Acoustic treatment Fundamentals- Forms and types of acoustic treatment

There is a main difference between soundproofing and acoustic treatment. Acoustic treatment aims to make a room optimal for the advantage of a given application, instead of preventing sound from escaping.

In this post, we will discuss what choices are available to accomplish this. Room dimensions have a vital impact on what is heard in the room. Sound waves can bounce off the walls and add on to the direct sound, leading to early reflection and flutter echo. The bigger the room, the bigger are their impacts. How much of it we want added to our direct sound truly depends on the application. Is it going to be a concert hall for classical music? Are we recording instruments here so they can be ideal for studio work? These applications have various demands and need the ideal type of acoustic treatment. It is apparent that acoustic treatment panels are just as much a science as it is an art. Sound waves also have different wavelengths, and if the physical distance between the two solid walls matches the wavelength of a specific frequency, a phenomenon known as standing wave happens when the wave bounces between the two walls. It is just like pushing a person on a swing with just the ideal rhythm, doing that will cause maximum swing. This is not good for active listening as it artificially enhances the amplitude of that related frequency. Active listening becomes inaccurate and recorded instruments get colored. This phenomenon impacts surfaces along the length, height and width of the room. Such resonances are known as axial modes. Moreover, sound can bounce off the walls more than once, leading to more complicated resonances like oblique and tangential modes. This is a heavy subject, so we will leave it for the future posts. Most of us don’t have specialized software to deal with this, hence these are some beneficial values known as bolt ratios which assist us while designing room dimensions.

Keep in mind that these values can be used in any order whether it is height, width or length. These ratios are by no means the final statement on what perfect room ratios and relative acoustic treatments should be. They just provide us a regular guideline on what has worked over the years in real-time situations. Parallel walls also lead to standing values, hence in professional recording situations, it is best to keep the walls at a specific angle to lessen this phenomenon.

Putting all the tools together

The level of intricacy in a noise cancelling wall really depends on the application and its budget.

Conclusion

As you can notice, acoustic treatments and duct silencer should be targeted to a particular application. There is no single room that is good for all the purposes. The intricacy involved may be staggering.

Since 1998, O’Neill Engineered Systems has been specializing in the custom design and installation of noise control products and systems to help you control noise. We can provide on-site acoustic analysis,