DIY Roomlens: H*** F***ing S**t

I've been looking for them on Audiogon, but I got sick of waiting and couldn't get myself to pay such amount.

To make one unit, I ended up paying $0.75 for lumber and $14 for PVC pipes (3ct).

2"x4"x8' - cut them into 3.5" squares and cut out 2 3/8" holes.
2"x8"x8 - Cut them into 8 sections of 12" width.
5 ft, 2" PVC pipes, but they are not equal in legth as seem below.
Wood glue - non euphoric :out:

These things are no joke.
Sound is crystal clear and free from coloration.
I had expected and wanted sound stage to be bigger, but that has not been the case. Again, sound stage NOT bigger but freakishly clear. I imagine this is due to elimination of flutter echo and disperson of higher freq.


I have enough suppliers to make 5 more units so I plan to add another pair on the outside of speakers, 1 in the front center, and 2 behind my seating positions.
I haven't had chance to stuff them with polyerster stuffings, but not sure if I'll even mess with it. I'll be sure to cap off the ends though.


http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/.../DSC000171.JPG

http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/...0/DSC00013.JPG

http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/...Y_Roomlens.JPG

http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/...Roomlens_2.JPG


:biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5:
JRA

Cool...I've got a ton of scrap plywood and PVC sitting in my garage I was actually going to toss....hmmm....something else to build and put in my room to piss the wife off...mwa ha ha ha...

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

These things are no joke.
Sound is crystal clear and free from coloration.
I had expected and wanted sound stage to be bigger, but that has not been the case. Again, sound stage NOT bigger but freakishly clear. I imagine this is due to elimination of flutter echo and disperson of higher freq.

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Appologies for the dumb question, but how do these work?

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Originally Posted by kexodusc

Cool...I've got a ton of scrap plywood and PVC sitting in my garage I was actually going to toss....hmmm....something else to build and put in my room to piss the wife off...mwa ha ha ha...

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Yeah, they do look hideous upclose. I think it's time for the "Krylon touch". If it look marginally better than the MACCO job, I would be satisfied.

If you can get away with above monstrosity, then you may want to give it a strong consideration.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nightflier

Appologies for the dumb question, but how do these work?

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I think I should Copy & Paste reviews on the web, but my non-educated guess would be:

"non-flat surface scatters sound more dispersedly than a flat surface.".

I'm pretty sure I'm wrong, but I know they work absolutely work in my room.
Since the tubes are spaced .75 to 1.5" apart, I don't think they cover the entire audible band.

Thanks jrhymeammo:
I had looked at those things in reviews and wondered about them.:confused5: I thought they were outrageously overpriced.:crazy: Your solution is so cheap I've really got nothing to loose. I'm going to make some for myself. Thanks again!

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Originally Posted by JoeE SP9

Thanks jrhymeammo:
I had looked at those things in reviews and wondered about them.:confused5: I thought they were outrageously overpriced.:crazy: Your solution is so cheap I've really got nothing to loose. I'm going to make some for myself. Thanks again!

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As you said, you really have nothing to lose.
I imagine you'll benefit more than me, due to your speaker design.
Be sure to make them look better than mine, but that shouldn't be too hard.
Also, the pipes I used wasn't PVC but ABS pipes. Different acoustics between the 2? Who knows.

JRA

Is the length critical? Or, should I just let artistic freedom determine the length? I'm thinking some asymmetry is probably a good thing.

What about for those of us who own maggies?

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Originally Posted by JoeE SP9

Is the length critical? Or, should I just let artistic freedom determine the length? I'm thinking some asymmetry is probably a good thing.

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If I had to guess Asymmetry is a good thing.

I would say the length is important for very tall speakers such as yours, but the spacing between the pipes may be more critical.
I just shoved in 5' pipes since the Roomlens came with 5' PVC pipes. If I had speakers you do, I would go with some 8' pipes and place them behind and outside of your giant speakers. From what I've gathered off the net, it seems pipes are not spaced equally to allow disperson of wider frequency. If you can cut out a precise 2 3/8" holes, don't glue in the pipes. If you glue them in you won't be able to make spacing adjustment.

Are you going to make a few yourself'?

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Originally Posted by nightflier

What about for those of us who own maggies?

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I hope you and others will try this out. I wish I had these when I had a pair of Maggies. I don't care for their tone, but I believe the imagining would've been much nicer.
I imagine they would work nicely, especially behind your Magnepan in an angle.

Perhaps E-Stat can chime in. I believe he used a have a real set.

JRA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

If I had to guess Asymmetry is a good thing.

