[00:00] 4 years ago, I built my ultimate dream home theater setup. Leather Valencia seating, 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos sound, a giant 115-in TV. I mean, this thing is perfect, except for one small problem. I never sound treated it. I KNOW, I KNOW. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It just got to the point where it was good enough, and I just plain didn't bother. I'm basically the mechanic with the broken-down car. To be clear, it's not broken down, but we've talked many times in the past how with audio products, it's important which ones you choose.

[00:35] But, in some ways, the calibration and the setup are actually more important and, shockingly, one of the most affordable parts of a well-tuned setup, which is why I brought these TWO GENTLEMEN WITH ME. Hi Dan. Hi DMS. >> Hey. >> We're going to be helping me sound treat this room on a budget in a way that you guys can follow along with at home. >> We're going to start by going around the room and finding things that may or may not be wrong, and especially finding a way to maybe help you if you're looking

[01:05] for a space to put in a theater or even just a pair of speakers. >> Linus already has his room, though. So, if, like his space, yours is not optimal, we're going to show you some tricks to step it up. >> And for my part, I'm really excited about the DIY acoustic panels that we built for grand total treating the [music] entire space less than 500 Canadian rubles. >> I always love saving a dollar. What about two? Like with our sponsor. Nice. >> You green. Keep all your photos and files backed up on their DXP 4800 GT

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[01:47] >> [music] >> The first thing I notice is there's some things done really right in here. You have a carpet. Nice. But, you have a ceiling. What are the two biggest reflective surfaces in the room? Your floor and your ceiling. That's a hell of a lot bigger than a wall. We have to do something about that. >> Right. >> I thought you were going to tell me things I did right. That was only one thing I did right. >> Can I show you something you did kind of like wrong right? >> Again? >> Yes. Normally you don't want to put your

[02:14] speakers in the corner. The farther out in the room, the better. >> Right. >> But in this case, I think it's actually going to work to our advantage because you have this. >> I do. You'll have to forgive me, but what does this have to do with the speaker positioning? >> That's actually a really good question. If that speaker was where it should be, we would have to put a sound panel right here. >> Oh, brilliant. >> But how does he know that? >> Using a technique called the mirror trick. With our listener over there and

[02:42] Linus over here be acting as the speaker. >> Right. This is about where you'd want me if I was ideal, right? >> I would say so. >> Okay. >> What we do is we put the mirror along the wall and we slowly move it until our listener can see [music] our speaker, Mr. Linus. >> Okay. >> There's your first reflection point, so it would have to go here. >> So we got to rip this out? >> No. >> Oh. >> But because our speaker's back there, Linus if you move back a bit or get out of the way, I'm going to move this

[03:08] slowly against the wall. Right there. That's where our panel goes. >> So we got to knock this out? >> No. >> Well, wait. We could just put it here, right? >> That should be all right. >> All right, we're good. >> Can we still knock it out? >> No. >> Now we've solved for our first reflections, yes, but what about second reflections? >> That's where it's going to get a little bit more fun. >> Wait, it won't be too bad, I promise. >> Question for you. Does it matter that much though? What's our goal?

[03:31] >> I would say the goal is to have a good, more consistent sound across your listening positions. >> And then dealing with the first reflections, you think will kind of 80/20 rule get us most of the way there. >> It'll make a big difference. The biggest difference is going to come from the calibration. >> Okay. And let's talk about modes and nodes. >> The size and shape of your room is also pretty important even with reflections because sound waves have distance between them and you can create standing

[03:56] waves from the left and the right and the up and the down and the front and backward and it creates these volume troughs and peaks where they cancel and collide and get bigger and smaller. So you could be sitting here at the front and here like no bass at all and then you move to the seat just to the left of that and the bass is awful. It is so loud. It is terrible. That's often dictated by your room more than anything else. In my perfect world, we don't have an ideal listening position so much as we have two mostly ideal

[04:29] listening positions because right in the center would be right on this crack and nobody wants to sit on the crack. That can be where you have other problems because the nodes and the modes of the room are in the room. So you might have to move the chair to get out of them or into different ones. >> Oh god, I hope not. >> Luckily for you though, this room is long but thin which means that you have a better chance of avoiding a lot of the complicated ones. If it's square or if it's really weird, sometimes they can be

