This project's basic design goal was to create a dedicated, purpose-built venue that would foster all the immersiveness and excitement possible when modern audio/video hardware is given an acoustically optimized setting in which to "do its magic."

This entailed balancing the various technical elements so as to enhance dialog intelligibility and to allow music and Foley effects to be delivered to the audience with their sonic content fully intact, unsmudged by the playback venue's own telltale limitations or idiosyncrasies.

In addition to creating a large "smudge-free zone," special care was taken to meet two other goals: 1) Promote a hemispherical curtain of sound around and behind the audience; and 2) Be a sonically pleasant place in which to entertain, converse, and so on.

The first of these, promoting the envelopment of the audience within a three-dimensional soundfield, was made possible by working closely with the A/V firm, Irvine-based Audiovisions, Inc. to get the right equipment in exactly the right places.

The second of these, creating a sonically friendly environment for entertaining guests, is not traditionally a characteristic of dedicated home theaters and media rooms, which tend to be too "dead" to be enjoyed for anything other than watching movies. In this case, locating the audience not just within the smudge-free zone, but also within their comfort zone, was made possible by introducing innovative new acoustical products within our "textbook" engineering design.

Concealed behind the stretched fabric paneling along the side walls are custom-designed assemblies to absorb, back-scatter or redirect sound, including this combination high-frequency one-dimensional lateral diffusor/midrange Helmholtz absorber (above left). A new acoustic device, known as a "binary amplitude diffusor" (right) was used along portions of the side walls to provide broadband absorption and two-dimensional
(hemispherical) high-frequency diffusion.

Performance-Based Room Design (sm)

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