I would say the length is important for very tall speakers such as yours, but the spacing between the pipes may be more critical.
I just shoved in 5' pipes since the Roomlens came with 5' PVC pipes. If I had speakers you do, I would go with some 8' pipes and place them behind and outside of your giant speakers. From what I've gathered off the net, it seems pipes are not spaced equally to allow disperson of wider frequency. If you can cut out a precise 2 3/8" holes, don't glue in the pipes. If you glue them in you won't be able to make spacing adjustment.

Are you going to make a few yourself'?

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What giant speakers?:confused5: They are less than 6 feet tall 2 1/2 inches thick and only 22 inches wide.:smilewinkgrin: Oh, you must mean E-Stat.:lol: He has some really big ones.:D

Yes I am going to give them a try. I'm figuring heights from 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 feet not including the bases. Rather than use 3 separate blocks for each one. I'm going to use one long piece. I'll cut and drill several with different spacing so I can experiment.

BTW: If anyone is interested, I picked up a couple of power cords. Report/review to come. No snap judgments here. It sometimes takes a while to hear cable differences. I expect the same thing with power cords. That is, if I hear a difference.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

Perhaps E-Stat can chime in. I believe he used a have a real set.

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Hi JRA. Actually, I made mine using a recipe by Greg Weaver. The *real* Argent flavor tunes the various pipes to different frequencies by stuffing them with varying amounts of batting. I forgot the actual recommendations as I did this years ago and I can no longer find the original build link. Jon Risch' room treatment website has some suggestions.

Frankly, I stopped using them years ago. I'm not saying they don't work but I do believe the results are system specific especially as to the type of speaker used. It seems they work best with conventional dynamic speakers with wide dispersion characteristics. Electrostats, on the other hand, are fundamentally directional and my experience was they just didn't help the image much. I would also qualify my comments by saying that I only used them in addition to the numerous bass traps I have which themselves provide some diffusion. Some Maggie users like them. Here is when I used them with the older Acoustats (and before I covered the traps):

http://home.cablelynx.com/~rhw/audio/room1004.jpg

I did try them more recently in my current house with the Sound Labs, but the result was similar. The fake ficus trees and traps do the imaging trick and as importantly, smoothen the bass response:

http://home.cablelynx.com/~rhw/audio/room0109.jpg
http://home.cablelynx.com/~rhw/audio/traps.jpg
rw

Quote:

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Originally Posted by E-Stat

Hi JRA. Actually, I made mine using a recipe by Greg Weaver. The *real* Argent flavor tunes the various pipes to different frequencies by stuffing them with varying amounts of batting. I forgot the actual recommendations as I did this years ago and I can no longer find the original build link. Jon Risch' room treatment website has some suggestions.

Frankly, I stopped using them years ago. I'm not saying they don't work but I do believe the results are system specific especially as to the type of speaker used. It seems they work best with conventional dynamic speakers with wide dispersion characteristics. Electrostats, on the other hand, are fundamentally directional and my experience was they just didn't help the image much. I would also qualify my comments by saying that I only used them in addition to the numerous bass traps I have which themselves provide some diffusion. Some Maggie users like them. Here is when I used them with the older Acoustats (and before I covered the traps):



I did try them more recently in my current house with the Sound Labs, but the result was similar. The fake ficus trees and traps do the imaging trick and as importantly, smoothen the bass response:


rw

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Thanks for your insight E-Stat.
Knowing your persistence, I assume you tried every positions imaginable.

Couple of questions.

Was that the best sounding position/angle in your environment?
Did you use 1.5" pipes instead of 2", or are 2+2s just enormous?

JRA

Also, I have question about your curent room. Did you deliberately alter the top edge of your front and rear walls? (Turning 90 degree corners into two 135 degree corners).

You truly have a great looking room. I would love to hear your system one day.

JRA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

Was that the best sounding position/angle in your environment?

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I tried a number of combinations, but was largely guided by the Argent guidelines

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

Did you use 1.5" pipes instead of 2", or are 2+2s just enormous?

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Well, both. :) I used 2" pipes and the 2+2s are 7'10" tall !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

Also, I have question about your curent room. Did you deliberately alter the top edge of your front and rear walls? (Turning 90 degree corners into two 135 degree corners).

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Just dumb luck. The house was built in the 70s and I haven't made any changes. That implies good news and bad news. A doctor had it custom built and it is exceptionally well made. I commissioned an electrician to run three clean power lines to the listening room (actually a large upstairs bedroom). After he and his son tried for an hour, he gave me the bad news. The walls used fire stops which prevented him from being able to drop lines down from the attic. No dice. He did, however, tell me that they just don't build houses like mine anymore. All of the roof "A" frames are trussed. One of these days, I'll try getting a second opinion because my last house had two dedicated lines for the system. My 10 amp (each) amps are getting starved by running off one 15 amp line.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

You truly have a great looking room. I would love to hear your system one day.

