ASC Tube Traps Are The Real Deal

[Michael TubeTrap]

Originally Posted by chessman

Dan ... I do not have the waterfall graphs to prove it, but by ear I am sure that the decay times have really evened out. The sudden "lock" into realistic sounding is what has me so jazzed about these tube traps. I think the first order harmonics of the bass notes were muddying up the mid-range, which is why 11's are working when theory says 24's. The subs are not on for music, which is another reason I am getting away with the 11's. Getting 24's would be wretched excess ... like that has ever stopped me.

Randy, you might be surprised at what your waterfall graphs shows you, or rather doesn't show you. TubeTraps were first invented based on sound science, but because the company took off so quickly, it took founder Art Noxon a while before he could do a lot of testing and experimentation. Being both an engineer and a physicist, his test results were puzzling. His invention clearly improved the playback in listening rooms, everyone agreed, A/B comparisons left no doubt. Yet, most tests showed very little change in the room's acoustics. For instance, the typical improvement in frequency response was usually a dB or two, not enough to account for the dramatic improvement listeners heard. It was almost as if this scientist's invention worked by magic! Wouldn't that have been ironic.

What we have since learned is this: most traditional acoustics are based on steady-state tones, in a room that is "fully pressurized". A musical note is made of an attack transient (and release), a sustain, then a decay. Testing is typically based on the sustain phase, or the decay of a note (such as RT60). No traditional room acoustics test deals with the attack transient/release, before the room is fully charged up with sound pressure.

The one standardized test that Art found that seemed to correlate with his invention's improvements was a test for articulation, from the speech pathology world. It is the basis for our Music Articulation or MATT test. This is a series of rapid tones, with silence between. It allows you to hear what your room does to the attack and release phase of musical-length notes.

If you listen on headphones, you hear a series of pulses with silence between, sweeping through bass and midrange frequencies. Headphones don't have acoustics issues. Listen to your sound system, and you'll hear where your room slurs together those same pulses. Your room may only slur part of the test range, and part may play well. For TubeTrap owners that report their music now sounds so much better, they can remove the Tubes from the room, run the test, and hear where slurring occurs. They can put the Tubes back in, run the test again, and hear how the slurring has been reduced or eliminated.

You can find the MATT test on the Stereophile Test CD2, or download it for free from our website here. We offer a service where we'll take your recorded test and analyze it, provide you a printout, etc, but the greatest value we have found is by having people just listen, for free.

Michael Adams

[hkval]

Originally Posted by Michael TubeTrap

Howard, we'll take care of you on your panels, don't worry. I'm curious, though, which way did the chrome buttons end up facing for the best sound?

For those who don't know, the front half of the Tube (where the chrome button is) is covered with a treble diffusing panel, while the back isn't. This makes the Tubes adjustable, either directing ambiance one or another, or simply absorbing everything. It can take some experimenting to hear where the best balance is, and that is what Howard worked on.

Michael Adams

Hi Michael,
I moved top only and then bottom only and then both and every variation I could come up with. One position - buttons aiming to listener's left and listner's right - dramatically increased the soundstage and detailed bass definition. Most important is the ability to adjust the traps almost infinitely to achieve your individual goals.
You are not getting them back and my wife loves the look.
Howard

[Masterlu]

I think everyone knows I am a huge fan of ASC products.

[stump]

Im ready for room treatments
Going by the ASC Tube narrow long room recommendation I would be looking at $17,000 plus postage to deck out my room. Short term that is a lot of money to spend but in the long term given the way house capital gains jumps would make it a good investment if it works as well as some of the reviews I've read.Given the high cost of Tubes ,have you seen comparisons with other products like Realtraps-Primacoustic or other Bass Trap companies where you spend the same amount of money and have compared the results...
Im in Australia and we have no dealers here.So shipping cost will add to the price.
My room is 10ft wide 30ft long and 9ft high.The window next to speakers will be blanked off and the Turntable in the back corner can be moved.
Eamonn Australia

[Masterlu]

Welcome stump!

ASC products truly are the best, and I have tried many others.

