What Tube Traps really do!

[Alberto]

Not to take anything away from Tube Traps and similar products, but one thing that the description does not seem to take into account is that many (most?) speaker manufacturers take the "backward projections" of the bass into account when they design the speaker and the cross-over.

I had a set of 6 bass traps in my room and they did have an effect, but it was not as pronounced as I was hoping (I measured it with a very good hw+sw spectrum/sweep analyzer.

If they were smaller and less obtrusive in design (I know it's hard to do given the physics of the wavelengths at which they have to operate), I would probably still have them but I did not like the way my room looked with them so out they went.

With a nice dedicated room designed to take them into account (like PHC1) they look very nice however.

Alberto

[kach22i]

I seem to recall tubetraps in dipolar panel loudspeaker setups.


There must be an article on that as well.

Visually they look good stacked in my opinion, but they often recommend stacking diffetent diameters together and then the aesthetics fall apart.

[Tim Link]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

Here is a simple yet informative explanation.

Tube Traps do benefit dipole speakers as well. As a matter of fact, the first Tube Traps Art made were specifically requested to go behind some Magnepans at our local hifi dealer, Bradford's. That was before he had any idea he'd be selling them in large numbers some day.
There are a variety of things that TubeTraps can do. One is they damp the bass resonances in the room, quieting them down more quickly which results in improved clarity. This can be measured using our MATT test. A C50 test in REW may also show this improvement. This can be heard and measured with as few as four 13" x 3' TubeTraps in the front corners of the room.

Other possible benefits include high frequency diffusion and absorption of first reflection points to improve imaging, along with use of a center trap to adjust center image focus.

[Mike-48]

Originally Posted by Alberto

[...]I had a set of 6 bass traps in my room and they did have an effect, but it was not as pronounced as I was hoping (I measured it with a very good hw+sw spectrum/sweep analyzer.[...]

I've done some measuring, too, and I've never seen more than a 1-2 dB change from using bass traps.

Yet they make the sound better -- a LOT better -- by reducing and evening the reverberation time. That's what bass trapping really helps with, IME.

[PHC1]

Tube traps in corners, in the conventional rectangular/square rooms=Tighter focused/more palpable center imaging and on recordings with hard L/R panned material, the instruments are also better fleshed out/more palpable outside the boundaries of speakers. Has anyone heard speakers projecting images that appear to break the physical boundaries of the room both L/R and beyond the front listening wall? You never will without treated corners.

When I was a college student and could not afford tube traps, I asked a female friend to sew me a “sleeve” of material that I then stuffed with acoustic speaker filling and pinned it to the corners of the room, floor to ceiling with matching triangular “pillows” for wall/ceiling corners. Huge improvement in coherence and focus. Artificial plants on stands in strategic places to tame early reflections did the trick. It was a very good sounding room with very little $$$ expenditure.

[brownbear]

I just installed a pair of Iso-Thermal Tube Traps in my front corners and all I can say is WOW! I just went with a pair of 3 footers to start so I'm only covering the bottom of the corners. I must have had some serious bad bass waves leaking into the corners because it is now tightened down nicely and allows those beautiful mids to shine even more. I can't believe I waited this long, but I have a long front wall where the corners and side walls are far from my speakers. I thought it wasn't coming into play, boy was I wrong. I'm a happy camper right now.

[Weirdcuba]

I added floor to ceiling iso thermals in my room and it made a HUGE difference. Well worth it (although those things aren’t cheap).