I am building a home theater and have a plan from a sound engineer for placing acoustical wall treatments around the theater. Unfortunately, the room is almost square, so there are about 10--2x4 wall panels that are to be placed 2 feet above the floor. They are not evenly spaced around the room, and I was wondering if anyone has good ideas for incorporating this need into a reasonable aesthetic design, or if I just need to build the panels and hang them from the wall and have the room look more like a studio than a home theater. Thanks in advance --Gary

the room is almost square, so there are about 10--2x4 wall panels that are to be placed 2 feet above the floor ... wondering if anyone has good ideas for incorporating this need into a reasonable aesthetic design

Gary, half the fun of DIY is figuring out stuff like this yourself. But I will say that a square room needs substantial bass trapping as well as general mid/high frequency absorption. If your sound engineer hasn't accounted for bass trapping in the room corners, have a look at my Acoustics FAQ (http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html) for advice on that.

--Ethan

Gary,
Almost all the theater threads in this forum incorporate acoustical treatments. I would have a look at some of the threads and see the various ways that people have tackled this. Some incorporate bass traps within soffits, others place them behind a false wall. First reflections are handled with discrete panels or some cover the entire wall with duct liner and cover that with fabric. Many, many options. So you don't have to hang panels all over the room, if that is not the look you want.

One strategy is to sort the threads by number of replies. The first few threads that come up at the top are the big boys who have created some amazing theaters. Good luck.

The easiest way is to simply fir out the thickness of the panels. Mount them to the wall and cover the entire wall with cloth. Nice clean look.

Bryan

Thanks to all--I like the idea of running the fir around the whole perimeter, then just placing the panels as specified. Do people bother to put anything behind the cloth without the panels? I read about batting on another thread, but I would like something with more firmness.

You could simply use 703 or Linacoustic behind an AT fabric on a wall, in lieu of panels, if you like the idea of firring out the whole wall & covering it. As stated, there are many options.

Forgive my ignorance, but why are you going second opinions that you paid for from a hopefully qualified specialist? You have not even provided drawings of what he recommended. Ask him, telling him your concerns

Andre

Since it is as more of a design question as an acoustic question, I thought I would ask about strategies used by forum participants. I will ask my consultant also, but sometimes they have more interest in the technical aspects of a room as compared to the design/aesthetic issues.