Home cinemas and music through the house: designed, fitted and tuned at the seats. From our workshop in Hindmarsh, across Adelaide and the Hills.
One side wall, from the screen to the back row. Felt over the speakers and the first reflections, oak slats with wool behind, a diffuser cut from a number sequence, a trap in the corner. None of it is there for looks alone, and all of it was placed from where you sit.
Where the bass landsBefore anything goes on a wall, we find where the low notes pile up and where they vanish. Here is a small cinema from above, with its bass drawn across the floor.
We pulled the sofa 50 cm off the back wall, set the front row 30 cm further back and put both subs in the space behind the sofa, one in the corner, so the boom at the back wall and the hole at the front row even out.
The bass at the sofa, low notes to the left. Drawn here as we left it, tuned. Slide along it to change the note on the floor.
Seen from above. The back row booms and the front row thins out.
The bass at 40 Hz, drawn like a contour map: the red patches boom, the grey ones all but vanish, and along the dashed line it cancels out. Drag the subs and the seats, or press Tune and we’ll try every spot along the walls.
Listen at the sofa, then drag a sub along the wall and hear the boom there swell and fade. Press and hold the floor (or the space key on it) for the room as we found it; let go for how it is now.
A simplified model of a room 5.4 by 3.9 metres; the figures are illustrative. Clearest on headphones.
That’s what we do in every room before anything is fitted: listen at the seats, move what’s cheap to move, then tune what’s left. We design, fit and tune cinema rooms, and music through the rest of the house.
Two kinds of work, often in the one house. Each room is measured before it’s drawn, and drawn before it’s built.
A room set aside for films, or a lounge that becomes one at night, built from the seats outward. We start where you sit and work back to the walls: the screen size from how far away you are, the bass from where the sofa has to go.
Included: measuring, the room drawn up, treatment made in our workshop, screen and sound fitted, tuning at every seat.
Kitchen, deck and study on one quiet system, each with its own volume, ceiling speakers painted to match. Nothing on the shelves but the things you like.
Included: speakers in ceilings and walls, a volume for each room, cables out of sight, each room tuned where you sit in it.
That’s the job. When the film starts you should forget the walls, the wiring and the box in the corner, and notice only the film. We tune until the seats sound alike, so it matters less who gets the sofa.
Most of what we fit, you never see. It sits behind fabric, above the ceiling or inside the wall, and what’s left in the room is timber and cloth.
One drawing of one room, cut down the middle. Most of what we do happens in it, in this order.
Most rooms are unkind to bass. A low note is longer than the room, so it runs to the far wall and meets itself coming back. Where the two agree it booms; where they don’t it all but vanishes. The booming seat is usually the one against the back wall, and that’s usually the sofa.
So before we hang a single panel, we sit in every seat and listen. Then we draw the room up. Sometimes the answer is a second sub in the far corner, sometimes thicker fabric on the back wall. Quite often it’s moving the sofa 30 centimetres off that wall, and we’ll show you why before we move anything.
Then we tune it with a microphone at each seat, and on the last day we sit you in the room and play it back to you. A month later we come back to listen with you again.
A back wall that soaks up everything makes a room feel dead; one that throws it all back makes it harsh. A diffuser breaks the reflection into many smaller ones and spreads them round the room. We cut ours in the workshop from a number sequence that sets every block’s depth. Pick a size and a pitch, and the depths follow.
Thirteen blocks a side, the deepest 317 mm, scattering from about 500 Hz to 4,300 Hz. Drawn for this page.
Every low note is loud in the corners, so a trap there does the most work for its size. Here is your room from the plan above, as you left it: first as it stands, then with a trap in each corner the subs left free.
Each map shows the loudest the bass gets at each spot, from 25 to 120 Hz: the redder, the bigger the boom. The same simplified model as the plan above; the figures are illustrative.
Most of ours are lounges by day. Treatment can be fabric art panels, a bookcase that’s really a diffuser, a trap that looks like a column.
Even bass usually needs less level, and a shared wall can be isolated. We’ll talk it through when we come and listen.
No. We start with what you have, and often the fix is placement: the sofa, the sub, the screen height.
Nearly always: roof space, under the floor, or behind a fabric wall. Stone walls we go around, not through.
Every low note has a loud patch in the corners, so a trap there does the most work for its size.
The last day in the room is the quiet one. A microphone goes at every seat, at the height of your ears, and we play low sweeps until each one tells us the same thing.
We sit you on the sofa and play the room back: the scene you know best, the album you always put on, the quiet dialogue you used to turn up for. Then from the front row, and from the chair by the door. If a seat still sounds different, we move something and play it again.
You leave with a room that sounds the same from wherever you sit. A month later we come back and listen with you again, once the sofa has settled.
Tell us the room and who sits in it. We’ll come and listen before we suggest anything.