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Getting state-of-the-art devices for your home theater is not always enough for the best movie-watching experience. Because if you don’t do the right acoustic treatments then you will experience an echo of sound, dialogues, and even an unnecessary base.
You will have to erase every kind of hard surface in your theatre room to enjoy your movie to the fullest. For that, you will have to install acoustic panels. But Where To Place Acoustic Panels In Home Theater?
At A Glance: The best areas to place your acoustic panels are to pinpoint the first reflection points of sound rays. Slide the mirror all across the theater room. Mark spots where you can see the reflection of speakers. These are the first reflection points and you have to Install panels here.
Read This Article for more related topics like measuring the height and width of the panels and the right type of panels to use. You will be an expert in panel installation after reading this article completely. Get glued!
Where To Install The Acoustic Panels?
We will have to pick each area for the panels precisely through a first reflection marking method.
- We will assume that you have set up the home theatre system complete with all the speakers
- Now get yourself an assistant. The assistant can be your spouse, child, or friend
- Instruct your assistant to sit on the main sofa that you will use to sit on for watching the movies
- Tell your assistant to closely absorb the mirror that you will slide across the walls of your theatre room and on the ceiling
- When your assistant sees the reflection of the speaker in the mirror they will tell you
- You will have to Mark that area of the wall and the ceiling
- Your next job is to pick a nice set of Acoustic panels
- Glue 3 to 5 panels to make small sets. Each set should be able to cover the marked area of the wall or ceiling according to your measurement.
- Now install each set of the acoustic panel on the mark areas across the room
- You have to precisely cover those marked areas
- When you cover all the marked areas with the acoustic panels
- You will get a fine acoustic-treated home theatre room
What should be the size of the Acoustic Panels?
When your assistant pinpoints the first reflection area then you will have to measure the height and width of that reflection area to properly cover it.
- When you successfully find the reflection area
- Then slide the mirror horizontally up and down
- Measure the height of the reflection area
- Now slide back the mirror to the middle of the reflection area
- Now slide the mirror left and right and measure the width of the reflection area too
- Now you have successfully measured the height and width of your reflection area
- You have to glue the panels together to match the height and width of your measured value
- Now install the panels carefully with the help of a glue
Acoustic Treatment Layout Blueprint (Should it cover the ceiling and floor or just walls?)
Your theatre room acoustics treatment will not be done only by installing acoustic panels on the side-by-side walling.
You will have to cover the ceiling reflection areas and the floor reflection areas too.
The complete treatment layout will be side-by-side walls, ceiling, and floor. It means that you will have to cover every hard surface in the room that can reflect sound. Also, you have to install soft sofas too.
If the room floor’s hard surface is visible then it will increase the overall echo of the sound.
The problem with the floor is that you can’t install acoustic panels on it. The floor will not look good with the acoustic panels.
The sidewalls and the ceiling can look fabulous with the panels.
But one simple and creative thing that you can do for the floor is to place a soft rug on it to cover the hard surface of it.
This soft rug will absorb the sound rays and will stop the reverberation of the sound.
That must be dense and soft to absorb the sound effectively.
You should also follow my these 13 tips to improve the theater experience. After, this you will have immersive sound and video. Have a professional cinema hall experience in your home.
Types Of Acoustic Panels For Home Theater And Their Installation Areas
There are a plethora of types of acoustic panels available for you to apply to your theatre room and enhance the overall experience.
We will discuss each one briefly.
Acoustic Foam Panels
These foam panels can be found in many designs. But pyramid and straight-line panels are the most common among all of them.
They are made up of foam and when you install them on the wall and ceiling. The wall and ceiling will look beautiful and will give a professional touch to the room.
You can find these panels on Amazon easily. You can find a pack of 54 panels to a pack of 93 panels at affordable prices.
You can also find these panels in home depot or any offline store near your home.
Installation Area
- For walls and ceiling
Decorative Acoustic Panels
You can find many designs of these decorative panels that will take your theatre room decoration from professional to more fun and exciting design.
There are numerous designs in these panels available on Amazon.
Some of the designs that caught my attention are the sketch of sound waves engraved in wood, beautiful sketches of lines on the beautiful different color boxes of wood that looks like gold patterns on it, panels in the shape of triangles, in shapes of honeycomb, or different colors of foam panels glued together.
I mention some of them that caught my attention but you can go and choose any panel that looks fascinating to you.
Installation Area
- For walls and ceiling
DIY Acoustic Panels
You can design your acoustic panels at your home.
The method is really simple and you can repeat it for any design that you like.
You can get inspiration from the decorative panels on Amazon and can easily create those at the comfort of your home
- Create a box or a frame out of wood
- You can create this frame in any shape like a rectangle or Triangle.
- If you choose a triangle shape that will be better. because then you can arrange it in a beautiful pattern that you like
- Now stuff any sound-absorbing material into this woodbox or wood frame
- After that cover it with any color of cloth. So that it looks beautiful
- Stitch all ends of that cloth and cover the wood box completely
- This box can also be a side-only wood frame if you can adjust the sound-absorbing material in that frame.
- Now install it on the wall with the help of glue or a nail. Choose any one of them that you feel comfortable with.
You can also carpet your walls with soft carpet. That will look amazing too with your best-picked design.
Installation Area
- For walls and ceiling
Bass Traps For Home Theater
These panels are the same as others, no different in shape and material.
The only difference in these bass traps other than other panels is that these panels have special areas for installation.
Bass traps can be installed in those areas where two surfaces meet with each other like wall corners. You will have to place acoustic panels in these corners to trap the excessive bass and hence they will be called bass traps.
They kill the excessive reverberation of the bass and hence refine the overall base of the audio and deliver the pure form of the bass.
You can also DIY or buy decorative panels for corners. I just wanted to let you know that bass traps can only be installed at the corners.
For the best bass, you should consider the best Subwoofer as well. After that, you will get the most realistic audio that can make your friends get jealous.
Installation Area
- For Corners Only
Did you get something out of this Acoustics panels guide? Hold On We Have Something Exciting To Share.
[the_ad id=”4771″]FAQs
How do you acoustically treat home theater?
You have to erase hard surfaces in the home theater as long as you can.
You have to install soft sofas, and soft rugs and also soften the hard surfaces of the wall, ceilings, and floor.
If your home theater is huge then you will have to soften its door too.
The best thing for the door will be a soundproof door blanket. It will soundproof the door and will also treat the acoustic physics of the door too.
Do acoustic panels keep sound in?
Acoustic panels don’t keep the sound in the room. It will just prevent the reverberation of the sound and bass in the theater room.
In order to keep the sound in the room then you will have to do soundproofing of the theater room.
How do you hang sound-absorbing panels?
If the panels are lightweight and you think that your chosen glue can apply them correctly to the wall, then go and glue it to the wall.
How do you hang heavy acoustic panels?
If the panels are too heavy for the glue to handle. Then you have to nail it to the walls or drill a hole and screw it to the wall. But do this on one condition you own the property or the landlord can permit you to do so.
How do you attach acoustic panels to the ceiling?
You can attach the panels to the ceiling in the same manner as you will attach them to the wall. You can apply glue to the lightweight panels.
Helpful Resources For The FAQs To Read More
- Know more from this Quora Discussion. (Resource for the second answer)
- Read about the acoustics from this Crutchfield Blog Article. (Resource for the fifth answer)
