We often are asked: ‘Where should I position the Broadway panels in my home theatre?’ and the answer we give is simple: ‘use common sense’. Now you may think that we are being simplistic, but truth is, you really can’t go to o far wrong if you follow the basics.

Sound is directional

What this means is that midrange and upper frequencies above 400Hz become more and more directional as the frequency increases. This means that they act more and more like a beam of light and will reflect off walls or other hard surfaces with greater predictability as the frequency goes up. Most mid-range drivers and tweeters are font-mounted whereby they do not have any type of horn directing their sound. This means that the sound they produce will expand in a spherical pattern as soon as it leaves the box. To control sound, look at the vectors and place your panels where they will do the most good. A common trick is to have someone slide a mirror along a wall while you are sitting in the prime listening zone. Mark the areas where you can see the speakers and mount your Broadway panels there.

You can’t stop bass

Deep, low end bass, once generated is practically impossible to contain. It will pass through walls and floors unless you build up sufficient mass to control it. What you can do is absorb excessive bass in your home theatre by adding bass traps in your room. These come in a variety of sizes and shapes and may be mounted on flat surfaces, corners, behind curtains an so on. Bass traps generally work best as the depth or air cavity behind them increases. Most acousticians place bass traps in corners because the walls and ceiling help guide sound into the corners and you can easily build out panels that are at 45º and make them look attractive.

Controlling parallel surfaces

Wherever you have parallel surfaces, sound will echo. It follows that if you treat one of the two parallel surfaces, an echo cannot survive past the first reflection. When looking at your room, look at the parallel wall surfaces to determine if you can break them up using furniture such as a book shelf or treat one of the two opposing walls. Most folks will mix up the treatment and apply half of the panels on one parallel surface and the other half on the other wall.

Diffusion – do I really need it?

Diffusers are devices that break up sound energy without removing the energy or sparkle from the room. The deeper the diffuser, the more effective it will be at managing mid frequencies. An 8” deep diffuser will effectively work down to 400Hz while a 3” deep diffuser will only control sound from 1000Hz and up. Also, without mass, diffusers simply do not affect lower frequencies as the sound will pass right through. Real diffusers like the Primacoustic Razorblade employ a quadratic residue calculation that is engineered to randomly diffuse energy in a uniform way. Other lower cost diffusers that employ slats of wood to break up sound energy also work, but are less effective and will yield frequency bumps. While this may be critical in a serious recording studio, it is not a huge deal in home theatres. In fact, you can get easily with soft-diffusion™ a term we coined that employs small absorptive panels that are randomly distributed throughout the receive end of the room. This allows some of the energy back into the room while absorbing some leaving the room somewhat live and natural.