Geek with Family

My DIY acoustic panels project is on hold until I can breathe again (nothing like a cold over Labor Day weekend). I've built the wooden frames but haven't begun to work with the fiberglass because I can't imagine coughing through a respirator. So, to feel like I was making progress I threw together two Jon Risch Quick and Dirty Bass Traps (scroll down to "New Quick & Dirty Recipe").

You construct the the bass traps by just stacking a few bags of fiberglass insulation and shoving them in the corners of your listening room (that's the quick and dirty part). I bought four bags of the cheapest insulation my local Home Depot sold: R-13, 3.5 inch kraft faced, 15 inch wide rolls. The rolls' dimensions while rolled up in their bags is approximately 23" wide by 16" diameter. I stacked them one on top of the other by the long dimension and duct taped the middle of the pairs together, making one long piece 46" x 16". I then placed them in the front corners of the room for instant bass traps.

Of course, my wife (or I) didn't think this looked very good. Plus raw bags of fiberglass insulation isn't exactly kid safe. I needed to cover the bags with something at least semi-attractive. The original DIY recipe calls for a polyester batting and burlap wrap like the acoustic panels. I decided against the burlap for now because I only have enough fabric and batting for my panels and I didn't want to learn how to sew a seam around a cylinder. Also according to acoustic theory fabric selection and reflectance doesn't matter for bass absorption under 400 Hz.

I initially bought the small bags of insulation to fit inside some canvas pop-up cylinder hampers from Target. They were expensive at $14.99 each and I needed four. I couldn't find any at local Targets and shipping for the hampers was $35 from the online store. So Target was out. I found a similar hamper at Ikea, but it looked like it was made of plastic and translucent (no good for hiding the fiberglass). While browsing the same section of the store I found the Skubb Clothes Tidy.

I bought two black Skubbs, one for each corner trap. The Skubb has a zipper opening the full length of the front and flat plastic inserts on the top and bottom to retain its shape. With lots of shoving and hopping I inserted the insulation rolls into the Skubbs and placed each one in my front corners. They need to settle against the corner to stay standing up. The Skubb shell fits loosely around the fiberglass rolls, I may want to find rolls with slightly bigger dimensions. With the zipper closed you'd never know they had rolls of insulation inside, you might just think I had body bags sitting in the corners of my home theater.

The Skubb bass traps still don't meet with permanent WAF approval, I have to remove them when not in use. They serve their purpose by containing the fiberglass rolls in an easy to change wrapper, no sewing involved.

I'm in the middle of measuring the room's acoustics with Room Eq Wizard. Once I figure out what I'm doing I'll post measurements of the bass trap's effects.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 11:30 am and is filed under Room Setup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.