Ran into a build post that did the thing almost nobody does. Instead of stapling panels behind the screen and calling it finished, the whole room got treated: ceiling, walls and floor, in a closed off dedicated 18x14 space. Gear is a BenQ W2720i onto a 120 inch screen, a Denon AVC-A1H running everything, KEF R11 across the front. Owner reports no echo and bass that stops going boomy, which is exactly what happens when you quit treating a room as a wall problem.
First reflection points get all the attention because that is where the cheap imaging win lives. But boom and mud are a decay time problem, and decay does not care which surface you left bare. A hard ceiling on its own will keep a room ringing no matter how tidy the front wall looks. The floor gets skipped because everyone assumes carpet handles it, and carpet over a slab does close to nothing once you drop below a couple hundred hertz.
The part I find more interesting is where the money went. The AVR and the front three cost multiples of what the projector did, and in a fully treated dark room that is the right order to spend in. Kill the light bouncing off pale walls and a mid priced projector picks up more usable on screen contrast than a brightness upgrade would have bought. No lumen figures were posted, and in a room built like that they matter less than the paint does.
For anyone who has treated a full room rather than a front wall: what did the ceiling actually change compared to the walls?
First reflection points get all the attention because that is where the cheap imaging win lives. But boom and mud are a decay time problem, and decay does not care which surface you left bare. A hard ceiling on its own will keep a room ringing no matter how tidy the front wall looks. The floor gets skipped because everyone assumes carpet handles it, and carpet over a slab does close to nothing once you drop below a couple hundred hertz.
The part I find more interesting is where the money went. The AVR and the front three cost multiples of what the projector did, and in a fully treated dark room that is the right order to spend in. Kill the light bouncing off pale walls and a mid priced projector picks up more usable on screen contrast than a brightness upgrade would have bought. No lumen figures were posted, and in a room built like that they matter less than the paint does.
For anyone who has treated a full room rather than a front wall: what did the ceiling actually change compared to the walls?
