Bass traps are generally the first component of an acoustic treatment for a project studio in the bedroom. A bit of flutter echo will mess far less with your mix or listening, than will uncontrolled low frequencies. High frequencies will smear your imaging a bit, but low frequency dips and peaks will do your head in!. A typical symptom of this is when you play a new mix on the car stereo, and the bottom end is either no existent or excessive.
Often bedrooms present a fairly typical set of acoustic problems. Firstly, the bedroom is often quite small,and the dimensions can often be approaching a cube, or two of the dimensions are nearly the same. There will be a bed somewhere in the middle, and a wardrobe at one end and usually one window. So setting up a symmetrical work station is often a challenge, and speakers are usually located close to the wall, which is less than ideal. Acoustic measurement reveals shorter high frequency reverb times and longer low frequency reverb times. This is partly due to plenty of high frequency absorption from the bed, and usually carpet. Frequency response becomes increasing uneven below 300Hz with the harmonics of the room creating significant peaks and dips. Typically reverb times in a small untreated bedroom with a bed and carpet on the floor looks something like this (see below). Above 125 Hz it looks OK, but at 125Hz and below the room is resonating like a big musical instrument. BT600-150 or RAM400-1000 bass traps are suited to small rooms, floor to ceiling in available corners. The RAM400-1000 bass traps can also be installed in the ceiling.
