How much does wall-to-floor corner treatment help?

[aclarson]

Hi, I've been doing a lot of reading on here, Realtraps, and GIK in preparation for my upcoming treatment work, I was debating about how many traps to build and what locations to put them in once built. I see tons of advice talking about wall-to-wall corner treatment and wall-to-ceiling corner treatment, but I never seem to hear much about wall-to-floor corner treatment.

Intuition would dictate to me that treating these corners would be of benefit, I'm just a little interested in whether the benefit would be greater there or by using them in additional locations at the wall-to-wall and wall-to-ceiling corners. I've made drawings showing before and after for initial treatment.





Each shape in the pic is one 2' x 4' trap

A couple questions:

-Do you think I would be better off to put traps in the wall-to-floor corners, or should I just put more in the wall-to-wall and wall-to-ceiling corners?

-Do outward corners in a room require any special consideration?

-How negative do you think the kitchen being where it is will be with the half walls open? Would I be well served to make trap 'plugs' to put in the half wall openings to prevent sound from echoing around in the kitchen? There's no space in the kitchen to put any treatment, except maybe on the ceiling.

Thanks a ton for any help you can provide,

-Aaron-

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by aclarson

I never seem to hear much about wall-to-floor corner treatment.

I suggest that often! You are correct that all 12 corners are viable.

Do you think I would be better off to put traps in the wall-to-floor corners, or should I just put more in the wall-to-wall and wall-to-ceiling corners?

The more total corner surface you treat, the better. Always.

Do outward corners in a room require any special consideration?

No.

How negative do you think the kitchen being where it is will be with the half walls open?

Openings are good! All acoustic problems are caused by reflections. An opening is like a perfect absorber. Depending on what's past the opening, of course.

--Ethan

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by aclarson View Post
I never seem to hear much about wall-to-floor corner treatment.
I suggest that often! You are correct that all 12 corners are viable.

Just to add, what is nice is you then then just pick them up and move them is you need too.

Glenn

[aclarson]

Thanks Ethan and Glenn for your informative and quick responses! ...

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Openings are good! All acoustic problems are caused by reflections. An opening is like a perfect absorber. Depending on what's past the opening, of course.

My problem is that the kitchen is through those openings and is full of the usual kitchen-y items like a fridge, stove, and various other reflective surfaces, which I'm sure is probably about the worst place in the house for sound to travel. Given, a good chunk of sound will be blocked by the present portion of the wall, but I'm concerned about reflections coming out of there through the same openings. Treating the kitchen would be pretty tough since it full of stuff like cabinets and appliances, so I'm just looking for an acceptable workaround.

Should I attempt to partially isolate the two rooms from each other? Perhaps I could just use some mid/high freq absorbtion (like a blanket or rug) over the half wall openings to prevent a kitchen echo chamber. Or would broadband absorbtion work better in this situation?

Thanks again for the help, you guys rock!

-Aaron-

[Ethan Winer]

You could hang a rug as an experiment, but it may not be needed. Reflections can be a problem, but mostly when off a large flat surface. A kitchen is full of "stuff," so the reflections won't be as coherent as if they were off a single large wall.

--Ethan