Are these bass traps or a wast of time?

[Dereszynski]

So i found a bunch of nicer white carpet and got 5 sheets of 10'x5'x8" foam from a gymnastics place. in my attempt to use it to treat my room which is a 24'x26'x7' i made "bass traps" out of what I had. so what they are are 2'x5'x5.5" with three layers of 1/2 in carpet on the front side then to hold it all into the wood frames is 2" of med density yellow foam stuff. if i find more carpet i plan to get rid of the foam and fill it with more carpet. i will post pics latter.
let me know what you think. i was like hey i got a garage full of material from dumsterdiving so i might as well use it since i don't really care how it looks as well as it sounds good.

[Brainchild]

I have a bad feeling about it, but the only way to know what they're doing is to measure.

[Weasel9992]

Like BC, I think there's really no way to know other than to test it, but I don't think you're doing much with them. Any way to shoot the room without them, then with them?

Frank

[Dereszynski]

thats a good idea i feel like there is a pretty big difference already, but at the same time im not sure i will try with and then without soon.

[johndykstra]

Slow down.

They're free... you have them... they are better than nothing... unless they smell bad.

I wouldn't go out of my way to find more, but use what you got, and when you get better, use these in a less crucial area.

[SaSi_SiDi]

If the foam has closed cells then it doesn't do much for being a bass trap. (An easy and crude way of checking if it has closed cells is to form a pan out of the foam and through a glass of water inside. If it stays there then it has closed cells. If it drips down then it has open cells. If you end up needing to mop then you have good material )

What you are probably getting with it is reduction of flutter echo and a small effect in the mids with more absorbtion in the mid and high frequency range.

If these are doing little for bass control and you use more of them to counter that, you will probably end up with too much absorption in the high frequencies and a seemingly dead room with prevailing room modes.

But there is nothing wrong with using what you have for free and excercise on how to build bass traps. If I judge from myself, the first one shows you how many things you did wrong and gives ideas on how to improve.

[Dereszynski]

Yea i anticipated the too much high and mids I know the foam dose little or nothing for bass but im thinking the carpet will at least do something cause its pretty dense stuff each one of the traps i made are really heavy heaver than real traps i have worked with. i think with like two or three more layers of carpet they would work quite nicely and for free. btw they dont stink i made sure of that before it went into the back off my truck.