$100 to $100k+: What You Get for Your Acoustic Treatment Budget - What sound engineers NEED to know

Learn how to build your own professional-looking broadband bass trap that works down to 40Hz and a diffusor front that keeps your high-end lively:

Do you know exactly how much you’ve invested in your acoustics?

Whether you're just starting out or looking to upgrade, knowing what your budget gets you in terms of sound quality is crucial so you don’t end up disappointed.

And should you DIY, go off-the-shelf, or hire a pro?

Turns out, knowing the right approach for your budget can save you headaches and cash.

Often what you’d LIKE to achieve and what is actually possible is quite different.

So in this week’s video I break down what you can expect for your money. From $100 to $100,000.

Think of it as your ultimate guide to budgeting for acoustic treatment.

No fluff, just straight-up, practical advice.

I cover everything from basic principles to advanced tips. And yes, I rate the sound quality you can achieve at each level.

Ever wondered how much low-end control you can get with $1,000? Or what happens when you hit $10,000?

See for yourself where your studio stands.

Related blog post on Acoustics Insider:

Acoustics Insider on Social Media:

[jimmyhirakawa]

Jesco. The first exposure to hi-fi was at a classical FM radio station in Chicago. A friend was the late night Dj. He let a few friends and me listen to LPs, in a listening room that had very good equipment, and full, professional acoustic treatment. WOW. I had time to waste during covid so I decided to build my own absorption panels. I have two Engineering degrees, and a degree in National Resourse Strategy (Energy Policy), so I understand wave propagation. I think I watched all of your videos on youtube, and downloaded a few of your brochures. My local home improvement ctr, sells a pack of 12 4ft long x15in wide x 3.5in thick, rockwook batts for $55 (US). I bought three packs, enough to make 36 panels. Wood for the frames cost less than $50. (I covered the entire panel with fabric so I could use cheap wood.) A nice fabric from a local fabric store cost $70. I already had an air compressor, a pneumatic nail/staple gun, and hand tools. It cost about $285 in total, and they are very nice looking panels. I put absorption panels floor to ceiling (7' ceilings) bisecting the 4 corners (15 inches deep including air gap, in the front corners and 10 inches deep in the back corners), triangular panels where the front and rear walls intersect the ceiling, and various size panels at the first reflection points at the side and rear walls, ceiling, and table top. (The room deadened too much if I put panels on both the front wall and rear walls). I experimented with speaker and seating locations, speaker toe in, panel locations, and adjusted by trial and error. It was easy to hear if the sound improved when I changed the location of anything by the smallest amount. It also became easy tell if a standing wave was causing a problem. The FM radio station listening room had AR3a speakers. They were the top end speakers back in 1969. I just listen to music. I don't mix. My equipment is almost as old: 1971 JBL Lancer 77, 1985 Klipsch Forte, JBL subwoofer; 1975 Marantz 2270 receiver; 1981 Pioneer direct drive turntable with Shure V15 tyIII cart. (I put new capacitors in the speakers crossovers and have a new Jico Stylus in the phono cart.) I live in Schaumburg IL, USA and attend the Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) that comes here every year. My modest equipment sounds as good, (or better) that anything displayed at the AXPONA, because I have my speakers, seating location, and acoustic treatment in the right locations. Thanks for the help. You give the best advice on line.

[boredv]

Glad to see the big fella thrivin 🤩 Lookin as luscious and healthy as ever! 10/10 Plant care, glad to see the rebound.

[Angellus]

I setup some of my old my old/beginer/cheap audiophile gear outside on my veranda yesterday (resonably good gear). Haveing no rear or side wall reflections, damped floor, and a difusing ceiling profile sounds frigging amazing. I'd recomend everyone try it. Need to drag it out into the middle of the garden for a listen when I get time 🥰

[NathanOakley]

Affordability
Performance
Aesthetics …….. pick 2 😊

[lorenzo]

You can do wonders with 600 to 800 eur/usd, some planning and good craftsmanship. If you can get the wood cut at the store beforehand, you really just need a hammer, drill, scissors, and a stapler, besides the expendables like screws, staples, nails, glue, sand paper etc... But you might have a friend/parent/uncle that could lend you the tools you need. A tip: get a stapler that does not require a lot of force to use, trust me, your hands will thank you later.

Below that budget you'll probably be sacrificing on coverage and/or esthetics, but I wouldn't say it is not possible...

