Excessive USE of Absorptive Materials

Commercially built diffusers are available but large bookcases and irregularly shaped furniture will also serve the same purpose. They reflect sounds in a highly randomized way which effectively “scatters” the sound in all directions. Place the diffuser where you would otherwise place the absorptive material (using the “mirror trick”), to break up the first early reflections and scatter them randomly throughout the room.

Commercially available fiberglass, foam and diffusion panels may not be aesthetically acceptable in many installations, particularly when the home theatre room serves multi- ple purposes. All of these materials can be covered with acoustically-transparent cloth for design considerations. It is important that the cloth be acoustically transparent, however, or else the effectiveness of the absorptive material will be greatly reduced. The simplest test for this is to hold a large sample of the cloth in front of a speaker playing the pink noise found in Chapter 6 of the WOW! laserdisc. If you can move the cloth in front of the speaker without hearing a difference, you are all set.

Large expanses of glass can be challenging. They reflect mids and highs but often pass bass through almost as though they didn’t exist. The result is a characteristically bright, rough sound which can be difficult to correct electronically. The best treatment is generally the heaviest insulated drapes which can be found. (Incidentally, these serve double duty, controlling light which might otherwise fall on the screen.)

The materials just discussed are ineffective at lower frequencies. See the discussion on Standing Waves for more information about treating environments with low frequen- cy response problems.

ROOM ABSORPTION FOR HOME THEATRE SYSTEMS

Surround speaker

Screen speaker

• "Dead" zone absorbs front speaker reflection.

• "Live" zone provides surround propagation

Reflective "live" zone

Absorptive "dead" zone

People are sometimes tempted to go over- board with absorptive material once they dis- cover how powerful its use can be. While the ideal home theatre should be considerably “deader” acoustically than a typical living room, it still needs some reflectivity and diffusion.

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