Mar
31
Did you know that sometimes just moving a speaker a few inches one way or another can improve the sound quality? We’re talking about an improvement that could surpass the difference you’d gain from moving up to a higher end receiver. Not only is this sort of sonic sleight-of-hand possible I’ve demonstrated it to dumbfounded on-lookers, I even stopped one naysayer mid-sentence and made a believer of him about the importance of proper room acoustics.
It really just boils down to this, if your room suffers from poor acoustics and your speakers aren’t in their optimal placement in the room, you’re never going to be able to correct that by trying to spend your way out of the problem. Sure you may see some incremental improvement in a poor room but time and time again I’ve seen mediocre gear outperform high-end gear in a properly set-up/treated room, of course that same high-end gear would perform even better in the “right room”.
I look back on my introduction to room acoustics as one of the most important events in my eventual understanding of what makes a real home theater tick. Display quality is ever changing; it’s a moving target, nothing wrong with that it’s just the nature of the beast. High end sound on the other hand is a little more stable and barring advancements like TrueHD and PCM audio from Blu-ray dare I say, almost dependable. But of course just because home theater sound doesn’t change as often as video, don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s easier to master and reproduce from room to room.
Mar
24
Soundproofing Home Theaters
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Interest in soundproofing home theaters seems intrinsically tied to the price of the theater itself. In other words soundproofing a five thousand dollar home theater may involve shutting the door, but expectations obviously rise along with the bottom line. In general I recommend not even considering soundproofing until a few other criteria have been satisfied.
Firstly, is there even a need to soundproof? One client in particular inquired about soundproofing his home theater but didn’t seem to know who he was soundproofing it from; his kids were away at college and he and his wife always watch movies together. Secondly, are we even producing enough decibels to worry about soundproofing? It’s possible but every home is different and that has to be taken into consideration.
Also don’t confuse soundproofing with acoustical (sound) treatment, the former is meant to keep sound in (or out) while the latter is meant to improve the quality of the sound inside the room. One of the cheapest and easiest ways to “sound proof” a room is to use double drywall during construction. I know that may not sound cheap or easy, but it is compared to any solution once the room is completed.
Mar
13
Basic Room Acoustics
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Room acoustics is a topic unto itself but no time like the present to delve in and get started. As I hinted before all the equipment in the world can’t correct a deficient room (in the world might be a stretch but not by much). Simply put, if your room isn’t optimized for sound your audio system can only take you so far. With our limited time here today I’d like to focus on the two most common problematic room types and then I’ll give a few pointers for each.
The first room-type is the reverberant, empty, we haven’t gotten around to doing any decorating in this room yet, room. Err just reverberant will do actually. As you might guess these rooms are prone to echo and well for lack of better term, reverberation. Luckily this cavernous effect can be managed with what are often inexpensive additions to the room. Number one on the list for taming a reverberant room is carpet, even if it’s just to a place rug in front of or near the main speakers, carpet makes a difference. From there obvious things like drapes, throw pillows, other chairs, books, magazines and just about anything else you can throw at a reflective surface will surely help.
The second room type would exhibit just the opposite characteristics as the first. It would be dead, lifeless and require quite a bit more amplification to drive to the same levels as the first room. For lack of a better term these “dead” rooms are a bit harder to snap into shape but some of the same principles apply as the reverberant rooms. Start by trying to reduce the amount of absorption in the room, replace huge overstuffed pillows with smaller, denser ones. Are there any absorbent items in the room that just don’t have to be there, throws, stuffed animals, pretty much anything that doesn’t serve a purpose? After all this is a home theater right?