Most people can plainly see the need to calibrate or tweak a video system, but the need for customization of the audio installation is perhaps not as apparent, unless you've heard such a system. We're not the only ones who believe this. The designers of the Lucasfilm THX® standard also saw the necessity for room compensation, and gave explicit instructions on how to measure and compensate each channel for the installation.

At LANDMARK SOUND LABS, we take room acoustics testing and analysis considerably further than those specs. Our equipment allows more precise and accurate measurements and tighter matching and optimization for each space. A side benefit of this rigorous testing is a complete check of the audio system wiring, where all too many sound-robbing mistakes are found even in professional installations.

The 'small' rooms in most homes present several acoustical challenges to multi-channel audio systems. The first is isolation from the rest of the home. Many rooms are not well-designed in this respect, and would have taken minimal effort at the planning and building stages to better contain the considerable output of the audio system. Second, the internal acoustics of a small room make natural 'modes' an audible reality. While these are common to any regularly-shaped room they creep further into the way of good sound in smaller rooms. Third, each speaker will interact with the room differently depending on its location. This results in uneven response at various frequencies, spread throughout the room in a complex pattern, even if you use the same speaker all around. The most audible problems occur in the bass and midrange regions, often sounding muddy or boomy, or detracting from the intelligibility and realism of vocals and sound effects. Other room effects appear at higher frequencies, and can cause a particularly sharp response from a perfectly good loudspeaker.

Careful attention to the acoustical effects of your room's construction will produce smoother frequency response and more even sound coverage across the listening area while minimizing transmission to the rest of your home. Commonplace in professional studios and theaters, equalizers and processors can also be used to compensate some speaker-room interactions when there is limited freedom to change the acoustics. At LANDMARK, we feel that only after carefully listening and properly measuring the acoustics of an installation, electronic means can be applied judiciously to transparently timbre-match the audio system into one common voice.

©2003 LANDMARK SOUND LABS