your findings.

Aside from the placement advice I would look at absorption (corners, behind listening position, and first point of reflection. This was the advice given to me by GIK Acoustics when I treated my room.

+1

Owens Corning 703.

No findings yet. I'm not moving them around as I had them master set by a company that specializes in it. He's coming back out tomorrow to adjust them for me.
Right now this is how they are set up:
Left side is 11" from rear wall, 43" from left wall
Right side is 19" from rear wall, 42" from right wall.

Most of the rear wall is a cut out nook that allows a 4 bay salamander A/V cabinet to recess that is 24" deep.

Before the Masterset guy came, I had my O3s somewhere between 30-36" off the rear wall.

I'm also at the mercy of a home theater system. If my speakers are too far back, that would put my chair back into where my pool table is. The room is irregular shaped. Too close inward and I'll be covering the screen.

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/attach...p;d=1507935819

Although it doesn't show it, the majority of the right wall has windows.

I had a demo today. My Masterset speaker guy came in for adjustments, and he brought some art novion panels with him.

Within seconds he noticed something was wrong. Someone disconnected the right speaker and reconnected it backwards out of phase.

He got rid of some of the harsh treble, but he admits most of the music I like is recorded too bright. When he was happy releveling the speaker so the tweeter had a better aim, we then tested with absorption panels and bass traps.

Absorption panels reduced the glaring highs and allowed me to hear more detail. It didn't do much, but it was a clear step in the right direction.

Then he put in 4 small 4x2 bass traps in different corners up front. I noticed it was better, but he felt like it was a full octave deeper. Too me the bass line was more pronounced, more balanced with the song. It also brought out the mids, which improved the vocalists voice tone, and the melody of the song was now louder.

Is the equipment listed in your signature correct? If so your problem probably has more to do with the fact that you have audiophile speakers but home theater electronics.

The Rotel piece is in a separate room. But yes, MX122 and MC8207 are home theater electronics, and the Sonus Faber too is considered part of a "multichannel system" by their own classification. http://www.sonusfaber.com/en-us/products When the MX160 replacement comes out I'll be upgrading.

Some of the music I like is recorded bright. It doesn't sound bright in a car, but in high end audio it is. One difference is that it's slightly brighter in my system than the dedicated 2 channels that easily cost triple the price, but the real problem is the harshness I'm hearing in the treble.

When I'm standing near the nook/cove talking to my Masterset guy there is an extreme echo and I'm only 12 feet away from him.

The 2 small absorption panels took some of the treble down, and they were 2x4 each so it wasn't a lot of treatment for a huge room but they made a huge difference. He only had 2 2'x4' absorption panels and 4 2'x4' bass traps with him, but it was perfect for a proof of concept. Also considering that the bass traps recovered more bass and brought out more mids the system seemed more balanced so it nearly cured the problem with about half the treatments. I was impressed that it could do so much with so few panels, my Master Set guy was expecting more change than what he heard.

Also my cables have a harshness in them too which I've learned from cable demos with Nordost. Nordost IC cables have more detail in the highs without making it brighter, if anything it's smoother and less harsh in the upper frequencies. I'm borrowing a loaner set of Analysis Plus speaker cables which are considerably less harsh than than my Blue Jeans cable, but I got to demo some Nordost yesterday too and while it's a tad brighter than Analysis Plus, Nordost is more clear, and less harsh.

I ended up ordering a full loom of Nordost. It should come in 2 weeks.