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May 2020 Newsletter
by Nyal MellorMay 19, 2020
What's New from Acoustic Frontiers
Despite the current climate surrounding Covid-19, we are continuing to offer remote consultation, design, and calibration services. For this month's newsletter, we are featuring a home recording studio completed prior to the shelter in place order.
Our client David T. is an electronic music producer based in San Francisco, CA. David's chief complaints about his existing system were modal resonances and excessive reverberation. These were interfering with his ability to monitor low bass accurately and set reverb/delay effects.
In addition to the acoustic treatment design, David consulted with us on gear selection. The acoustic treatment for studio control rooms is often designed without consideration of the monitoring system. We recommend designing the room and the monitoring system simultaneously as it gives much more predictable end results. Some acoustic issues are best dealt with by the monitoring system instead of by acoustic treatment - an example of this is the use of multiple subs with EQ and delay to actively cancel room modes in the sub 100Hz range.
The studio features:
Custom acoustic treatment by Acoustic Frontiers, including our WAVE diffuser and FULL RANGE absorbers that include a damped metal plate
Lynx Aurora AD/DA converter
Xilica XP2040 DSP
ATC SCM20PSL monitors and two JL Audio Dominion subwoofers
In the client's words: "I reached out to Nyal and Matt at Acoustic Frontiers after purchasing a dedicated studio space for my music. I was looking to properly treat the new space and tame the room - I also wanted to give my studio the ability to expand easily with new gear. I couldn’t be happier with the end result and all the hard work put in by Nyal and his team. Throughout the process they were attentive to my needs and flexible, presenting a range of options throughout each stage of the build. Nyal and Matt walked me through each decision and provided guidance and their opinions, and overall I really was impressed with their expertise in this niche space. I will definitely be working with them again in the future!" - David T.
A note from Acoustic Frontiers - We hope you are safe and surrounded by loved ones. We are still continuing to work. Drop us a line if you are interested in starting a project together.
Dutch and Dutch are pushing the boundaries of loudspeaker design, approaching it from a room first perspective. Their three-way, active and DSP controlled 8c loudspeakers have incredible bass due to their cardiod dispersion pattern which reduces room interactions. Read more about this exciting new company here.
"Vicoustic turned 250 tons of plastic waste into acoustic solutions - the equivalent to over 22 Million 500ml PET bottles - since it started using VicPET Wool as raw material. With VicPET Wool as the new primary raw material, Vicoustic is changing the acoustic panels market." Read more here.
"Subwoofers are like the magic beans of audio, expanding a playback system's dynamic range in a way that dramatically enhances the listening experience...Adding a modest but well-designed subwoofer to speakers, even compact bookshelf models, can result in better performance than what you'd get from full range towers that cost considerably more." Read more here.
Nyal Mellor
Author