What are acoustic treatments?

When many people hear of acoustic treatments for spaces, they automatically assume that is a concern for musicians and recording studios. However, the concept of acoustic treatments is that many spaces need better acoustics. Acoustic treatments are solutions that absorb or diffuse sound to improve the acoustics of a room. Many buildings feature hard surfaces that deflect sound waves and cause them to reverberate throughout the rooms. Or the walls may allow the sounds to travel from room to room, leading to the loss of privacy.

Thankfully, acoustic treatments help regulate sound through absorption or diffusion, leading to better sound quality in a room. They come in various forms, including:

• Acoustic wall panels.
• Bass traps.
• Acoustic foams.
• Diffuser panels.
• Ceiling clouds.
• Fiberglass insulations.
• Helmholtz resonators etc.

How do they work?

Acoustic solutions regulate three primary aspects of sound that can cause sound problems in a room or building. For instance, think about a museum with poor acoustics. Guests on a guided tour can struggle to hear the guide over competing sounds of other conversations around the building and even footsteps. As such, acoustic treatments help regulate these aspects of sound.

Sound reflection

Sound reflection occurs when sound waves travel across a room and bump into the walls, furniture, and other objects in the room. While some types of surfaces absorb the sound waves, others cause them to bounce off and travel in a different location. Sound reflection can be a serious problem, especially in school halls, churches, concert venues, auditoriums, and other spaces where you want to direct all the sound to the audience. If the sound ends up bouncing off to other directions, it can be deflected away from the target destination causing acoustic problems and even sound reverberation. Installing acoustic treatments such as acoustic panels on the facility’s walls can help deal with sound reflection resulting in better acoustics.

Sound reverberation

Reverberation is when numerous sound waves bounce off surfaces and accumulate, which causes echoey in some rooms. You may notice that you hear more echoey in a large empty room than when it is full of people. When there are people in the room, the sound waves are absorbed by the people’s clothing, but when the sound waves encounter nothing but hard surfaces, they bounce around continuously.

Sound reverberation also interferes with sound quality. For instance, it may be challenging to hear the speaker clearly or music clearly in a room with sound reverberation, so acoustic treatments are necessary.

Sound resonance

Sound resonance results in loud distorted sounds, which can be a problem for many facilities. For instance, when sound waves encounter the window surface, they cause it to vibrate depending on the frequency of the sound waves. That is the concept of resonance. However, installing an acoustic solution can help address that.

THE WRAP-UP

Acoustic treatments can be easily installed as some of them come in the form of wall hangings that mimic art which you can integrate into your wall to blend in with the rest of the decor. Since they are customizable, it is hard to tell they are acoustic treatments even though they are in full view.