How to improve room acoustics: Our guide to better sound quality
The acoustic conditions in a room can have a significant impact on our well-being and productivity. Whether in the office, in the restaurant or at home, poor acoustics can be annoying and cause health problems. This guide will tell you everything you need to know for the effective improvement of the acoustics in a given room.
Why improve the acoustic conditions?
Poor acoustic properties often prevail in building areas with lots of smooth surfaces made of concrete, glass, steel and wood. These materials reflect sound waves to a high degree, which leads to long reverberation times. Unsatisfactory acoustics and permanent noise can cause headaches, concentration problems, stress and other health complaints. In addition, such conditions impair speech intelligibility and disrupt communication.Noise and inadequate acoustics not only have a negative impact on well-being, but can also lead to fatigue, anxiety and depression. In extreme cases, long-term exposure to noise can even cause (temporary) hearing loss. This is why it is important to improve the room acoustics in order to create a pleasant and healthy environment.
The acoustic conditions in a room can be optimized by reducing the reverberation time and minimizing unwanted sound reflections in the form of standing waves. This will create a pleasantly quiet atmosphere in which you feel comfortable and can work productively. Our guide shows you how and explains the different available measures.
Our most popular products for this use case
Content: 0.384 m² (€64.84* / 1 m²)
Content: 0.5 m² (€35.80* / 1 m²)
Content: 0.384 m² (€54.43* / 1 m²)
Content: 0.5 m² (€37.80* / 1 m²)
Content: 0.5 m² (€95.00* / 1 m²)
Acoustics 101 and measurement methods
The field of room acoustics investigates how sound waves interact with the surfaces of a room. The resulting insights are important for determining the sound character of the interior space. In contrast to building acoustics, which focuses on sound insulation between adjacent spaces, room acoustics is concerned with improving the sound quality within a single room.
An important parameter of room acoustics is the so-called reverberation time. In simple terms, this indicator describes the time it takes for a sound event to fade away completely. Shorter reverberation times allow better speech intelligibility and create a more pleasant acoustic experience.Practical tip: With your smartphone and our soniflex room acoustics app you can easily measure the reverberation time in your rooms in just a few steps. You can see how this works in our application video: Go to YouTube.
The app is free of charge:
Here for iOS
Here for Android
Installation
On request, nearly all our products can be delivered with self-adhesive rear faces, enabling easy, clean and time-saving installation – perfect for retrofit applications in rooms that are already in use.
Noise control
Thanks to their open-cell structure, our noise protection materials absorb sound waves and effectively attenuate bothering noise. A satisfactory result can already be achieved by lining 30 to 50 % of the ceiling and wall surfaces.
Fire protection
Many of our noise-control products are classified as flame-retardant according to DIN 4102 or DIN EN 13501. Please contact your local authorities in advance for information about the required fire protection class.
Methods for improving the acoustic conditions in a room
The installation of sound-absorbing elements and panels is a particularly effective way of optimizing room acoustics. For this purpose you use materials that absorb sound waves and minimize sound reflection.
Modern acoustic solutions such as acoustic posters, ceiling elements or geometric shapes (e.g. our soni HEXAGON and soni CIRCLE) offer functional AND aesthetically pleasing options for effective sound absorption. They not only serve to improve the acoustic conditions in the room, but will also constitute a visual highlight on any wall or ceiling. They help shorten the reverberation time and absorb sound waves. Also non-technical measures such as furnishing the room with carpets, curtains or upholstered furniture can serve to absorb sound.Where large wall or ceiling surfaces are available in a room, it is worth covering them with large areas of acoustic panels. This ensures a particularly effective improvement in room acoustics and uniform sound absorption. We recommend our soni PROTECT acoustic absorbers (for the ceiling) or soni COMFORT (for walls or ceilings). The light-colored acoustic panels are optionally available with a so-called chamfer (beveled edge). This not only provides a special look, but can also visually compensate for unevenness on the ceiling or wall. If you don't like the look of the panels, you can also cover them with an air-permeable stage fabric.
Often ‘room acoustics’ is taken to correspond to 'sound insulation' or 'soundproofing'. Yet, while the sound insulation between different rooms is the subject of building acoustics, room acoustics deals with the optimization of sound events within a given room. Our acoustic elements have been designed to diminish reverberation and create a pleasant sound environment - for a quieter and more comfortable atmosphere.
