Acoustics
Concept for good sounding rooms
To achieve highest quality level of sound reproduction, room acoustics must meet certain criteria.
The room is treated, to achieve those desired acoustic properties, using a combination of absorption, reflective surfaces and diffusion.
Acoustic treatment can be built into walls and surfaces, or modular acoustic modules mounted on walls. Visual appearance can be tailored to suit different interior styles.
The result is predictable, and all rooms can be fixed.
This Acoustics Service is a guide to do this in your room. You get to see what it takes to fix it. And help to get it built and implemented.
What is achieved
Better sound
If the room had no treatment and mostly bare walls, little furniture, there will be a huge and dramatic difference. For rooms that sort of works already, the improvement will still be large.
When the acoustic signature of the listening room is removed, you are left with the room and reverb from the recording. Different albums and music will sound different.
Tonality improves when decay is linear across the frequency range, the original timbre of instruments can now be heard.
Clarity is improved when masking reverb from the room is removed.
Removal of early reflections gives a presentation with precise imaging and a distinct, realistic character to the sound.
Everything improves, perhaps one exception; any faults in the sound system will now reveal itself, when masking from room contributions disappear.
Pleasant to be in the room
The comforting atmosphere is immediately noticed when you enter the room. Normal conversation, watching the news, everything with sound benefits from nice acoustics.
Who is this for
Anyone who has a small room - small means all normal rooms in a house - and reproduce sound in there - music, movies, other media content with sound. For pure entertainment, or professional.
Requirements will be very different for a multi-purpose living room, compared to a dedicated sound studio. But they share the same acoustic challenges, and the same methods can be applied to achieve the best possible sound, inside the limits of what is reasonable to do from a practical perspective.
Acoustics Project
Complete guide for acoustic treatment
We fix your room. Starting from specification, we design it and make a 3D-model of the room, it is built and implemented, then we do evaluation, and make adjustments if needed.
We have a dialog about your room and discuss solutions.
Acoustic measurements are not necessary, they can only tell us the room is bad, they say nothing about what sort of treatment is needed and where to place things.
A local contractor can build it, just like when you do ordinary interior refurbishment. Or you can build it yourself. Plans for all Acoustic Modules and constructions will be available.
The 3D-model lets us see how it looks with acoustic treatment in place, before anything is built.
What you get
Pictures with treatment in place
From the 3D CAD model we extract rendered images of the room with acoustic treatment in place. Any view is possible, and parts can be hidden.
Top plan view:
Top 3D view:
View from listening position:
View towards front right:
3D-model to view on your computer
From the 3D CAD model we extract a 3D .pdf file that can be viewed on any computer with Adobe pdf reader:
This 3D .pdf can be rendered and viewed in different ways, you can rotate, zoom, hide parts:
Plans for in-room placement
Plans with dimensions show exact placement of acoustic treatement:
Plans for Acoustic Modules
Plans for building acoustic modules:
Documentation
Project documentation with compressed descriptions of acoustic treatment.
Contractor follow-up
Working with the builder to ensure everything is built according to specifications.
Evaluation
Help to analyze listening impressions. Advice for adjustments to acoustic treatment if necessary.
Help to analyze acoustic measurements, can be used to aid adjustments to acoustic treatment.
Workflow
1. Specification
Customer describes the room and its purpose.
Specific metrics of acoustic performance can be defined. This can be minimum level of early decay attenuation before 20ms, maximum decay attenuation after a longer time interval, frequency range for reasonably flat decay. Note that RT60 (time for -60dB attenuation) is not usable in small rooms.
2. Room model in CAD with acoustic treatment
A 3D CAD model of the room is made, then acoustic treatment is placed into this model. This is what you pay for.
Rendered images from this 3D model are presented to the customer.
3. Build it
Contractor, or the customer, builds the room. Including building and mounting of acoustic modules.
4. Evaluation and adjustments
Evaluation primarily by listening, acoustic measurements can also be used additionally. Smaller adjustments to acoustic treatment can be performed.
Mini Acoustics Project
Quick assessment of acoustic treatment
You get to see a proposal for acoustic treatment of your room, with overview picture and selected views from inside the room.
Starting from specification, we design it and make a 3D-model of the room.
We have a dialog about your room and discuss solutions.
Acoustic measurements are not necessary, they can only tell us the room is bad, they say nothing about what sort of treatment is needed and where to place things.
The 3D-model lets us see how it looks with acoustic treatment in place, before anything is built.
If you are handy, these images may be all you need to build and fix your room. Some rooms end up quite simple, such as a typical small studio for video/youtube production - less strict requirements, small space.
What you get
Pictures with treatment in place
From the 3D CAD model we extract rendered images of the room with acoustic treatment in place. Any view is possible, and parts can be hidden.
3D model:
Top plan view:
Top 3D view:
View from listening position:
View towards front right:
Documentation
Project documentation with compressed descriptions of acoustic treatment.
Upgrade option
Option for upgrade to complete Acoustics Project. We build on the work already completed, and go forward with build and implementation.
Workflow
1. Specification
Customer describes the room and its purpose.
2. Room model in CAD with acoustic treatment
A 3D CAD model of the room is made, then acoustic treatment is placed into this model. This is what you pay for.
Rendered images from this 3D model are presented to the customer.
References
Articles on acoustics and rooms
