Question on acoustic property of projector screen.

matix · « **on:** 17 Nov 2005, 04:37 am »

Hi

I have the usual wife's problem and can't do any treatment. However, I have a plan to install acoustic foams behind my fixed Steward Screen. There is a gap of 2" from the wall to the screen material, and I have found acoustic foams that is 1.4" thick www.gcdacoustic.com So these can go behind the screen without her knowing at all! My doubts are:

1) is the screen material (a Studiotek 130) reflective, absortive or ?? Is the screen material an acoustic treatment itself compare to a bare wall?

2) If the screen material is reflective, then putting the foams in there is a waste of time, isn't it?

3) If it completely lets the sound waves through...then it will work, right?

4) Wonder if anyone has done this before to comment??

thanks!

bubba966 · « **Reply #1 on:** 17 Nov 2005, 04:55 am »

Well, I have put rigid fiberglass behind a very large (12'9" wide!

) Studiotek 130 before. But it was microperfed, and the speakers were behind it as well. So the fiberglass wasn't directly behind the screen.

But I'd say do the treatment your're planning on doing. Yes, your screen is going to reflect some of the sound, but not a lot of it. So the foam you're putting back there will still do a lot of good.

jermmd · « **Reply #2 on:** 17 Nov 2005, 05:17 am »

I have heavy velvet curtains around my screen and I close the curtains for music listening. This may be an option if you want to go for the Marquee theater look. I think the screen must be very reflective of sound but I don't know it for a fact. Try listening with some type of thick absorptive material in front of the screen and see how much of an improvement it makes. I'm not sure how much benefit you'll see from absorptive material behind the screen.

ctviggen · « **Reply #3 on:** 17 Nov 2005, 02:04 pm »

Joe's curtain trick looks really good and I'm sure helps the sound. Do you have any test tones and a RS meter? You could easily test beforehand, then put up the foam and test again (probably with more effect in the upper frequency range than the lower). As for "wife friendly" stuff, I think some of the ASC stuff isn't too obtrusive:

http://www.asc-studio-acoustics.com/rs-products.htm

(perhaps a smaller tube trap). Also, the soffit traps from RealTraps placed in a corner would add bass trapping without being overly obnoxious:

http://www.realtraps.com/products.htm#soffittraps