Better sound at home – how to improve your room acoustics

Proper speaker placement is the first step to achieving better sound. It is a good idea to place the speakers at ear height and/or facing the listening position, and away from walls, as being close to walls can overemphasize bass sounds and flatten the stereo image and also the spatial effect. On the other hand, the bass-enhancing effect of interfaces has already been taken into account in the speaker design. The speakers should be placed as symmetrically as possible in relation to the listening position. Feel free to experiment with different placement options to find the sound that best suits your room.

Soft materials, such as thick carpets and curtains, can significantly reduce sound reflections and echoes. If the room has hard surfaces, such as parquet floors or bare walls, adding soft materials can make the sound clearer and more pleasant.

To improve the acoustics, you can easily use various acoustic panels and, to a slightly greater extent, so-called bass traps. Various so-called room equalizers can also be helpful. They are available in many AV amplifiers, but also as separate devices (for example, DSPeaker or MiniDSP).

For the hi-fi enthusiast, and why not just anyone, a deeper understanding of room acoustics provides the opportunity to significantly improve the listening environment and sound reproduction.

Nowadays, even free measurement programs and affordable microphones make it easier to analyze and optimize room acoustics. One such program is the free Room EQ Wizard and the Room Acoustic Meter for mobile devices.

Acoustics is therefore about the behavior of sound, or sound waves, in the listening space (room) after it has left the loudspeaker. The behavior can be divided into four frequency ranges based on the phenomena affecting them: the room emphasis range (the lowest bass, usually below 40 Hz), the standing wave range (the so-called room mode range around 40-500 Hz), the transition range (around 500-2000 Hz) and the diffusion range (around 2000 Hz and upwards).