I built two rooms like that and they sounded great with 16 to 20 120x60x18cm well placed panels.

In my new room I want to integrate the porous absorption in the wall, making a wooden structure and stretching fabric over it. If anyone has tips on how to give a nice finish to the fabric, because I dont have access to the pvc track systems like Fabric Mate or FabriTRAK, it would be much appreciated!

[GREATMUSICU-pv]

Are these expenses based on DIY or on purchasing all panels ready-made? With all the videos I've already watched from Acoustic Insider, I was actually motivated to get started. But this video is giving me the message not to begin. I have a friend who treated his garage himself with Rockwool and measured before and after with a mic and REW. He used 8 inches of Rockwool and left 8 inches of air. The difference in reducing the low frequencies was really significant, and the entire spectrum balanced out within a maximum of 5dB, whereas it was 12dB without treatment. The total cost of materials was $1200.

[vtkz]

Between 1-10k i would also recommend something like an Subwoofer Array. Because Materials are so expensive, you can get for example 4 subs, a DSP and an correction software (miniDSP / Dirac). Specially for the lowend, its nearly impossible to achive goals, but with an, ,Active,, Array Solution you get the chance to improve itbwithout spending a lot of money

[kevinschletze]

That seems a bit expensive. I’ve got 11 20cm deep absorbers for about 600€ to target some room modes.

[patrick]

What is a 10/10 bass response?
I've seen those target graphs that have longer decay times in lower frequencies

[asengineer]

@AcousticsInsider I wonder how would you rate the room we can see in this video?

[iRevolVeR]

I'm between beginner and pro home studio currently...

[kadiummusic]

Do you have any advice on balancing subs with main monitors before the speaker correction is added? 😎

[palmal]

What price are you putting on corner bass traps? 4x X ?

[williamtell]

I have kind of a dumb question maybe. I have a small 10x10x10 ish cube room with loads of treatment. I use a Trinnov to tune the room the rest of the way. My question is this, if I calibrate my Trinnov at a certain volume, then I use master fader to make it quieter or louder, am I messing up the tuning? Does anything about the way frequencies interacted in the room at a loud volume change when the volume is lowered, in such a way that the frequency response or phase corrections might be off a bit compared to the original level?

[GingerDrums]

In my experience its an exponential diminishing returns game. My 15K room sounds better and more accurate with Kii Three speakers than the custom built Red Bull Berlin studio with 100K worth of ATC speakers and a completely custom room shape (which is sadly gone now) which I produced plenty of tracks at or the Strong Room in London where I mixed a few tracks. Many of the custom built rooms just don't work out as intended, acoustics is just such a complex thing that bass trapping any decent sized room, installing a cloud and getting the first reflections sorted will put you in a similar category or possibly betterthan many 100K studios.

I think people go for "mixing" style rooms erroneously unless you are tracking. I think in the modern era people should be aiming for a mastering style room with a small desk, a few select pieces of hardware if neccecary and spending on acoustics and full range cardioid speakers (dutch and dutch, Kii Three or similar) instead of flashy looking desks, outboard or mixing consoles.

I have a bunch of outboard that I do rarely use anymore, and my ITB masters are beating people that are using maselecs and Lavry Gold converters. I'm saying this anonymously and not meaning to toot my own horn - just sharing my experience of working in many pro studios and preferring my "home" studio both subjectively and measurement wise.

[gigifara]

absolutely absurd. for under $1000 you could get a whole heap of building insulation such as rockwool which would be quite full frequency in its absorption. stick it in some cardboard boxes in the corner and place some other panels at the first reflections and you will have massive gains

[asianguy]

I wish you would give more attention to voiceover booths. Information is sorely leaving and it’s a huge market.

[patrick]

I disagree (?)
20cm2 big basement. I spent 1500€ and got 100% of the surface area (excluding the floor) covered in 30-70cm deep porus absorption.
Then I put a subwoofer to cancel a single dip I had at the listening position using positioning, reduced the size of the desk and covered the first reflection points on the floor with 30cm deep "bass traps".
I now have about a +-1.5db (3/octave smoothing) room with a T20 time of 120ms down to 50Hz with 2 standing waves causing decay times of up to 300ms below that

[Threemicsrecords]

Now I wonder how Abby road or any studio from 50/60/70s was able to produce anything 😂