DIY Room Diffusers by Terry Cain I have a room that needed wall treatments bad. It was good enough of a room that just needed something done to enhance bass and limit early reflection. After hearing Ron Welborn's room at VSAC and Red Rock Audio's room at the same show I knew it would not be long till I had something to tame the early reflections. These rooms were using foam panels to tame the first reflection of the adjacent walls improving bass and enhancing imaging greatly. The Red Rock room in particular, with the Merlin VSM's had a huge and vast soundstage due in large part to the panels limiting standing waves in the room. The solution I arrived at worked far better than I would have thought. It's almost as large a difference as the difference between crossovers and no crossovers. Bass, the difference was astounding, letting you hear more detail and "air" in the bass and also improving tone greatly. Maybe the midrange finally under control just exposed deeper bass I'm not sure but the trick worked. I had a lot of scrap in the shop and it just hit me one day to build these: Materials needed for 1ea. panel are as follows: !ea. 15"x75"x3/4" particle board. Or sized to suit. 4ea. 6"x75"x3/4" particle board 2ea. 1-1/4"x3/4"x76" hardwood trim Mitered to fit 2ea. 1-1/4"x3/4"x18" hardwood trim Mitered to fit You need a bandsaw or access to one to do this project easily. Also the parts are assembled easier if parts are not cut with a skilsaw but on a good table saw as few fasteners are used in my method. This shows the blank stock being "wiggled" through to make the cut. No need to draw a line. Just tilt the bandsaw table and cut the wiggles. It will help if you size these parts into 32" or so pieces to facilitate the wiggling through the saw. My blanks started as random length pieces of scrap particle board and plywood all ripped good and straight to 6". The backing panel is a piece of particle board 15"x75"x3/4". I used high density particle board like the kind used in shelving and countertops. Some plywood as well was used for diffuser pieces. I put a hardwood frame around each backing panel for looks and to add a finished appearance. Once this was finished I began to glue all the diffuser panels in place. These were glued with Titebond and using just firm pressure to hold them in place for a few seconds. The suction and resultant adhesion will hold them till the glue dries. We also kept the material warm to shorten drying time. The diffuser panels were glued in rows leaving a 7/8" space between rows and all the 45 degree edges were reversed every other row creating a very random texture. After the glue dries the hardwood is masked and the diffusers painted. The finished panels weigh in at about 100lbs each and may easily consume 1-4x8 of 3/4" particle board each. Final attachment to the wall was 3ea. #8 drywall screws into the rooms studs. Room photo shows installed panels (9ea). There are a couple more coming for the ceiling as well. Final gratification came playing music for a 65 year old blind piano tuner and restorer, he was sure the room's walls extended another 6 feet past the speakers. Top