How can I improve my room acoustics?

Many audiophiles obsess over speakers, electronics, or even cables, but the truth is that little impacts on sound quality more than your room’s acoustics. While every room is different, when it comes to typical domestic spaces (living rooms, bedrooms, home studios), a few small changes can make a huge sonic difference.

Keeping it simple

In fact, a wide range of improvements can be achieved simply using everyday furnishings and decorations. As the great speaker designer Siegfried Linkwitz pointed out, a normal domestic room that sounds pleasant to sit and talk in will tend to have good acoustics for audio, too.

When setting up your own listening or monitoring space, consider the following:

• 1. Favour soft furnishings (rugs, curtains, upholstered sofas, etc.) and try to make these  as plush and heavy as possible. This will help reduce liveliness/reverberance, particularly in the all-important midrange (where the essence of voices and instruments live).
• 2. Add furniture items like bookshelves, decorations, and plants. These will have the effect of diffusing (spreading) sound, and work especially well in front of bare (especially parallel) walls.
• 3. Arrange your speakers and listening position symmetrically in the room where possible, and avoid burying your speakers deep into the corners, where they’ll be swamped by early reflections (unless they’re designed to be placed that way).

The extra mile

Beyond everyday furnishings and decorations, a few slightly more technically advanced steps can be taken at relatively low cost and complexity:

• 1. Install acoustic absorbers. Broadband lossy absorbers (which typically use fibrous materials like foam or rockwool to convert a wide range of frequencies from acoustic energy to heat) are an excellent start. Spread these out across the room rather than clumping them altogether in one part of the room. In particular, aim to place these along the front and back walls and ceilings, as reflections from these regions tend to interfere with perceived tonal balance without enhancing spatial qualities.
• 2. Use a measurement microphone and digital room equalisation to reduce problematic room modes (resonances that form as a result of the dimensions and materials of the room), cleaning up and smoothing out the low frequencies. Various automated software and hardware options are available these days (for example, Anthem or Dirac Live).
• 3. Try low-frequency absorbers (bass traps) can also be very effective, but note that these are difficult to tune to the acoustics of the space. Be ready to learn a bit about acoustics and before attempting this without professional advice!

Feel free to contact phoniq and we’ll be happy to assess your acoustic environment and share some tailored advice with you about how to make your room sound as beautiful as possible, at minimum cost and interference with your room’s aesthetic.