Acoustic Control Princibles :

Acoustic Control Priniclbes when governed by environments with gravity

It has long been established in various different environments that the control of the acoustic state is a nesesity in order to create balance.
In environments such as theatres, cinemas, auditorims, music rooms and refference quality music listening rooms it is desirable to remove / reduce considrabley echo and reverberations and to isolate reflection points that generate neagtive harmony.
Whereas speech and Singing rooms require acoustic environments that create harmonistic reverberations so that the users voice gain depth and smooth definition.


Industrial environments such as factory spaces, engine rooms, pump rooms and such require heavy supression of echo and reverberation and in-fact a dead room characteristics and behyond where absorption result in the reduction of dB is paramount importants. However when materials are used to reduce dB levels within a space it charistersed as Sound Absorption with fall under one of the 4 fundermental princibles of Noise Control.

Most Acoustic Consultants, Acoustic Engineers and Noise Control Speciliasts but not all would say there are 3 different altering factors for sound wave in terms of the way that noise is controlled using materials within an environment. Absorption, Reflection and Diffuseion. However we at Advanced Acoustics would differ to that.

There are in-fact 4 different contributing factors that change the way that sound is affected by contact with surfaces. These are Acoustic Absorption, Acoustic Reflection, Acoustic Diffusion, and Acoustic Refraction. It should be noted that we do not include Active Noise Control or Acoustic Quieting as it does make use of material surfaces and its usage does not result in skupting of sound to reach a state of ephony.

When sound is propigated and then the wave transmit through the air we refer to this as airborn noise in environments such as rooms the sound waves transmist throught the air until the energy reaches and strikes a surface or barrier we can observe on impact four events or a combination of all or either.

• Acoustic Absorption - (Absorbing Sound) - The sound eneegy is attenuated
• Acoustic Diffusion - (Diffusing Sound) - The sound is distributed more or less uniformly (diffusion)
• Acoustic Reflection - (Reflecting of Sound) - The sound is geometrically re-directed (reflection)
• Acoustic Refraction - (Reffracting of Sound) - The sound bends or curves and is diplaced by the surface that it is in contact with.



The diagrams above show the relationship within a room and with only a narrow spread sound source. In reality the distribution of sound from the source is much more complicated and as such Acoustic calculations are required in order to determin the best possible design for the Acoustic Control for any one given scenario.

Some of the materials that can be used are as below

Acoustic absorption Panels can we used and applied to surface to absorb sound waves.

Acoustic diffusion Panels are used to spit sound waves and distribute evenely the sound energy within a containment area

Acoustic Reflection Reflective Panels are used to bring more life intro a space that has had too much absorption done.

Acoustic Refraction Refractive panels remove echo by shaping the sound and redirecting it.