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Thank you. You have an open invitation. The results are not *impressive* sounding, just very transparent.

rw

I expect E will be listening happily for a long, long time!

These look very doable and I'm sure they could result in a sonic improvement but I have a couple of quick questions.

1) Do you fill these with a fiber fill or sand etc?

2) If not, are they tuned (by length) to a specific frequency? I can't help but think of the Blue
Man Group and the natural harmonic frequency of a empty PVC (ABS) pipe.

Hey, how did Auric get a pic of my remodeled bedroom?

Hey LDB,

1. I havent filled them with poly-stuffing. I imagine stuffing it may help reduce resonance from tubes, but not sound reflecting off of tubes. Some people might claim to hear great difference in stuffing material, but I doubt I would hear actual difference.
Capping the ends should have marginal effects than anything, so I might do that for a sake of "hi-fidelity".... but not my concern at this moment.


2. I'm have no knowledge of how they are tuned, but if they are somehow tuned, wouldn't the length be more influential than anything else? Again, I'm referring to sound coming out of hollow tubes, instead of "Off" of tubes. If so, ends cannot be plugged shut like they are designed.
Any tuning I can think of may come from the distance between pipes. Wider the space, lower frequency the device will diffuse.


We have great knowledge on gear but know very little of the most influential apparatus.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by E-Stat

I tried a number of combinations, but was largely guided by the Argent guidelines


Well, both. :) I used 2" pipes and the 2+2s are 7'10" tall !


Just dumb luck. The house was built in the 70s and I haven't made any changes. That implies good news and bad news. A doctor had it custom built and it is exceptionally well made. I commissioned an electrician to run three clean power lines to the listening room (actually a large upstairs bedroom). After he and his son tried for an hour, he gave me the bad news. The walls used fire stops which prevented him from being able to drop lines down from the attic. No dice. He did, however, tell me that they just don't build houses like mine anymore. All of the roof "A" frames are trussed. One of these days, I'll try getting a second opinion because my last house had two dedicated lines for the system. My 10 amp (each) amps are getting starved by running off one 15 amp line.


Thank you. You have an open invitation. The results are not *impressive* sounding, just very transparent.

rw

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Cool.
I bet I'll find the system lacking due to colorless sound.
I go to Jackson, TN for business about once every 4 months, so I may just "swing by" one day.

JRA

Certainly a cool and affordable project. As soon as I get some time and inclination I have to make a set. Whats ya think off drilling overlapping holes on a long board (as someone previously mentioned) to fine tune the dispersion freqs or is this necessary? I 'spose you could accomplish this by just turning them relative to the speakers?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Luvin Da Blues

These look very doable and I'm sure they could result in a sonic improvement but I have a couple of quick questions.

1) Do you fill these with a fiber fill or sand etc?

2) If not, are they tuned (by length) to a specific frequency? I can't help but think of the Blue
Man Group and the natural harmonic frequency of a empty PVC (ABS) pipe.

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Here are some guidelines found on Jon Risch' website. He and I used poly batting.

rw

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Originally Posted by Auricauricle

I expect E will be listening happily for a long, long time!

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LOL! I do love my monoliths. :)

rw

Quote:

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Originally Posted by E-Stat

Here are some guidelines found on Jon Risch' website. He and I used poly batting.

rw

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That's the type of info I was looking for. Thanks E-S

I hear (!) that the 'liths' tweeters can be a bit harsh! The Monolith TMA-1 was just grating....

Those bass traps look about as large as some of my past subwoofers, LOL. Seriously, though, what are these made of and how large do they need to be (in diameter)?

This is how my room looks now. I've decided to settle with 7 pcs for now.
I may have gone too far..... but boy my room sounds very good.



http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/audio//500/Over.JPG

Man, that is THE most impressive bong collection I have EVER seen.



In all seriousness, I have no doubt your room does sound good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

This is how my room looks now. I've decided to settle with 7 pcs for now.
I may have gone too far..... but boy my room sounds very good.



http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/audio//500/Over.JPG

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..at the very least, these things look super impressive and "artistic". Of course, anything thats in a room will affect the sound, as we all know. I didn't see any info in this thread about placement/positioning. jr, how did you decide where they would go? Further, have you tried different locations in an effort to "tune" the sound? What do you suppose the minimum specs for a system would be for this set-up to be effective? Sorry, alot of questions...

Hats off to making an extremely interesting addition to your room. I love DIY and to me this is the most engaging thing I have seen on this site. Anyone can throw money at a piece of equipment, but to build it yourself, that takes something special...well done. I look forward to your response.

You sir, get a headbang!

Very cathedral like, which brings up another question, how tall should they be? What if you're working with an 18' ceiling for example - this could get really involved I'm guessing.

And what about the WAF? My wife would at least make me paint them white.

