Room Acoustics
Acoustics and lighting are the two most important elements of any home theater design. No matter how good your home theater system is, you will never get the best out of it until and unless you get the acoustics right. The acoustic ability of your home theater room is an important element or getting the optimal sound from your home theater. If your room does not have the proper acoustics, your high end sound system will give you the outputs of a two decade old mono cassette player.
Getting professional help for making your home theater acoustically sound is a good idea if you can afford it. Otherwise, an acoustic room treatment kit will go a long way in making your room as acoustically proper as it can be. If you are technically inclined, you can carry out STC and NRC calculations in order to get an optimally acoustic room for housing your home theater. If you want to go about it in layman terms then the easiest way of getting the best acoustic room setup is to use a balanced combination of reflective and refractive material in the construction of your room. Basically, you need to master the three main components that make up the acoustics of any area—sound reflections from different surfaces, sound refractions through different materials and noise transmission, both from inside as well as outside your designated area.
Reflective surfaces like hard wood, tiled floors and concrete walls and ceilings give an echo like, jarring sound. On the other hand, soft furnishings like carpets and curtains muffle all noise to give a dull and lifeless sound. The shape of a room also plays an important role in determining the rooms’ acoustic properties, but most room acoustic problems can be solved by creating a balance between reflective and absorptive material. In order to make your room acoustically optimal, your aim should be to stop the echoing and control the sound reverberations. Apart from striking a balance in volume, the placement of both these acoustic materials vis-à-vis your speakers is important in producing a pleasing home theater sound. So putting a carpet between the speakers and the listeners and using curtains or acoustic wall paneling near the front speakers will lead to the creation of great sounds. Similarly, soft furniture should be complimented by a hard acoustic ceiling for perfect diffusion of sound. The room should also be soundproofed in order to inhibit noise transmission both from inside as well as outside the room. Acoustic room dividers will also serve to balance the three acoustic elements in your room.
Calling in professionals for acoustic room treatment is a great idea if you can afford it. With the help of room acoustic calculations and measurements, they can easily convert your room into a perfect acoustic set up.