[04:58] a little more difficult to navigate around. >> Okay, we'll see what we can do. It's also worth noting that because you have two subwoofers, it'll be a little bit easier to deal with those modes at least in low frequencies. Enough chit-chat though, I think it's time for some concrete action. >> Yeah, I think before we move on though, we got to have some applause. >> [applause] >> This is part of the test. >> Oh, our test our clap test. >> Yeah. Not a lot of air in here. >> pretty decent. >> It's not bad but you can hear that

[05:28] there's some air in here. >> There is. >> And we got some some bouncing off the off the backside. We can't get rid of the air. >> Okay, I was going to say I I like it. >> We can definitely tone that down a bit. >> Okay. >> Don't drop that. That's worth like at least half of my car. This is our microphone and there's a reason why it's so tiny. It's so tiny because just like a stealth fighter jet from the front, it's pretty hard to see. It's got a very small footprint. So, this guy's not going to interfere much with what he's

[05:58] picking up. We're going to use this to measure the frequency response of the room, do some moving microphone tests because you said you don't want to calibrate for just one spot, right? >> Yeah. >> And then we have the ADC. This is how we're getting the signal into the computer. >> And a battery. A camera battery. Yeah, I see that. V-mount. >> That guy is going to power this. >> Yes. >> This is going to power the microphone, which needs a very specific 28 volts. It needs this because it's a very sensitive

[06:22] piece of equipment and any weird voltage fluctuations might give us crazy wild readings. >> And the other reason we're using this microphone is it has a very flat frequency response curve, right? >> Extremely. This microphone actually does not need a calibration file. It is a small enough, precise enough piece of lab equipment that you do not need a calibration file for that. >> Save if you're doing, you know, a tenth of a decibel, but you're going to get a tenth of a decibel change just by doing

[06:46] this. >> Right. Speaking, by the way, of you and measuring things, is now a good time for us to tease that we have a product coming? >> Maybe. >> Now is a perfect time for you to experience the room beforehand because in audio, there's measurements and then there's the experience. And both of them are very, very important. So, let's have the before experience before we change anything. Okay. I am already hearing some things. It does sound pretty good. I think there's a lull somewhere in the ear gain

[07:21] and I hear a little bit of a spike above that. That should be pretty easy to fix and I imagine part of that will already be fixed just by doing the room treatment. Also, Lord of the Rings in this theater reminds me this is a theater. You have a second row. I think second row matters more than second reflections in this case. So, we'll do the mirror trick for the first row. >> I'm going to I'll you in on for those guys. No one ever sits there. >> What if I sit

[07:48] Sir, I'll have you know that I'm sitting in the back row and I take offense to that. >> Now that we're in the back row, that guy was a dick. Don't listen to him. >> Yeah. >> We have more reflection to worry about back here. Our first reflection point is in a completely different spot than those guys. So, I'd like to do the mirror trick again for people in this row and see where that lands. I'm willing to bet that it's not in that different of a spot. >> Again, doing myself favors by having those speakers so close to

[08:14] that back wall there. Like I'm I'm just about looking at that exact same spot on the wall. >> It might not be that different. And if it is, our lives are a little bit easier, huh? >> I love that. >> The one spot where I do anticipate it being different is up there. >> Right. So, we might have to do two rows of ceiling treatments then. >> You're thinking what I'm thinking. >> So, what I want to know is [music] after we do this calibration, if I go and I put a giant bean bag there, did I just ruin everything?

[08:43] >> It'll be fine. >> Okay. And then if I put a big karaoke speaker there, >> presumably also fine. It's not going to have a massive impact. >> Got it. Okay. >> will have a bigger impact. The calibration will have a bigger impact. I mean, you're going to put people in here, too. >> I sure will. Big bags of water. >> Apparently not in the back row. Oh. >> What we call them in my industry is meat baffles. >> This microphone, where do you want it? >> Uh we're going to move it around. So, we're going to do a few things. I'm

[09:08] going to take a sweep. >> Yep. >> And then we're going to play pink noise. We're going to move it around. It's going to take a bunch of averages as we're moving through different positions. Okay. I want to see what it's like in the front row. And I know, despite your protests, I want to see what it's like in the back row, too. >> Okay. And Dan, question for you. He's obviously using a microphone to check the decibel level at all these various points. You were saying you would do this by ear. >> Yeah, in general. Um the thing is that

