Acoustic treatment of a private cinema room

What makes a cinema room unintelligible

It is almost never the sound level, it is the reverberation. The direct sound reaches the ear, then the reflections off the surfaces arrive a few tens of milliseconds later and overlay the following syllables. The dialogue stops being intelligible even though the volume is comfortable.

Why a dedicated room is a difficult case

A private cinema room is often a simple volume, with parallel surfaces, no absorbing furniture and no curtains. That is exactly the configuration that produces the most reflections. A furnished living room corrects itself; a dedicated room does not.

What the product brings here

R'Acoustic 20, fitted to the walls and the ceiling, absorbs part of the reflected energy and shortens the reverberation time. It also limits transmission to neighbouring rooms, which counts in a house where somebody is asleep upstairs during the film.

The installation point

A decoupled framework gives the best result: the product is not compressed there and the wall does not transmit mechanically. Direct bonding remains possible when the room is small and not a centimetre can be given up, with a lower return.

What has to be treated as well

A solid door with seals, and the ventilation duct penetrations. Those two points cancel much of the work if they are left as they are: sound passes where air passes, and a hollow door is acoustically a hole.

The product is presented on the R'Acoustic 20 page, and sound for such a room on the plasterboard home cinema page.