I’ve probably said it in the forums before, but I have trouble trusting any reviewer who doesn’t have some sort of sound treatment in their listening room. Especially when it comes to small improvements like cables - I can see being able to review big improvements like jumping from a common DAC to the DirectStream, but I’m still skeptical of people without room treatment.
That said, I’m wondering if anyone has tried some real diffusers, QRD, Skyline, 1D, 2D, whatever. I design and build my own, and have a few in my listening room on the back wall (and plenty of absorbers, but anyone can build a simple absorber - again, no excuse not to have some!). But I’m working on a design for a pretty serious, broadband diffuser that should work from about 275Hz to 12kHz, be about 1’ deep and roughly 3’ by 3’ each. Ultimately I hope to build 24 of these and replace all my smaller diffusers around the room and hopefully shape the sound and improve the imaging at least twofold. Just curious what anyone else has in their room?
I love the math, design, and execution of QRD diffusers. I’ve been building them on and off for about 15 years - and I have kind of a collection of images I’ve found on the web if anyone is curious.
http://lonelyraven.zenfolio.com/p968463117
A couple pictures of my past projects:
Some 4" deep QRD diffusers I built about 14 years ago. I still have them around.
Some flutter breaking diffusers I made, using some recovered and re-purposed vintage oak stair treads.
The back wall of my home theater/listening room.
I have some 2D QRD diffusers I’ve built as well, but I don’t think I have much in the way of photos of them. These are in the RPG style. Some of these are RPG I picked up from a defunct studio, some are my own. I cloned them pretty well, but I don’t care for them very much.
Oh yeah, I also have some of this 3D Wallpaper they call it. It’s made from recycled card board. I basically use it as flutter breaking “diffuser”, though it’s not a proper math designed diffuser, it helps when you get nasty flutter echos between parallel walls.
Lots of fun stuff…sometimes I think I should go back to school and get a degree in acoustics - but IT work is paying decently for me, so why change now. LOL