[09:31] that takes like a lot of practice. >> Okay. >> Often can't necessarily be as good and of course we can't take a baseline measurement either. So you would just go to the various listening positions and kind of go, "Yeah, it's a little louder. It's a little quieter." >> Kind of kind of do one of these sometimes. I'll move my head >> [music] >> and up and down, which is basically what we'd be kind of doing with the microphone, too. >> So not as accurate, but would you say better than nothing whether you have

[09:59] practice or not? >> 100% and that's kind of something that I think everybody should at least try. >> Don't do little movements. Do giant movements. If you've never done it before, take the bass to zero. Take the bass to 50. Kind of hear and learn what it sounds like when there's no treble or no mid >> [music] >> and listen to different points of the room. >> And the software you're using is called >> Room EQ Wizard. It is free. So anyone can use it. Also, I need your head. >> Okay. >> Right there.

[10:27] >> Oh, yes. That was the only way to do that. >> No, yeah. That's That's the industry standard method. >> But this is never where I would sit. >> Where would you sit? Oh. So do you want to calibrate for reclining? >> Um >> It's slightly different. Not massively, but slightly. >> Yeah, I'd recline. Do it for recline. >> I would never watch sitting straight up, right? >> You got it? >> Mhm. >> All right. I'm going to start it. >> Start it. HIT THE DECK, DAN.

[11:00] WE'LL HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN NOW WITHOUT THE CAMERA operator standing there. One moment, please. Now that the sweeps are done, we've got a mostly indecipherable graph. DMS is going to work on making that a little bit easier for us to read, but before we do that, we need to make some [music] pink noise and do the thing that Dan does by ear and DMS does with the mic. >> Sound changes a lot when you move around and I want to pick up all of them. I'm taking an average over as much space as I can in the listening window to figure

[11:24] out what exactly is going on in here. Hey, look at that. It's actually pretty linear. You can You here that lull I was talking about in the ear game? We've got some uppy downy going on, but this really isn't a bad start. What's the white in the red? As I was moving around, this was taking tons of individual measurements and averages. The red is the average of an entire roughly 30 seconds of information we collected. Every single second it's adding more and more [music] to that. The white just happens to be the last

[11:54] bit of information it collected before I stopped the test. You'll notice this one has a big peak, but this one has a trough. That's because this one is actually your in seat versus this orange one here is the middle. >> That big of a difference? >> It's pretty substantial. >> What frequency is that at? >> 1 kHz-ish. So, anywhere from like 800 Hz to 2 kHz. [music] We're seeing a huge difference. So, that would really affect like dialogue. >> Oh, yeah. >> Very much so. But, this is also why we take a big average of all listening

[12:24] positions, which is what this purple line is here. And look at that. It has a little bit of the peak from this one, and a little bit of a dip from this one. So, we want to try and do what we can to mitigate this in both directions. The next step is putting up our physical treatment for the reflections, then we can start doing calibration. >> Cuz we could calibrate it now, but that would be pretty stupid cuz then we're going to change [music] a bunch of stuff. >> Yeah, calibrate it then change the room

[12:46] and you've calibrated for the wrong room. >> Now, after we put those panels up, would [music] that wider window onto this be cleaner? >> It should be. >> Okay, I guess we can have a look at that, too. Let's throw up [music] some panels. Now seems like a good time to take a look at the acoustic panels that we're going to be using. While we could have bought prefab ones, those tend to be >> [clears throat] >> pretty expensive and actually, [music] in some cases, not all that effective, going more for looks and style rather

[13:13] than raw performance. [music] So, instead, we made these. What you're looking at is about $22 worth of Rockwool and Sonapan held together by this simple 1-in by 4-in wood frame that just about anyone could build them. Probably anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes with basic hand tools. Stretched over the front of it, we've got options. Either duvetine, which is an acoustically transparent material, or if we want to cut down on our light even more, [music] we could cover it with velvet. Also, we just had a giant bag of

[13:45] velvet, so the point is mounting these is as affordable as making them. All you got to do is throw one of these on the wall and French cleat style, you just hang the panel off of it. Cool, right? Our last little touch is we made these little 3D printed things to kind of hold this on it, but they kind of suck. You can find your own solution for that. Right out of the gate, I've noticed a problem. This looks stupid. >> Do you want it to look stupid or do you want it to sound good? >> I want it to sound good.

