Deadening the Front Wall

I had a very enjoyable phone call with Bryan from GiK last week. After reviewing my theater layout he made some suggestions.

First, he recommended that the side surrounds be at least 38% of the total room length from the rear wall. With my room being about 20 ft long, that would mean that my rear seating should be around 7 ft from the back wall. Currently I am only at 4 ft. This would take some major adjustment to the seating to make this happen, but I will consider it.

Second, he suggested that all speakers should be set to SMALL, except the mains, with a cross-over of 80 Hz. By doing this, I could use the two Pro-Subs in the rear for the redirected bass and LFE. That may help balance the room once the MFW arrives as I was planning on putting that up front.

Third, he suggested that the front wall should be deadened. We discussed the need for some reflective area directly behind the bi-pole towers (7001's). The reasoning is to absorb any of the center sound that may be bouncing off the front row. This reflection can cause a muddy sound, especially during dialog.

After giving it some consideration, I decided to go half-way and add 2 inch cotton baffles behind the screen. This will absorb much of the reflected sound, but still give the towers some area to bounce. I spend last evening mounting the panels and moving the screen out from the wall by 2 inches. Tonight I will recalibrate the room and see if this was helpful or if it deadened the room too much. The front surface of the screen should allow some reflectance, and the insulation behind the screen will absorb most of the mid-high that passes through. This seemed like a fair compromise to me. A diffuser could be added behind the towers, but that is something for another day. The Tri-Traps should ship the end of this week, and arrive the following week. I plan on placing them in the corners of the rear wall.