I am in the midst of re-doing my theater room and the delaer that I am working with has suggested using Kinetics Noise Control to engineer the room. Their URL is http://www.kineticshometheater.com/

Has anyone has any experience with this company and, if yes, what was that experience...also, anyone else thoughts or opinions on using this or similar companies would be greatly appreciated...

TIA.

We have done several projects with Kinetics and they have been fantastic with regards to scheduling, installation and finish.
They worked closely with us when one client wanted to use their own fabrics for the walls and tested several samples to find something that would work within their parameters.
And they can support the entire room from isolation, sound abatement, room acoustics, and noise barriers. Very good company from my standpoint.

I used the Kinetics Isomax product which is good. They have much fancier and more costly isolation products. Never seen or heard an engineered room by them though.

Never seen or heard an engineered room by them though.
They are a supplier of products, not an acoustical engineering firm.

Joel,
Your architect or acoustical engineer would specify the products to be used along with the details for construction, and placement of internal elements.

Perhaps they have added some internal staff for acoustical consulting, but I was not aware of this.

I have used their products many times, and find them to be of excellent quality.
They are probably the single largest supplier of solutions for acoustics and isolation.

Cinemascope, ifor and the bogg, thank-you, appreciate the responses...

Cinemascope and ifor, their offerings now include accoustic engineering but different from what Tony Grimani, Dennis Erskine, etc. offer; that is Kinetics offers full room accostic engineering based on a given layout schematic w/o additional equalization / tuning (see http://www.kineticshometheater.com/full_room_coverage.html ) whereas Grimani/Erskine/et. al. provide any or allof room design, room treatment and tuning.

One of theinteresting things that I have learnt is that the Garmani's/Erskine's/etc. source -- at least according to Kinetics -- come of their materials from Kinetics...the decision point is which porvides the better / best bang for the buck...any thoughts?

For materials only you might also consider:

Dynamat [ used by JL AUDIO last year at CEDIA and was dead silent outside ] and Cascade.

Now I have to admit the gal at Kinetics was quite nice on the shuttle ride into Altanta and was attactive to boot!

I guess the big quesiton is are you looking for accoustical treatments [ what problem do you have and how did you discover it ] or sound isolation?

Grimani and others do use Kinetics in their designs. Grimiani also does his own branded acoustic stuff as well.
Kinetics isn't going to be the kind of detailed planning that the others are going to be but they do a pretty decent job. They have the products that everyone else uses and I would use them without worring about it much.
We had Paradise Theaters design a theater for our client and he spec'd Kinetics for everything. Isolation, absorbtion and diffusion.

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee113/iformorris/DSC_0114.jpg

The custom painted panels on the side are AT and there are acoustical panels behind them. The room is also a floating design resting on rubber isolation pieces.

Ifor:

Thanks for the response, I am looking for a plain / simple looking home theatre that is anything but ornate so the comments about finishing are NOT a concern...that said, how much EQ was needed/used once Kinetics got finished?

TIA.

Ifor:

Thanks for the response, I am looking for a plain / simple looking home theatre that is anything but ornate so the comments about finishing are NOT a concern...that said, how much EQ was needed/used once Kinetics got finished?

TIA.

Nice thing about Kinetics, you can make it look however you want.

In the theater pictured above, there is a JBL Synthesis system which uses the SDEC room correction processor. This was also the first time the new SAM1 and SAM2 were employed. I don't know the amount of correction used but I know the sound before correction was very good. After was even better though.
We are finishing another Kinetics theater and are using the Audyssey unit for correction. While yet another Kinetics room will be using the new Mcintosh MX-150 proccessor with RoomPerfect software.

Ifor, thanks for the information which, unless I misunderstand you, leads me to conclude that even with kinetics or other accoustically designed rooms one still needs equalization/room correction...the obvious follow on item is what *genereal percentage* of the performance of an accoustcially designed AND equalized room can one obtain with an "as is" and equalized room (i.e. how much the accoustic design of a room add)?

Thanks so much...

Keep in mind that a room correction device cannot correct room nodes, reverberation, echo and other acoustical properties. All they can do is help the speaker obtain a certain sound curve within the room and to try and make all the seats equal so no one listening position sounds dramatically different from one another.

These devices also do not add to certain frequencies but only attenuate the peaks. Having a room that can smooth out all the peaks and dips to atsrt with, will immensely ease what room correction has to overcome.

ifor:

Once again, thanks...and, should I understand you correctkly you are saying:

1. Room construction is more important than room equalization; and

2. Room equalization is of minimal value (and likely not worth investinbg in) without porper construction.


Please confirm or correct my understanding as appropriate.

Thanks.

One of theinteresting things that I have learnt is that the Garmani's/Erskine's/etc. source -- at least according to Kinetics -- come of their materials from Kinetics...the decision point is which porvides the better / best bang for the buck...any thoughts?
In my case, that is not true. Kinetics is a good company and provides excellent products. We will use Kinetics for highly specialized products (largely for commercial applications).

ifor:

Once again, thanks...and, should I understand you correctkly you are saying:

1. Room construction is more important than room equalization; and

2. Room equalization is of minimal value (and likely not worth investinbg in) without porper construction.


Please confirm or correct my understanding as appropriate.

Thanks.

1. both are tools in the arsenal of a designer.

2. Room construction can have the greatest bang for the buck, and since you are correcting the room to a more optimal state, you are not affecting the electronic sound at all.

3. Room correction is still important in many cases. and in some rooms that are not physically corrected, room correction can still have an enormous impact.

if you want however the best sound, starting with acoustic modelling/treatments is always the best to go with. then room correction can really be the icing on the cake.

if you want however the best sound, starting with acoustic modelling/treatments is always the best to go with. then room correction can really be the icing on the cake.

Wise words. My room was designed from the ground up but there had to be compromises based on ceiling height restrictions. A little bit of eq (Accuphase digital eq between cdp and dac) goes a long way. I have room correction on my Anthem D2 which works amazingly well and is easy to use. My 2-channel system doesn't go through the Anthem.

Thanks to all...

Judicious use of Kinetics treatments + Audyssey Pro should render excellent results.