Dedicated home theater room question

[themovieguru]

I am thinking about building a dedicated home theater in a house that my wife and I will have built. Don't want to spend a ton of money but need sources to purchase affordable aucustic wall panels to hang on the dry wall to have the proper sound. Any companies out there that I can look into?

Thanks

[Wolf Husky]

If you aren't trying to THX-certify your theatre, you should be able to get by with hanging fabric on the walls. Just use a dark curtain-like fabric and cover every sq inch of the walls. It will look pretty nice, too.

I recently did that with my theatre. My 12' x 15' theatre used about 60 sq yrds of material. Figure as much as $15 per sq yard for the fabric, and you are under $1000. (I have seen acoustic panelling run as much as 10x that.

[JimRochester]

I agree, unless you have babies sleeping, acoustic paneling may be overkill. If not you may be able to get soundproofing through proper insulation.

[themovieguru]

Wolf Husky won't all the fabric make fore a dead environment meaning no bouncing sound?

[Joshic]

"Bouncing sound" is a bad thing. I mean, you certainly want to design a room so that every position can receive sound waves equally (like in a concert hall). But you don't want sound waves reflecting off the walls.

[themovieguru]

I saw one guys site where he took mattress foam wrapped around a board and then covered it with a nice fabric. Do you think this would work well? Also what if I covered all the walls in fabric with this make the room sound good?

[audrey]

Before committing to a particular solution, you may want to familiarize yourself with some of the potential acoustical issues and possible solutions available—there’s a lot more to proper room treatment than just slapping something on the walls. Much depends on the inherent acoustical properties of the room in question, the speakers and their location WRT seating, aesthetic and acoustic preferences, funds available, etc.

As noted above you don’t want sound bouncing around in an uncontrolled fashion, nor do you generally want to create a completely dead environment. Although more popular in 2 channel systems, some people prefer a Live End/Dead End approach.

If you have the funds you might consider consulting with a local specialist to review your needs and options. And/or you could review some of the available literature, such as:

http://www.widescreenreview.com/wsrm...onic/holo3.pdf

http://www.widescreenreview.com/wsrm...onic/holo2.pdf

http://www.stereophile.com/printarchives.cgi?31

http://www.acousticroomsystems.com/8078_eprint.pdf

There’s some good information available on acoustical design both in print and on line. If you are at all technically inclined and willing to invest some time you should be able to design and implement an appropriate solution tailored to your specific needs/budget.

[cowanrg]

yes, that's a great way to get it done without much cash. it works pretty well. maybe 2 layers deep, but one should be sufficient for a smaller space. just mount it on plywood, cover with a cloth, and hang on a wall...

Originally posted by themovieguru
I saw one guys site where he took mattress foam wrapped around a board and then covered it with a nice fabric. Do you think this would work well? Also what if I covered all the walls in fabric with this make the room sound good?

[Brian Shannon]

Originally posted by themovieguru
I am thinking about building a dedicated home theater in a house that my wife and I will have built. Don't want to spend a ton of money but need sources to purchase affordable aucustic wall panels to hang on the dry wall to have the proper sound. Any companies out there that I can look into?

Thanks

I would do some research and reading before making that determination.

Good luck.

[Wolf Husky]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe most speakers these days are the type that produce sound that fills a room already. I don't remember the terminology. With these speakers, you shouldn't need to bounce off a wall or ceiling to fill a room with sound. With good speakers, you shouldn't even be able to tell where the speaker is. This isn't because of bouncing. This is how the sound comes out of the speaker.

[audrey]

Originally posted by Wolf Husky
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe most speakers these days are the type that produce sound that fills a room already. I don't remember the terminology. With these speakers, you shouldn't need to bounce off a wall or ceiling to fill a room with sound. With good speakers, you shouldn't even be able to tell where the speaker is. This isn't because of bouncing. This is how the sound comes out of the speaker.

Except for a room with 100% absorption, such as an anechoic chamber, sound will reflect off of the walls, floor, and ceiling; these reflected signals arrive at the listener’s ears behind the direct sound from the speakers. The closer one sits to the primary speakers (near field) the less reverberation one will hear; conversely, the farther away from the sound source (far field) one sits, the more prominent the delayed sound signals become. Room acoustics also play a role and can either amplify or attenuate the reverberation.

Research has shown that listening in a completely dead environment yields an unnatural experience; some level of reverberation or reflected signals is desirable. One goal in treating a room is to control the amount and angle of reflected sound to create an optimal listening experience.

I am not entirely sure what you mean by fills a room, but WRT speaker designs, the vast majority on the market today are direct radiating designs; these speakers are generally not designed to use the room boundaries in producing sound. This is why most manufacturers recommend placing the speakers well away from all room boundaries (e.g. following the rule of 1/3’s). Other designs, like omni-directional and some bi/di-polar speakers, are designed to incorporate the back and/or side walls in sound reproduction—these designs generally create a wider, though somewhat more diffuse, sound field. But all speakers will fill a room with sound and all speakers will produce reflected sound (except in rooms with 100% absorption).