Home Audio Systems and Room Acoustics

Before you just dive into buying the coolest-looking home theater equipment you find in the store, you need to think about how it is going to hold up in your room. Every room has a different set of acoustics, depending on the size, the material of the walls, the doorways and space and a lot of other smaller details. You need to understand, as best you can, the acoustics of your living room, den, or wherever else you'll be putting your home audio system.
There are two categories that you need to think about. The first is room resonances. Room resonances are sound waves generated by the speakers. They can be anywhere from 20Hz (hertz) to 300Hz. The frequencies are based on the length, height, and width of the room you are listening in. Room resonances cause either a reinforcement of bass or just the opposite. It usually results in either bass that is too heavy and muddled or the opposite, a bass that is far too weak. Most rooms will have a good bass at about 50 to 70Hz. There are plenty of tools online you can use to calculate the resonance in your room.
From there you can fix the issue by making sure you have proper speaker placement. This should keep the bass at a decent level, but if you are still having problems you may want to use bass traps, which absorb bass frequencies. They are perfect when the bass seems to be coming in just a little too heavy.
So now that you've figured out resonances regarding your home audio system, you need to look into room reflections. Reflections are the sound waves that cause sound to seem off, like when the tone of a song doesn't sound exactly right. Or maybe the pitch of the voice sounds weird. Finding the reflection points is as easy as holding a mirror up in the room as you sit where you normally would listen or watch television. Move the mirror around until you get a full reflection of the speaker and that is the reflection spot. Reflection can be dealt with by installing absorbers and diffuser. If you put them in the correct locations, you'll hear more of the speakers and less of the room around you.
Taking the time to make these upgrades is probably the best thing you'll do for your home audio system. What good is having a huge system if you aren't getting the quality of sound you deserve out of it? Taking the time to figure out reflections and resonances will make a huge difference the next time you watch your favorite action movie.----