Acoustics play a big role in listening quality, so the acoustic comfort of a room is an element that should not be overlooked. When investing in a quality HI-FI audio system, you must ensure that you have good acoustics in your listening room and if this is not the case, you can make corrections.
What is acoustics?
Sound is a wave that propagates through the air. Obstacles such as decorative elements and furniture, but also walls, floors and ceilings act as mirrors on sound waves. Improving the acoustics of a room means trying to reduce the bounces of the waves, to attenuate resonances , without having a total absence of reflection, which would make listening unpleasant.
Soundproofing should not be confused with acoustic correction :
Soundproofing aims to prevent the propagation of sound from one room to another, while acoustic correction seeks to reduce the problems of internal noise in a room.
Why do some rooms have bad acoustics?
Many factors can come into play in the acoustics of a room.
First of all, the architecture itself. For example, the higher the ceiling height, the amount of glass surface or the volume of the room, the worse the acoustics will be.
Then, the construction materials used: concrete, plasterboard or tiles are hard and smooth surfaces which, therefore, generate a great deal of reverberation.
Furniture and decorative elements are also important. If you have few pieces of furniture, if they are made of smooth materials or if you have large empty spaces , the acoustics of your room will be much less suited to the diffusion of quality sound.
Sound absorption: some simple ways to improve it
The aim is to improve acoustic comfort inside the room in order to avoid losses of clarity due to disturbances such as resonances, reverberation or echo.
Porous or fibrous materials are absorbent, they are able to let sound waves penetrate their structures. The most affordable solution is to enrich your decoration and furniture with absorbent materials .
For floors:
Choose large, thick rugs or absorbent flooring such as carpet. You can also install floor cushions.
For the walls:
Opt for wall textiles, natural materials such as cork or wallpaper, the thicker they are, the more waves they will be able to absorb.
For the ceiling:
The easiest way is to install acoustic foam, but this is a rather expensive solution and not necessary if the other surfaces in your room are quite absorbent.
Another way to improve is to change the position of your speakers. Place them at listening height, move them away from the wall, and move them closer to your listening point to maximize direct waves.
An EQ to correct and adapt the sound
If hardware solutions are not an option for you, you can always turn to an EQ. An equalizer will not correct the acoustics of your room but will allow you to adapt the sound to it.
An EQ is a tool that allows you to act on the audio signal. This allows you to adapt the listening of your HiFi system according to the imperfections of your room by acting on the frequencies that need to be adjusted.
In a few words
There are many solutions you can choose from to improve the acoustics of your room, either by correcting it directly with furniture and choosing suitable materials or by choosing to adapt the sound to the acoustics of your room with an EQ.
Our Octavio Maestro smart speaker has an EQ that you can easily control from the Octavio Virtuose app . You have access to predefined modes or, if you wish, you have the possibility to define your own settings.
