Products used in this application.
Creating a High End Listening Room
Turning an unfinished basement into a high end listening room can be challenging, especially when you need to keep the design consistent with the rest of the house. Keeping the space looking good was important, but the homeowner wanted to make sure the end result was a place where he could kick back and enjoy quality sound and video.
Application Introduction
When the customer was in the planning stages of this project, he called Michael Binns at Acoustical Solutions for some recommendations.
Their early discussions were about room design and making sure the room was not too dead sounding. The room was 'purpose-built' to be a critical listening room. Many of Michael's early suggestions for the room were included in the building of the room such as thicker drywall, solid core doors, and the selection of hardwood floors instead of Berber carpeting to allow better tune ability of the acoustic characteristics of the room.
Treatment Provided
After the room was built, the walls put up and system installed the customer once again called upon Michael Binns at Acoustical Solutions for advice on a proper acoustical treatment for the room. What was recommended and installed was a series of 4' x 4' x 2" thick AlphaSorb™ Wall Panels and corner Bass Traps. The main idea was for the listener to hear the sound's direct path from the speaker not losing clarity from the first reflection off the side wall or ceiling. "Peter wanted a clear crisp sound, not one too dead caused by too much absorption in the room, losing the high frequency content of the sound."
The AlphaSorb™ Wall Panels are a dense fiberglass board that is covered with Guilford of Maine Fabric and installed with Z Clips. The bass traps are a thick Class A fire rated acoustical foam product also covered with the Guilford of Maine Fabric.
Quantitative Results
After the job was completed, the customer said:
"The sound I have in this room rivals the best out there. All the people that I have had over who are either an enthusiast, audiophile or Joe Six Pack have all said that the experience in my room is amazing."
"The main thing that I have noticed is the calming of the aggressive nature of the Nautilus tweeter in my N804/HTM1 Speakers. The imaging is much more precise now without the smearing which seemed to occur before the panels went up. Also, because of the room shape in the rear, I was getting weird effects, which would cause the left front to require as much as a 2 - 3 dB of extra boosts to be calibrated with the other speakers. When the panels went up, everything fell within .5 dB if not right at 0 dB. I am also able to crank up the volume now and listen at length without any ear fatigue."
"In a way, I guess I did my job right, in that the assumption is that this is just another room in my house that looks as if it is a natural extension of the other spaces within my home."
For more information on this application, contact our sales department.
