Furniture Resonance

Every single object ever made, from a roll of toilet paper to Mount Everest to Shania Twain has a resonant frequency.

In itself, the fact that a particular object such as a desk has a resonance is neither good nor bad. What is problematic is when a single resonance dominates at the listening position, either from one large object or room dimensions or whatever. In that respect, anything that sits right under your face or that comes in contact with your speakers is of particular concern.

General good practice is to eliminate large resonances, absorb room resonances, diffuse or absorb early reflections, and use good speakers, well-placed and decoupled from other surfaces.

Cheers.

I noticed while I was running Ethan Winer's test project that it allowed me to identify various objects in the room that were resonating. In particular I had a wall-mounted clock that buzzed loudly at one particular frequency. Some kind of swept sinewave might be able to pinpoint any resonances in your desk. Once you know its frequency you'll be able to test remedies, such as placing some heavy objects such as bricks on the desk to dampen vibrations.

If your speakers are sitting directly on the desk, the best thing would be to get them on stands. If there's no room for stands, try decoupling them from the table with something like Mopads.

Hey,

I'm measuring with Nathan's Sonar file and it's alot more bumpy than the measurement I'm getting with RoomEQ Wizard using no or 1/12 or 1/24 filtering. Those two different measurement methods should be telling the same story shouldn't they? RoomEQ Wizard is using pink noise to check the levels then a sine sweep for the actual test. RoomEQ Wizard reports that I'm almost within 10 dB everywhere, not so on the Sonar project..that's got 15-18 dB differences. The setup is identical on both...I'm running one right after the other.

Donny

ORIGINAL: doncolga

The desk I use to keep alot of my gear on is a 3' X 6' desk with a molded plastic surface and I think it may be resonating some. It does have a thump to it. It's really convenient since it so large. I can put my keyboard, two LCD monitors, audio monitors, keyboard, mouse, and headphone controller on it. I wanted to see if anyone else had run into something like that resonating in the room.

Hi, doncolga,

Interesting. I have my 2 CRT's and my 2 Mackie HR824's on my home-built 6'x3' desk. I have the Mackie's double-insulated from the desktop, yet the desk, itself still seems to reonate from the freq's produced by the speakers in the air. I can't say that I *hear* the resonance of the desk, but I can physically feel it vibrating if I touch the desktop during moderately loud playback.

I've wondered how this may affect what I'm hearing from my monitoring position. Obviously, it must have *some* effect, but I haven't run the test's that others have mentioned in this thread to see what freq's my desk is resonating at. I guess I'll have to run the tests and see if I can identify any freq's that make my desk produce a resonant sound. As if there isn't already enough stuff to worry about when mixing a project..... ;>)

Best regards,
Bill

old post resurrected by a spammer....

reported

RE: Furniture Resonance - May 16, 08 12:01 AM ( #9 )


the last post is over 3 years old...... 
uhhhhh no!




however..... if I was a spammer, I'd probably report myself cause I just love firing those people.....uhhh......  I mean reporting those slimeballs.

The stands I've got arrive hollow which you then fill up with sand in order to create mass.

This has 2 benefits - it reduces the resonance of the stands themselves, and makes them more stable and less likely to be knocked over.

Hi Garry!

You're well.......I can tell.