Not sure what the correct height should be, but the original product design is just a tad over 5'. I think 5' is tall enough for the First reflection next to the speakers.

I just kept the center one taller hoping to diffuse 2nd or later reflected sound.
Honestly, I don't notice the height difference of the center unit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by poppachubby

..at the very least, these things look super impressive and "artistic". Of course, anything thats in a room will affect the sound, as we all know. I didn't see any info in this thread about placement/positioning. jr, how did you decide where they would go? Further, have you tried different locations in an effort to "tune" the sound? What do you suppose the minimum specs for a system would be for this set-up to be effective? Sorry, alot of questions...

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Thaks for your kind words.
I never thought of them as "Artistic", but more like "Ghetto Fab"

As far as the placement goes, I started with suggested placements I found on the web.
http://www.ultrasystem.com/Roomlenssetup.html:

I've tried different placement by focusing more towards:

1. Behind the listening spot
2. Both outside of speakers
3. Both side of listening position.
4. Front of the listening spot (current placement)

Results:

1. This somehow created weird timing and made me nausious.
2. Great sound separation, but I thought it made sweet-spot a tad smaller.. I'm still not sure.

3. I already have 6'x3' Acoustic panels on both sides of the listening spot so the Diffusor became less evident. I don't plan to move acoustic panels so I wouldn't know the potential result of this setup.

4. The best setup so far. Great resolution and ambiance. Maybe I can improve the sound by moving them few inches, but I don't care to further analyze and drive myself crazy. Now, I can just enjoy listening to music and play with different gear without doubting my room.

As far as the minimum spec of a system, I don't think it matters at all.
If there are problems with the room, then bad or good system wouldn't matter to begin with. I believe a good room will maximize the potentials of both good and bad systems.
I hope I answered your question.

JRA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oaqm

Man, that is THE most impressive bong collection I have EVER seen.

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Thanks,
The combination of glue and lumber adds nice aroma.
I should've used water at the bottom to purify the musical high.

JRA

Ya, thanks jr, I am going to read up and maybe try these in my listening room. I was sizing up my room and started drafting a design that would mount to the wall and clamp the pipe, essentially having the pipe free floating. Without any research yet, can you tell me how integral the base is to this unit? Is the base necessary and if so, is it important that it sits on the floor? Thanks jr...

Chubby,

If you are considering to go for the on-wall approach, you may want to give below link a consideration. I was initially going to go with what this guy did, but I rent and wanted to be able to relocate the diffusers without use of nails.


http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?p=45486



Free standing is design allows sound to diffuse in much wider range almost 360 degrees , while on-wall will diffuse less than 180 degrees. It's "almost" like dipole vs monopole. So yes, I do think it's important to have them sit on the floor.

JRA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

Chubby,

If you are considering to go for the on-wall approach, you may want to give below link a consideration. I was initially going to go with what this guy did, but I rent and wanted to be able to relocate the diffusers without use of nails.


http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?p=45486



Free standing is design allows sound to diffuse in much wider range almost 360 degrees , while on-wall will diffuse less than 180 degrees. It's "almost" like dipole vs monopole. So yes, I do think it's important to have them sit on the floor.

JRA

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Excellent, floor standing it is then...thanks alot jr!

Hi jrhymeammo,

I'm really interested to diy the RoomLens, I read their review, they are amazing. Can you share the details on the making, like the materials, dimension, etc ? And how about the material inside the pipe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrhymeammo

This is how my room looks now. I've decided to settle with 7 pcs for now.
I may have gone too far..... but boy my room sounds very good.

...

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:crazy:

I think you need some on the ceilings. I guess you would hang them cross-wise with respect to your listening position, i.e parallel to the line between the speakers. Come to that the same would help held a foot or so above the floor.

How about painting the tubes? So much black is pretty monotonous; maybe various, contrasting bright color?

:D :D :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by audio333

Hi jrhymeammo,

I'm really interested to diy the RoomLens, I read their review, they are amazing. Can you share the details on the making, like the materials, dimension, etc ? And how about the material inside the pipe.

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Hey Audio333,
I'm sorry about my late reply.

I haven't filled inside of tubes, and I doubt I will.
Here is what I did:

-2" x 4" x 8' - cut them into 3.5" squares and cut out 2 3/8" holes.
-2" x 8" x 8' - Cut them into 8 sections of 12" width.
-5 ft, 2" PVC pipes*. PVC pipes were listed as 2" pipes at the store, but they were actually 2 3/8" in outer diameter.

*I've been told the they are ABS pipes, instead of PVC. They are lighter than PVC pipes. PVC pipes may have different outer dimension. In any case, you may want to measure the pipes and cut out holes accordingly.

I just used wood glue between 2 pieces of cut out wood.

Happy New Year,
JRA