[14:12] >> Right. And also not look stupid. >> How stupid does it look, Dan? >> Well, I mean, you can kind of see why I was hitting the sconce with my hand saying it had to come down. If you just move it up a bit and then turn the light off, now it looks cool. >> Now it looks even stupider. >> Why are you so apprehensive about touching the sconce? >> Well, it's the light that is in the room. >> Will you go all the way up? It's not going to be very difficult to rotate it up. >> What if you just com- Yeah, just

[14:40] completely take the sconce out and just mount it right here. >> Cuz then I won't have a sconce here. >> Well, I'm saying that turn the sconce up. >> Let me go get my wife. We are treating this room. >> Okay. >> Uh we have to put these on the walls. They stop sound reflections. It makes this >> you got special insulation in the walls already so that we wouldn't need these things. >> Oh, no. No, no. That insulation keeps the sound in this room from going out to other [music] rooms. It does nothing about making it so that the super

[15:08] accurate positional audio is as positional as possible. Okay. >> Okay. [laughter] I don't think we need this, but okay. >> Actually, that's a very common misconception. There's audio treatment and audio isolation. We have isolation, but not treatment. >> This has to go in that spot on the wall where there's a sconce. >> Okay. >> What if there was no sconce? >> I mean, it's already really dim in here. >> Right. >> Right. >> I have an alternative as well. >> Then we would go about here. >> But now it's sitting on the plugs.

[15:39] [music] >> And now we can't do that. >> Okay, the sconces are gone. >> Woo! >> Everyone wins. >> I'm going to go cut the breaker. >> The breakers stop automatically if you put your fingers in here. >> Something like that. I'll have to go a little touch lower, I think. >> Okay. Fine. Where do you want the next one? >> Well, Dan's doing that. >> No, no, yeah, I I see that. Uh where do you want the next next one then? >> Oh. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh move this way? >> Which way? >> Me? Oh, yeah. That's it. So, it needs to be

[16:13] like right on this line. >> Yeah, so but I just mean like the center of the panel >> long way right here. >> right there. Okay, so you just stand there. Don't move. I said don't move. You're still moving a little. >> [laughter] >> We don't have any of the ceiling ones. They have the cleat thing on both ends so that we can slide them on. Reese is working on that, so in the meantime, uh Demetrius, you were thinking what? Like just kind of chuck it here? >> Yeah, back in here. >> Yeah, are you sure you don't want it

[16:43] here? >> I Now >> Shut up. Stop. No, I'm kidding. >> It's awfully tempting. [music] >> So, here then. >> Yeah, I'm less concerned about the rear ones. At this point, we're more just trying to do a little bit of absorption. Most of our reflection is going to be taken care of by the guys in the front.

[17:02] >> Huh. >> Way less of a trail off. >> I can actually I can actually hear the missing panel. >> Yeah, and we haven't even done the ceiling yet. >> Uh this We didn't put that much in here yet, though. >> That's true. >> Not so hot? So, you're thinking there? >> Yes. >> Okay, how does that look? >> That looks good to me from here. Let me look at it from way up here. I think that'll be pretty good. >> Okay, quickly then. Come take the measuring tape near my penis. >> Okay, and let's get a measure to the

[17:29] wall. >> If I stand more like this, you can just measure from the wall to my penis. >> Good. >> That's great.

[17:45] >> Oh. Oh, BUDDY. >> [applause] >> LET'S GO. NOW, HOLD ON. HOLD ON.

[17:58] >> It's not dead though. It's not like an anechoic chamber. You can actually put too much sound treatment into a room. >> Oh, yeah. It's easy to go too far. >> With all the sound treatment applied, now seems as good a time as any to take it for a test drive. >> Here's a question for you. >> Yes. >> If you're using a a gaming monitor, what would you consider to be like a lot of latency? >> 15 20 milliseconds is a lot. >> Okay. Would you like to know yet how much we've already shaved off in terms of milliseconds from the decay in this

[18:26] room? >> I'm going to say 50. >> 80. 85. >> In some spots, we've exceeded shaving off 200. This is time. This is frequency. This is your room beforehand, okay? You see there's some spots where around like 500, somewhere around like 450, that kind of stuff. >> Yeah. >> Here's after. >> Wow. >> we're more consistent. >> We're hovering right down around 300 versus before we were way on up there around 500. >> Okay. >> But you think about it, that's a pretty significant amount of latency. >> Right. You might need to actually define

