Nothing sounds right if the bass is wrong. Boomy, heavy or muddy bass simply ruins the entire listening experience for me. Poor bass affects tonal balance, imaging and soundstage and creates listening fatigue. Speaker placement is the first step toward creating a balanced-sounding audio system and it certainly helped my system. But living rooms are not listening rooms and mine suffered from room resonances that created a bass ‘hump’ around 50Hz to 70Hz, in the mid-bass region. This hump is also known as ‘one-note bass’, where all bass sounds the same. Each bass should sound distinct but that was not the case with my system.
As a result, I was very enthusiastic about reviewing the CineTrap bass traps from MSR-Inc. A bass trap is an acoustic device that absorbs or traps bass at particular frequencies, generally below 100Hz. Their purpose is to correct for room resonance problems that otherwise could only be corrected by changing the dimensions of the room. In most cases this is not an option. The CineTraps are triangular shaped devices about 44” tall that stand in the two front corners of the room behind the speakers where bass builds up. They are passive, in that they require no electricity, so they just sit there and one even has a potted plant placed on top of it.
If they look passive, they certainly don’t act like it. In fact, I can’t think of a system upgrade that has made a bigger improvement in sound quality than the CineTraps. From the moment I installed them and fired up my system, the bass sounded smoother, tighter, more distinct and much less bloated. At first, it almost seemed as if the CineTraps were absorbing too much bass. My system sounded as if the lowest octave, below 40Hz, was missing. Further study revealed that my speakers don’t output much below 45Hz and the addition of a powered subwoofer solved the problem and added that last bit of bass extension that makes music sound rich and full.
An interesting side effect magically happens when the bass is improved; Imaging, soundstage and detail is also noticeably better. It’s probably the fact that the bass is no longer overwhelming and it’s balanced with the rest of the system.
The CineTraps are different than most bass traps. Actually, there are three types of bass traps available: Frictional absorbers, diaphragm absorbers, and Helmholtz resonators. The CineTraps are Helmholtz resonators tuned to absorb bass frequencies between 30Hz and 100Hz.
The CineTraps are the most effective solution I’ve heard for room resonance control. At $549 each they are not inexpensive, but well worth the investment. Some spend thousands of dollars on other system upgrades with less to show for their hard-earned money. For more information, visit MSR-Inc.
Good Listening!
