@kemela

Vicoustic aims to improve the listening experience by improving room acoustics with absorption, diffusion and reflection panels.

Designers of Hi-Fi loudspeakers put a great deal of effort into eliminating colorations and unwanted resonances in their products only to have poor room acoustics reintroduce resonances and time effect distortions reducing clarity, focus and realism. Vicoustic's carefully designed absorbing and diffusing products achieve results far exceeding homemade glass fiber and fabric attempts.

The combination of innovative designs and rigorous in-house testing makes Vicoustic a distinguished leader in acoustic treatments. These are serious sophisticated acoustic treatments and as such are used in domestic, professional and public environments by leading corporations such as Microsoft, Sony, BBC and ITV, Facebook, SAE institute and many others.

Rigorous Product Development

The R&D department at the Lisbon Portugal base accurately tests and measures all the products at different frequencies in a resizeable room that uses a 4-ton mechanical movable wall. The "controlled test lab" can be configured as a low frequency resonance chamber, a reverberation chamber, or an anechoic chamber.

Is it worth spending money on room treatments?

Room treatments are not just about perfectionistic measurement and intellectual analysis. We encounter the effects of room acoustics in empty rooms, trying to follow conversation in a noisy cafe with hard surfaces, singing in the bathroom and cosy corners. In unfavorable environments, with poor acoustics, our brains have to do more work to sort out and make sense of the sounds we want to listen to from the distracting reflected ones arriving very quickly after. This is tiring. So while generally people focus on the audio components they can afford, investment in even a modest amount of room treatment will add value to the listening experience. Even the most expensive gear will only sound as good as the room. A few well-designed and well-placed panels can make a big difference. Vicoustic products are affordable because you can start off simply addressing first reflections and flutter echo and then move on to bass management as a next step.

I'll just add furniture and a rug

These will certainly help but can only go so far, particularly in rooms with large hard surface areas of concrete, brick and glass. These items only absorb a certain band of frequencies, are not particularly good diffusers and have little, if any, impact on bass because they are usually in the wrong place. You probably won't find many common items to go on the ceiling!

For example Bass traps specifically act to prevent buildup of standing waves in rooms which not only cause uneven and out of control bass energy build-up, but also mask dynamics and details of the mid and treble energy. Managing room acoustics ideally affect how we perceive sound across all frequencies.

What about digital room correction systems?

Sophisticated DSP systems are evolving but they can not control sound once it has left the speakers. Clarity, focus and soundstage are all influenced by room effects over time that are not so easy to compensate for. Equalization will adjust the overall tonal balance of speakers. Prominent individual standing wave bass frequencies, however, build up in the room over time. Simple amplitude adjustments have limited influence.

Why Vicoustic?

Vicoustic products are effective in modifying room acoustics in striking visual designs available in many different wood finishes and fabric colors. They are easy to clean and considerate of fire retardancy. They are easy to install and you can opt between lower cost more permanent installation or a more flexible mounting system that lends itself to try and see approach as you can swap out panels targeting diffusion versus absorption at different frequency ranges and for where you sit.

For a very reasonable fee Vicoustic offers a consultation service using computer simulations to determine optimal positions of the most appropriate products. An archtectural acoustician can be deployed for an even better job.

Done right, room treatments will make your speakers disappear allowing you to listen to music with less effort while hearing more of what is present in the recording.