Acoustic Dampening

Often, the biggest cause of a lack of speech clarity both with and without a sound system installed is ‘poor’ acoustics. The phrase ‘poor’ acoustics is a bit misleading, because depending on the use of the building, the acoustic requirements are different. For choir performances, a longer reverberation time gives a lovely warmth and means the sound lingers in the air, but this is the opposite to what you need for speech.

Lots of performance spaces actually have active acoustic dampening which can be adjusted depending on what is happening and the required level of reverberation. However, for most buildings, it is possible to find a happy medium, where the installation of acoustic dampening can massively increase speech intelligibility, but not take all the reverberation away from the room for use as a concert space.

Installing acoustic panels can help you get the best from an existing sound system, so it is worth considering this before investing in a new sound system which may not improve the situation much.

Reverberation time is a metric that is used to describe the amount of reverberation in a building. Longer reverberation times (>1.5s) suit acoustic and choral (non-rhythmical) music, whereas speech and amplified music with percussion require a reverberation time of 1.2s or less. Too much reflected sound at the listeners’ position compared to the direct sound from the person speaking or loudspeaker amplifying their voice makes it hard for the listeners’ ear-brain combination to decode the message.

If this is a problem for you in your space, our in-house expert Andy Pidsley is a member of the Institute of Acoustics and can carry out an acoustic survey. This comprises of tests and reverberation time measurements plus physical measurements of the dimensions of your space. He uses these to calculate the amount of absorption necessary to reduce the reverberation time to around one second. This is a good balance for speech and musical activities and will create a sense of ‘acoustic comfort’.

We then design a layout to fit acoustic panels to the walls and sometimes the ceiling. These panels are available in many colours, sizes and shapes to either blend in or make a statement with the decor of your room.

The price of acoustic dampening depends entirely on the size and number of panels required and the length of time it will take to fit these. Generally, it will take 2 days to fit enough acoustic panels to treat a standard village hall.