Acoustic Treatment and Soundproofing
Two different jobs. Acoustic treatment makes the room sound right. Soundproofing keeps the sound where it belongs. A good cinema usually needs both, designed together.
Acoustic treatment
Improves how the room sounds by controlling reflections, reverberation and bass. It makes dialogue clearer, imaging sharper and bass more even across the seats. It does not stop sound leaving the room.
Soundproofing
Reduces sound passing into other rooms and from outside. It relies on mass, decoupled construction and airtight seals. It does not by itself improve the sound inside the room.
From a hard-surfaced shell to a treated room
Drag the handle. This is an illustration of treatment placement, not measured data.
Making the room sound right
Acoustic wall panels
Fabric-wrapped, timber or perforated panels absorb or scatter sound while forming the finish of the wall.
Broadband absorption
Absorbs a wide range of frequencies on walls and ceilings to reduce reverberation and flutter echo.
Bass trapping
Thicker absorbers in corners and along boundaries reduce low-frequency build-up that makes bass boomy.
Acoustic diffusion
Scatters sound so the room feels spacious without going dead, often on the rear wall.
First-reflection control
Treats the points on the side walls and ceiling where sound bounces to your ears, improving clarity and dialogue.
Low-frequency room modes
Standing waves set by the room dimensions cause uneven bass. Treatment, subwoofer placement and calibration manage them.
Acoustic treatment selector
Pick what you hear to see whether it is a treatment problem, a soundproofing problem, or both.
Room mode calculator
Keeping the sound in
Isolation is far easier to design before construction than to add afterwards.
Sound-isolation construction
Added mass, decoupled wall and ceiling layers and an airtight build stop sound travelling through the structure.
Acoustic doors and seals
A heavy door with perimeter seals and a drop seal. A gap of a few millimetres can undo a heavy wall.
Floating floors and isolated ceilings
Where appropriate, a floor or ceiling is decoupled from the structure on isolators so bass does not travel into other rooms.
Noise transmission and vibration
Airborne sound and structure-borne vibration are separate problems. Subwoofers can be isolated on their own platforms.
Ventilation and services
Every duct, pipe and cable that crosses an isolated shell is a leak path, so cooling is silenced and penetrations are sealed.
Measure, treat, measure again
A calibrated measurement microphone shows how the room responds at each seat. We use it to find problems, check that treatment worked and tune subwoofers and room correction. The result is a system that is adjusted to your room instead of to a generic setup.
- Before: frequency response, decay time and bass behaviour at the seats.
- During: treatment sized and placed against the measured problems.
- After: comparison measurements and calibration of speakers and subwoofers.
Acoustic questions
Do I need acoustic treatment if I only want a projector and speakers?
Not every room needs the same amount, but almost every room benefits. Measurement tells us how much. Hard floors, glass and large flat walls often cause the most obvious problems.
Will soundproofing make my room sound better?
Not on its own. Soundproofing limits sound leaving the room. How the room sounds inside is controlled by acoustic treatment, speaker positions and calibration.
How do you know the treatment worked?
We measure the room before and after with a calibrated microphone and compare the results, alongside listening tests.
Tell us what you hear.
Describe your room and we will tell you what is likely to help.