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But Why TubeTraps?

by Art Noxon

And so, finally we have discovered the connection between adding TubeTraps into the front of the listening room and how the treble range clarity is improved, and along with it, musicality, dynamics, imaging and sound staging. It is about sound masking. When we add TubeTraps to the front of the room, we dry up the build up and storage of perpendicular sound as it is being created, and as well during the quiet time between each tone burst.

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One might be tempted to say that when TubeTraps are cleaning up head end ringing, they are fixing the room acoustic problem before it is even heard. This is unlike RT60 adjustments in traditional room acoustic work.  Here, the problem has already taken place and all that is being done is to more quickly get rid of the bad sound, which has already been created and listened to.

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And finally, we look at the TubeTraps themselves: the things that are doing this work. We need to absorb as much vibration out the head end ringing while it is being created as possible. For this we need the most aggressive sound absorption possible. We have very little time to knock down the level of head end ringing, we’d like to reduce it by 10 dB in at least 1/16^th second. This corresponds to a RT60 of 0.3 seconds in the deep bass range in the front of the room compared to 1.2 seconds RT60, later when the whole room dies down.

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There is only so much room in the front of the room. TubeTraps are very volumetric aggressive, they provide more absorption per cubic foot of bass trap volume than any other bass trap built. TubeTraps out-perform all other bass traps while taking up less space in the front of the room. Pressure zones are not huge and bass traps don’t work outside of these pressure zones. A 50 Hz pressure zone fills the volume out some 2 feet from the wall. Small, highly efficient bass traps are needed to fit nicely inside bass range pressure zones.

How Many TubeTraps are Needed?

Early listening experiments revealed that floor-to-ceiling stacks in the front corners delivered a cleaner wave launch than ever before experienced, thanks to the reduced head-end ringing. Adding tall stacks in the plane of the speakers and directly behind the speakers improved things even more. The “imaging trap” between the speakers also contributes to head-end control.

Can’t manage the full floor-to-ceiling stacks for one reason or another? Start low, with single stacks in these locations. We predict that once you hear the benefit, you’ll figure out some way to get the rest into your room.

Thanks for reading, see you next week!