How to improve acoustics in a room

How reduce reverberation and improve acoustics in a room
Reverberation can turn a room at home, office or school classroom into a cold and unsociable space. Poor room acoustics causes poor intelligibility, loss of concentration, fatigue, and sound problems in adjacent rooms or homes. Longer reverberation times, the time it takes to die sound out, makes conversations less intelligible and a Hi-Fi set sound less qualitative. Applying acoustic panels and sound absorbing surfaces reduces reverberation, and thus a noise level reduction and gives a room a "warmer" feeling.

Flamex Edge to the ceiling in a kitchen

How many acoustic panels to improve acoustics in a room
Standard measures with regards to the amount of acoustic panels that should be applied don't exist. There is no such thing as a miracle product, it all depends on how you personally perceive the quality of the acoustics in the room in question. Our solution with the 'rule of thumb' however gives in most cases an excellent basis and first step in improving the acoustics in your room, office or school classroom for instance.

The commonly used rule of thumb states that placing sound-absorbing surfaces, acoustic panels, in an amount that approximately equals 40 to 50% of the floor area results in a noticeable and pleasant improvement of the acoustics in a room. However, we recommend first adding an amount of acoustic panels equivalent to approximately 30% of the floor space. This should already lead to a considerable improvement. After that, more acoustic panels can be added until the desired result is achieved.

Example of the rule of thumb: If you have a room with a floor space of about 50 m², you need to add about 15 to 18 m² of acoustic panels to improve the acoustics in a room. This includes the presence of a fabric sofa, rug, and curtains, these surfaces also improve the acoustics in a room, but still leave lots of sound reflective surfaces, walls and ceiling, left uncoverd.

Where to mount acoustic panels?
In the ideal situation, you should mount acoustic panels spread out across the room, this way the acoustics in the whole room will be improved. To see, or rather hear, where reverberation exactly comes from you should walk through your room, office or school classroom, while clapping your hands. Cover at least a quarter of the wall or ceiling with acoustic panels, or materials, where you perceive the loudest reflections and thus reverberations. Work your way from this starting point to the rest of the room.

A spot in the living room where reverberation frequently occurs, is the sitting area where the TV or Hifi system is located. If the sofa is placed against an empty wall opposite the TV and/or loudspeakers, sound reflects between these two walls. By covering a quarter of the wall behind the sofa with absorption panels, the acoustics will significantly improve. The myth of "absorbing materials underneath a table" has virtually no effect, please don't waist money on that myth. It's far better to invest in a acoustic panels to mount to a wall or wall-and-ceiling. Below you can see an image of Flamex Basic applied against the ceiling in a living room.

Flamex Basic installed against the ceiling in the living room

Popular acoustic panels to improve acoustics in a room
Ceiling solution

• Flamex Basic
  Simple, but effective basic acoustic foam product, sufficient absorption values, hardly visible, competitively priced and easy to cut to size.
• Flamex Edge
  Sturdy foam panel with high absorption values, modern and sleek design, easy to assemble by yourself. Fireproof like all other Flamex products. Suitable for public areas. Can also be used as a wall solution.
• Akotherm SF
  Also a plain but very effective sound absorbing acoustic panel. Most acoustic panels can be used to mount to wall as well to the ceiling, this is also the case with Akotherm SF (Smooth Finish).
• Akotherm Edge
  Another Akotherm polyester product with excellent sound absorbing properties. Soft to the touch, slightly wavy texture surface, very attractive price to result ratio!

Questions? 
Do you have questions about improving rooms acoustics? Please feel free to contact us, we will be happy to answer your questions or send product sample.