Too much of a good thing

[MrPorterhouse]

At a local HiFi Store, there is one particular demo room that has acoustic tiles covering nearly the entire room. They are decorative as well, so they look very nice, but the sound of the Klipsch Ref speakers is completely dead and very Un-Klipsch like. There are also dampened ceiling tiles and carpeting floor and microfiber seating. When is enough, enough? When are acoustical tiles too much?

[bpape]

Too much of anything is never a good thing. 'Ceiling Tiles' in general are upper mid/high frequency absorbtive only. Even if they were all very broadband, having the entire room pretty much covered is too much.

The idea is to calculate the target decay time range over the entire frequency spectrum. Once you know what you're shooting for, then you figure the impact of:

- Room usage
- Room construction
- Furnishings
- Number of people
- etc.

... and see what you're left to deal with.

Bryan