What's Acoustics anyway?
Why do people buy acoustic products? There has to be a reason for investing in sound control products, and that is simply the need to get the best out of the sound systems in our rooms. But the main question we should be asking is … why does sound need to be controlled anyway? This question will take us over the next few minutes into a journey of sound characteristics and its behaviour, especially those occurring inside an enclosed room, whether it is a recording or mastering studio, a home cinema or even an opera theatre.

Although people may not be conscious of the science behind sound, the truth is that most of us have already been in places where we said or thought: "Such an awful sound in this place", and we're not talking about music styles… we're talking about going into a room and just knowing that there was something wrong with the sound of it, whether it was long echoes or simply confusing sound. This happens because sound is just like a light from a lamp in a room with a window. The path the light takes is not just the straight line between the lamp and the surface that's in front of it (whether it is the floor or a wall). Instead, light covers the whole free space of the room and even goes into other rooms through the window. So it is with sound. Whatever may be its source, sound will fill the whole room in all directions and even fly into other rooms through the floor, ceiling or walls, since sound waves can travel by any solid, liquid or gas material.

Acoustics is simply the way sound is affected by the physical properties of the space where it is being produced, and this is why clients want good acoustics and why acoustic products companies develop materials that will change the physical properties of the space; so that in the end, we all come up with rooms with adequate amount and distribution of sound, ensuring clarity of speech and "completeness" of music. So when considering the properties of a room, what we are really trying to avoid are acoustic defects such as reflections, flutter echoes, reverberation and standing waves.

We'll show you how each one of these things occurs in your own room, preventing you from benefiting from the full potential of your sound system. Fortunately there are solutions and we're also going to show them to you!

Reflections
Reflections are the acoustic phenomenon that happens in any kind of room, regardless of its shape, function or size: sound always changes when it encounters a plain surface.
As we've previously mentioned, sound doesn't move only in a straight line from its source into the listener's ears. Sound
waves coming from a certain point spread out in many directions, and when they encounter an obstacle, like a wall for example, they react by producing "counter-waves" as if they were being produced by another source different then the real one.

Therefore the result is quite simple to imagine. Instead of having a clear sound, the listener will feel a lot of confusion coming not only from the audio system, but also from the whole room itself.

One of the main problems that reflections can bring is echo, which happens when reflected sound clearly distinguishes itself from the direct sound.

In order to find a solution, science started from a simple question: “If the problem occurs right after sound waves get into touch with plain surfaces, and if that’s not a possible variable to change, what can be done to “catch” those sound waves and stop or diminish them?”

The answer would rapidly put foam and similar materials into a major position in the world of acoustic solutions, namely those related to absorption. Acoustic absorption products made from foam perform like energy converters, catching reflections (sound energy) from a sound source and by a resistive process turning them into heat energy, diminishing their strength and allowing the sound in a space to become clearer, as we can see in the images below.