[19:00] what you mean by latency. >> Cuz in our world, latency is like >> Right. It's the first signal. >> Yeah, so this isn't the latency of the first signal. This is how long that sound is actually lingering in the room. All right? That's the best way I can put it. >> Muddying up everything else that comes after it. >> Yeah, remember when we did that clap? You hear the clap elsewhere in the room. >> Yeah. >> So, that's the 250 milliseconds in the corner. >> Imagine if a frame lingered on your screen when you're playing a game as

[19:26] long as that clap lingered in the room. >> It's like turning off motion blur. Or like grey to black. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. >> know about you guys, I just want them to shut up so that I can listen to >> No, we have to talk for 35 minutes because if it's garbage and he hates it, just play the music. >> On the subject of music We talked about this and we specifically made the call not to move the speakers out. While that would have been way better for music, DMS figured for film it's not going to matter as much.

[19:52] >> Yeah. I don't know about you, but I can hear your subs more than I did before already. >> I was about to say, I notice it most on the bass, it sounds cleaner. And we didn't even put in a bass trap. >> Yeah. >> What's up with that? >> I don't really think you need it too much in this room. The thing about bass traps, bass traps have to be very big to truthfully absorb a lot of low frequency energy. >> Yeah, cuz they get quite large. >> Yeah, and this room is not muddy in the bass. This isn't like a super bad room

[20:16] for bass. If anything, everything else kind of needed to be tamed a bit more for your bass to shine. >> Woo. >> Okay. Okay. >> That arrow was pretty cool. >> That was pretty good. >> We had pretty okay directionality to the audio in here. Pretty okay before. >> That was pretty good. >> And Linus, this is untuned. >> Right. >> Yeah, so it gets even better. >> There is so much more stereo separation now. >> Yes, there is. >> Yeah. And so that was just from like, you know, everything kind of bouncing

[20:49] off of everything, hey? >> Mhm. >> This is also why people tend to move their speakers in. The speakers are a lot closer to you and a lot farther from the walls. You're kind of dealing with that reflection a lot less. >> Right. Now it's time to take things to another level. This Onkyo amp is actually a lower end one than the Denon one that I have now but it has an important feature, and that's support for Dirac. You guys saw this in action when we set it up in the fire truck, fine-tuning the most

[21:16] sub-optimal of spaces to sound freaking amazing. I'm expecting even better results here.

[21:27] After like 13 sweeps, it's time. >> Like 13 sets of 13 sweeps. [music] >> We've got everything in. Our tuning is done. We have our profile set and burned into the machine. >> Okay. >> Yes. This is Crab Rave plus the tune that we just [music] completed. >> So, as long as your receiver supports Dirac, >> Mhm. >> or is there any other way to do it? >> If you are using a PC or a Mac as your brain for your home theater system, >> Yeah. >> I would highly advise using SoundID Reference. It's a little bit easier to

[22:02] use, and I think the results are a little bit better, but it's also a little more time-consuming. [music] >> But, because I'm using an Nvidia Shield, >> we got to do it this way. >> I can't install that on my Shield. So, it's got to go through the receiver for all of this fine-tuning. All right, let's hear it. >> There's off. >> Wow. >> And then, quite a bit different. >> Yeah. I would say the room treatment probably got me half of the way there, >> Mhm. >> and then the tuning is another half of the way there, and all together, this is

[22:37] just a completely different level of setup without changing any speakers, which is kind of wild.

[22:49] It's hard to pinpoint what part is more bettererest. >> Yeah. There's a lot of more better happening at the same time. >> Yeah, like everything's sharper, tighter, you know, every little sword clank, >> Mhm. just more metallic the bass is so much more controlled and the directionality is way stronger >> For me the primary things that have changed I feel like the treble is genuinely way more smooth across the board I'm no longer hearing those big troughs or peaks but the low mid-range where it goes into the bass the

[23:21] subwoofers before were just kind of a [music] narrow bump now it's more filled out >> right >> it's not just one note bass it's full and it's rich and it's bodied and it's powerful >> remember that I was saying like it's this smear and blur on your monitor >> we finally turned off motion blur >> put on our glasses >> put on our glasses >> yeah we turned on back light strobing >> and after a very long day >> we turned on the Segway >> to our sponsor >> You Green if you've ever heard the word NAS but don't know exactly what that

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