Porous Absorber Calculator problem and another question about a bass trap

[sys40198]

Hey ya'll i downloaded the porous absorber calculator and I can't get it to work on excel 2011 for mac. Apparently the new excel for mac doesn't come with the analysis toolpak and I can't find it anywhere on the web. I was wondering if anyone has found a way around this problem.

And also I am building some SSC bass traps for my room and am going to do something similar to this (pretty tall tho, about 10.5 ft):
Corner Traps finally finished! - Home Theater Forum and Systems - HomeTheaterShack.com
I was at the hardware store yesterday and saw some thin, white wall panels.
It jus looks like particle board faced with white melamine and it looks like it is 2mm or so thick, I was wondering if I could use this as my face for my bass traps and i could skip using a frame w/fabric on it, since the white would match my walls perfectly. I'm thinking this would probably reflect the highs and mids, but i could probably address those issues later by adding porous absorption panels at reflection points and so on. IDK how it may affect the bass tho...hoping cuz its so thin, it wouldn't affect it much.

Thanks for any help

[DanDan]

I am on MS Office 2008 and the Whealy Calc works fine.
It gives warnings about Macros and such but I just ignore them and it works away.

A talented GS has written another Porous Absorber Calculator. Usefully it is web based and includes Random Incidence.

Porous Absorber Calculator - Results

It is unknown what would happen to the LF with your quite thick white panels. This little ingenuity here solves all the SSC build issues.
http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...-finished.html

DD

[sys40198]

DanDan, Thanks ALOT for that link to that online calculator, I thought i was going to have to wait until summer school started up so I could use the school's computers!

And ya thats the designed i copied, my only minor issue is that I can see the frame behind the fabric, i guess I'm going to take the fabric off and spray paint the frames whtie, so they wont be as obvious.

U said the panels were fairly thick, I was jus curious about how thick some solid panels usually are. I know I read somewhere (dangerous I know) that people put plastic panels infront of their basstraps to reflect HF. I didnt think that 2mm was that thick, but then again, what do i know .

Unfortuately, my interface crapped out on me last month and I'm sort of waiting for my tax returns so I can get another one, once I do I plan to test my frame vs that hard pannel, probably post it, if it yields anything interesting. (i think the hard pannels would look nicer jus cuz it look more like my walls, gotta please the parents,who own the apartment Im living in)

I know u wrote that acoustic measurement primer...great job by the way...ANd i was wondering, i have a small diaphragm mic, but the polar pattern is some type of cardiod. And u said that any mic should be ok (obviously omni is better), but if i point it straight up at the ceiling, wouldn't it catch mostly everything except the reflections off the ground. ANd i got carpeted floors anyways. would this method be ok to test with, especially cuz im jus mainly interested in the change or trend?

Thanks for the help btw!