Practical solutions for different settings
In offices, noise-reducing wall panels (e.g. soni COLOR, soni HEXAGON, soni CIRCLE or soni COLOR RD) in various colors, and our acoustic posters, which are available in a range of attractive motifs, are particularly effective in improving room acoustics. These elements decrease the extent to which sound waves are reflected and create a pleasant working atmosphere. For open-plan offices, our soni desk partitions and soni room dividers are additional ideal tools for transforming any workplace into a comfortably quiet and undisturbed space for your employees that also provides a certain degree of privacy.
In living areas, on the other hand, wall and ceiling elements can help minimize reverberation and create a cozy atmosphere. Carpets and upholstered elements (e.g. soni CUBE used as a seating cube) are very useful and easy to implement means for absorbing sound waves. In older buildings, apartments often have very high ceilings. Here the installation of suspended ceilings with acoustic elements made of melamine foam can be a highly effective noise-reduction measure.In schools, day-care centers and kindergartens, our colorful soni ELEMENT acoustic elements meet both the acoustic and aesthetic requirements of an educational facility since the available shapes - animals, flowers, clouds, circles and hexagons - are highly appealing to children.
In catering facilities and medical institutions, the use of sound-absorbing materials is particularly important when it comes to providing a comfortable setting for guests resp. patients and staff. Acoustic products such as wall panels, acoustic posters and large ceiling elements can effectively reduce noise levels. In restaurants and doctors' offices, these products help create a quiet and relaxed atmosphere and improve speech intelligibility. For doors in doctors' surgeries we have developed a special solution: soni PORTA. This door insulation kit, which is also available in a removable version, ensures the desired privacy in treatment rooms.
Step-by-step guide to improving room acoustics
The first step in improving room acoustics is the identification of any spaces with high reverberation levels. Large, bare walls or glass surfaces, especially when located exactly opposite each other, are typical factors that can cause poor acoustics. Other indicators for acoustic problems in the room are for instance poor speech intelligibility and the feeling that conversations are difficult to keep up.You can use sound-absorbing furnishings such as carpets, curtains and upholstered furniture to reduce sound reflections. Our professional acoustic solutions such as acoustic posters, ceiling elements and special wall absorbers offer long-term improvements in room acoustics. The appropriate number and positioning of the acoustic elements depends on the size and height of the room. An acoustic measurement helps determine the quantity of absorbers needed.
Practical tip: Simply use our specially developed room acoustics app to determine the required quantity. The app is totally easy to use and the measurement takes just a few minutes. Why not give it a try right away?
Our app is available free of charge:
Here for iOS
Here for Android
Please note: When choosing the appropriate material, please pay attention to the sound absorption coefficient. Materials with a high sound absorption coefficient (alpha value) achieve the best results. Choose materials with an absorption coefficient near 1 to ensure effective noise absorption.
Tips for immediately improving room acoustics
For immediate effect, we recommend installing noise-reducing sound absorbers in trendy colors on ceilings or walls, for example:
soni CIRCLE: Our acoustically effective circles are available in many colors and two different sizes.soni HEXAGON: Thanks to the two different thicknesses, this geometric shape can be used to create gorgeous wall patterns with stunning 3D effects.
soni COLOR: The colorful rectangles are perfect for creating timeless wall designs while optimally reducing noise.
soni PICTURE: Our acoustic posters are a great wall decoration combined with an acoustically effective foam that is invisibly inserted behind the printed motif.
soni ELEMENT: Our colorful elements in the shape of clouds, flowers or animal motifs are easy to attach to the wall as beautiful eye-catchers that score with excellent acoustic effectiveness.
soni COLOR RD: Our high-quality ceiling tiles are tailored to fit into standard grid ceilings, but can also be attached directly to ceilings or walls - as individual squares or forming entire patterns.
soni PROTECT Art: These melamine foam panels are acoustically highly effective and score with a very attractive and artful design at the same time.
Ask for custom-tailored advice!
How to improve room acoustics: Whether for living spaces or working environments - soniflex has the right solution for you. A sound-optimized room always provides a more pleasant living and working environment.
Benefit from an increased ability to concentrate, reduced stress levels and effortless communication. Pleasant acoustics are important in many areas of life, whether at home, in the office, at school or in a restaurant.
Are you looking for the perfect solution? Then let our experts provide you with tailor-made advice now.