Featured Acoustical Product Reviews

If you use a computer as the main source in your home theater or stereo system, then listen up. Dirac has released a new room correction system called “Dirac Live” and it’s aimed at everyone seeking the best performance possible out of a computer. By actively monitoring and correcting audio it accounts for time domain and frequency response issues. But, with a cost of $849 plus a microphone we think it is going to be a niche product.

Sheetblok is a dense, limp-mass vinyl material that is made to be rolled out and installed on a wall, ceiling, or floor to stop sound from being transmitted through the wall. It can be installed on a wall and painted as the finishing layer, rather than sandwiched between drywall. Auralex claims that it is 6dB more effective than solid lead at stopping the transmission of sound. And that is good to hear, because I was planning on encasing my next home theater in solid lead blocks, but now I don’t have to. Sheetblok is supposed to be used in a multi-layered construction so it can help decouple the wall from the rest of the structure. There are a number of solutions on the market that can be installed during construction to stop sound transmission, but few than go on after the wall is already up.

Acoustic Frontiers has released an Acoustical Measurement system called XTZ Room Analyzer II that is said to be easy to use and it comes in two flavors, Standard and Pro. XTZ contains both the hardware (microphone, soundcard, cabling) and the software required to calibrate your home theater. There are four pieces of functionality that XTZ Room Analyzer provides that is used to complete a system calibration: SPL, Delay, RTA and Frequency Response. This system interfaces with your A/V receiver and external equalization to help you dial in the best response for a better home theater experience. The graphic interface looks pretty cool and the price for these two systems seems quite reasonable.

Auralex introduced their new 2' x 2' x 1" SonoLite fabric wrapped absorption panels at the most recent NAMM show. From our tests, they proved their new SonoLite panels offers the performance and aesthetics you need when fine tuning the acoustics of your theater room. SonoLite is easy to install and it addresses the issues of excessive flutter echo which may arise in a theater room where there is a great deal of parallel hard surface areas (wood floor and drywall ceiling). Best of all, SonoLite is a tool-less solution which doesn’t require any fancy tucking of fabric into pre-installed mounting tracks. Simply apply an adhesive and place them in the problem areas and you’re done. If you find your home theater system to be fatiguing over extended listening sessions, consider evaluating and addressing your room acoustics issues before spending hard earned dollars on upgrading equipment (or even worse, cables). For less money than a cable tweak, Auralex Sonolite ($30 per panel) provides a real solution to potentially transpose your listening experience from good to excellent. Highly recommended.

We've covered Auralex Acoustics a bunch in the past and they've always impressed us as a premier innovator in sound control solutions. At CEDIA, in addition to their new Sustain Bamboo Diffusors, they also showed off their new HD Cinema Series line of acoustical panels. The new panels are specifically designed to cater to the audiophile and home theater market through the use of a variety of shapes and sizes that should have a wide appeal to those looking to tame room acoustics and achieve better sound reproduction. We saw them in person and they are really attractive and present an almost limitless way to increase both the aesthetics and room acoustics of a room.

I've started to become a fan of bamboo. The inexpensive and eco-friendly material has started showing up all over - in furniture, flooring and more... I'm waiting for someone to make bamboo accessories for my car. Anyway, Auralex Acoustics is jumping in feet first and has offered its new Sustain Bamboo Sound Diffusor Series. The new system is made from 100% "eco-friendly" bamboo (as opposed to the non-eco-friendly kind, we guess). I can't help but think that once we use enough of these new products we'll end up back at plastic, which doesn't go extinct or run out...

Room treatments may not be as sexy a topic as speakers or projectors, it is no less important. Bringing you affordable room treatments has been GiK's mission for years. Their new Gridfusors diffusion panels look to add to their already impressive lineup. While the Gridfusors may be designed with drop ceilings in mind, they can be used in nearly any application. For those that have plenty of absorption but are still suffering imaging problems, these should be a no brainer. We're sure these will start flying off the shelves at the $50 a pop price.

The Auralex SubDude HD is a platform for your subwoofer. Why would you want it? Well, a subwoofer, as you may know, generates a lot of vibration due to the fact that it puts out low frequencies and has a larger driver than most speakers. Well, these vibrations move into your floor and reduce the actual efficiency of the sub. After all, if it's expending energy into moving your furniture around the room, its not putting all of its energy potential into making sound waves. Plus it can just be a nuisance - as anyone who has experienced dishes rattling in their cupboards during a bass-heavy scene can testify.

You may have seen the Typhonics SP-Tiles. They are the acoustical foam room treatments in the shape of speakers. Not exactly appealing to your better half? Well we've got some suggestions on that front. For a mere $54 a pop, you can use double-sided tape to stick these to your wall. They suggest both in front and behind your listening position. We're guessing your spouse will suggest a placement somewhere closer to the curb.