Currently, the cheapest competitors treatment package that we are aware of costs £649.00
Now I'll explain it's shortcomings, and how for very little more you can have a package that really works.

We have loaded our competitors £649.00 package, into our room modelling software, for direct comparison of two rooms we have recently treated.

The resulting graphs show:
Reverb time before treatment , in red.
Reverb time after treatment with the £649.00 package, in blue
Reverb time after our treatment package, in Green.
Both these rooms are reasonably typical, with a mixture of "real" walls, and plasterboard on stud walls. Room (1) is undeniably large, hence the long untreated reverb time, while Room (2) is really quite small at only 13ft x 7ft.

Our packages differ from this particular competitors, and some others, in that it includes an element of design.
We feel that simply supplying "out of the box" treatment modules will never result in the right amount of treatment, and certainly not the right amount in the required frequency regions, as the above graphs show.
We use "room modelling" to very quickly quantify a rooms "problem areas" and pick the right number & type of modules for that.
Our packages also differ from most others in that some treatment "modules" are actually a DIY construction job (Ah there had to be a catch), and that our Bass traps are designed to target specific problem frequencies, so are adjustable.

We start proceedings with easily fax'd or e-mailed information about your room and load that into the modelling computer. We then give you:
An Acoustic X generated "before and after" treatment prediction graph. (As seen above)
A material cost guide.
An idea of how easy construction will be - based on time and a "swearing factor" of between 1 and 10. !
A test CD to play in your room and report back your findings.

If you find the scheme acceptable & generally ours are a little more expensive, we send you construction details and placement drawings.
None of our construction needs are greater than "DIY" simple woodwork, with plenty of room for errors on site. We do these for people all the time & I can tell you from direct hands on experience it only takes a long day to treat a typical room, with, a swearing factor of only about 4. In reality, not much greater effort than fitting a £649.00 "out of the box" system that is almost guaranteed not to provide a total solution.
We can even hire you "tools of the trade" to make construction "a doddle".

Often includes "mixer to monitor amplifier" cables

These days, most of the audio signal path is digital, and the only time it pops up in the analog domain is between the mixer and the monitor amplifer.

This analog link and it's flaws, become ever more exposed the more "digital" we get.

The mixer to monitor amp link is also the most crucial link, where produced music has to be transfered to the monitors as accurately as possible. The difference between "cheap" audio cable and good quality cable can be heard easily (assuming your room acoustics will allow!) . We supply cables from "Transparent" for this purpose. As the name would suggest, the cable is audibly transparent, employs a passive network to null the effects of the cable itself, and restrict frequency bandwidth to safe limits, avoiding noise pick-up along the way.

An American product, Transparent prices fluctuate with exchange rates:- Call for up to date details. 01295 660166.

We have gained as much information on the £650.00 competitors system as we reasonably can. We have visited their web site, and have had in the passed, direct experience of the modules used .
We have had to make some assumptions though:
Surface areas of particular treatment modules are assumed correct (having been un able to find this information on the web site) from our experience of the products and from the photographs published in advertising.
Absorption figures have been taken directly from the Acoustic X data base, and are assumed to be as released by the module manufacturer. Where figures have not been available at all, reasonable assumptions have been made as to absorption rates and surface areas increased in the calculations to allow for a reasonable error margin.
The calculations are available for inspection by any one at any time, and, we are of course more than willing to make necessary alterations to the calculations and resultant graphs given better & more accurate information than has already been used.

Generally: while we see there are circumstances in which such packages may offer enough acoustic control, more often, there is simply not enough of anything to make a "real" difference to real World typical applications.
While diffusion also has it's place in acoustic control, we see it as "icing on the cake" where there are far more important issues needing control and having greater effects on acoustic outcome. Further, diffusion not properly (and in some cases even properly) applied serves to soften stereo image.

April 2000