What is Acoustic Treatment?

Acoustic treatment is the process used to minimize the decibel level (volume) or wave interference of a sound emitted from its source with respect to a receiver. The receiver can refer to a human, a sensitive piece of scientific equipment, or recording equipment in a studio.

Rather than simply ‘turning down’ the volume level of a sound source, (which is not always possible. Drum kits, for example, do not have volume knobs) acoustically treating the surrounding environments with specific materials allows you to control the level of sound without compromising the quality output of your source.

Sound travels outwardly, as a wave, in all directions from its original source. Imagine dropping a pebble into a still pond; the point where the pebble enters the water represents the source of the sound, and the subsequent rippling is indicative of how a sound wave travels outwardly from its source. Confining these ripples to a certain area so they cannot propagate any further is analogous to acoustically treating a specific region.

With this in mind, it is easy to understand why acoustically insulating a particular area could be desirable. It can minimize the amount of noise pollution entering from an external source, or conversely keep sound contained within a particular region.

Returning back to our pond example, imagine we now have a fish tank half full of water; dropping the pebble in the center of the tank yields rippling which will proliferate around the tank causing the water to slosh around slightly and splash up against the glass. If we wait until the water is perfectly still, and place a glass panel down the center of the tank so we have two equal sized bodies of water separated by a glass divider, and again drop the pebble into the left side of the divisions, the ripples will not enter the other half. The right side of the tank has effectively been ‘isolated’ from the rippling in the left half by the glass divider. In essence, this is the equivalent to acoustically treating a room; the sound is contained within a specific region by an insulative material, rendering the outside rooms free from unwanted noise.

Typically, acoustically treating a room or area is desirable when there is unwanted noise. This can be urban housing located next to a train line, busy highway or airport, a recording studio where sound isolation is imperative, in a home theater environment, or in a scientific laboratory containing highly sensitive instruments which could be damaged or need constant recalibration if disturbed by sound waves.