[Michael TubeTrap]

Stump,
When one looks up "long skinny room" in the encyclopedia, it should be your room we all see! I'll answer this in stages, since you have brought forth some excellent points and I want to do them all justice.

"Postage" to Australia is steep, as we manufacture Tubes full of air. Light fluffy things pay top freight, since they fill cargo space quickly. There are a couple shipping strategies, though. A single pallet of (4) 16x4 Tubes can cost almost as much to ship as a small container with 50-100 Tubes, so sometimes it pays to think big. Combining with someone, especially someone that wants to ship amplifiers (small heavy dense) can work, both end up enjoying lower costs. And oddly enough, we have found that folks on the west side of the Pacific seem to get cheaper shipping rates than we can on the east side, even though the destinations are the same. More in the next post.

Michael Adams
michael@acousticsciences.com

[Michael TubeTrap]

I just had a quick chat with Art Noxon (the TubeTrap inventor) about your room, and here is what he suggested:

"As much as you may like those speakers, please switch them out for a pair of Magnepans or Martin-Logans, or some other good dipole."

The noise (signal masking early reflections) generated by lateral (side-to-side) and vertical buildup is 12-15dB louder than the direct sound off the front of your speaker. Let me say that again: the sideways and vertical dispersion from your speaker will mask the direct sound you want to hear by 12-15dB!!!! That is why there are so many Tubes clustered around the speaker on our diagram. We are trying to absorb 12-15dB in the attack phase (first 16th of a second) of each note.

Planar speakers don't stimulate vertical or lateral buildup the way all box speakers do.

This advice also means we are saying "don't spend $17k with us". Now, you're always welcome to get a large pile of acoustics from ASC, but we'd prefer to start with advice for good sound, whatever that might be. Sometimes it means we ask people to turn their rooms 90 degrees. Sometimes we ask to move a speaker or chair. And sometimes we suggest a different approach entirely.

There are lots of reasons why you chose your speakers, and we respect that. We have that design posted because others have thanked us for our advice and then asked "if I DON'T get Maggies, what are my options?".

And for those who don't know exactly what is being discussed, I'm attaching the room drawing that I believe Stump has referred to. We have a number of room layouts posted on our website here.

Tomorrow I'll go deeper into the other questions Stump raised. But I'll leave this game-changer on the table overnight.

Michael Adams
michael@acousticsciences.com

[stump]

Thanks Mike
I do have a local importer who imports cars from Los Angeles.I have been using him to import heavy machine parts and will see him regards the Tubes.Given your experience in setting up different size rooms what would you suggest for me to do my room .My main aim is to get a better sound stage .From what I have read the more Tubes the better.With this info I was considering doing it in 2-3 stages.Although the ceilings are 9foot ,to fit under the widow curtain rail I was going to use tubes 7foot high.
In my mud map I put 7foot 24inch Tubes in the back corners -7 foot 13inch tubes at the first reflection point (light switch corner end of window) 7 foot 13inch tubes at second reflection point (next to front door)
As mentioned before I will blank off the big window with insulation and wood panels,corner turntable rack can be removed and also plan to build a 7foot tall 10 inch wide cabinet opposite side of the window light switch to balance the step out in the wall.
While writing this your last post just popped up.Your advice regards Planar speakers would be more suitable to my type of room makes a lot of sense and thanks for your honest input.Not being familiar which these speakers gives me a bit more reading to do.Cheers
Eamonn

[Michael TubeTrap]

Ah, a friend that ships heavy things! He could become our newest BFF soon.

We spend a lot of time working through all the "what goes where" questions with drawings, photos, and a fair amount of dialogue. Every room and person's constraints are different, and we have to respect all those. Anyone can contact me directly or go to our website and fill out a contact form.

But, this is a forum, and I wanted to provide useful information for all. I took the drawing from our website and marked up brief descriptions of why each set of Tubes is where it is. If I did things right, it is attached to this post.

Michael Adams
michael@acousticsciences.com

[Masterlu]

Great advice Michael, thanks!