Room Accoustics

[92135011]

Hi everyone,
I'm moving my room downstairs, but before I can do so, renovation is going to take place because the place looks like crap right now. What kind of room treatments are suggested in the building of the room?

things I can think of right now:

carpet or hardwood.
insulated walls or not

any other suggestions are welcome

[Woochifer]

Corner bass traps, carpeting helps, so does furniture. Strategically placed acoustic panels work very well. What you really want to avoid is a room full of nothing but hard reflective surfaces. Anything else that's needed depends on the room itself, and how extreme you're willing to go with getting the room acoustics done right (most people would rather not have their living room look like a recording studio). It might help to actually get a professional in and do some measurements to see what fixes might be needed.

[92135011]

but the problem is im also going to be living and sleeping in that room, so I will have some constraints. Probably cant make it a super sound room. Just want to do what I can to improve it. Right now, its got some ugly thin wooden boards that only covers the frame of the room, but no insulation. The end result is some crazy echo causes a ring 1-2 seconds long when clapping or other loud noises. Pretty sure everything would sound horrible in that room.

BTW, whats a bass trap?

[Woochifer]

but the problem is im also going to be living and sleeping in that room, so I will have some constraints. Probably cant make it a super sound room. Just want to do what I can to improve it. Right now, its got some ugly thin wooden boards that only covers the frame of the room, but no insulation. The end result is some crazy echo causes a ring 1-2 seconds long when clapping or other loud noises. Pretty sure everything would sound horrible in that room.

BTW, whats a bass trap?

Sounds like you need a very cushy sofa and a thick rug to start with. The high and mid frequencies can be controlled using acoustic panels. Try some of Floyd Toole's white papers on room acoustics if you want an intro to some of the concepts.

http://www.harman.com/wp/index.jsp?articleId=default

Bass traps are acoustic devices that redirect the bass frequencies so that the corner does not amplify them back towards the room like a horn. Links below.

http://www.auralex.com/bass_traps_lenrd/bass_traps_lenrd.asp
http://www.realtraps.com/
http://www.acousticsciences.com/tubetrap.htm