When you listen to music or watch a movie on your 4K TV, the thought of sound quality might not even cross your mind. Sound travels in waves, and those waves travel through windows, across floors and walls to distort your audio that plays through your home theater or sounder speaker system. But don’t lose hope! There are ways to counteract these effects by considering the following.
Windows
Windows are hard surfaces that let natural light into the home, but they are also surfaces that allow sound to reflect off of. When these waves reflect back into your room, they often have a sort of "veiling effect" upon the sound's overall quality. This can greatly reduce your speaker resolution, reducing the nuances you would normally hear in your music or audio track. To reduce this “veiled effect,” you can install blinds or cloth curtains.
Hardwood or Tile Floors
Many houses have hardwood or tile floors, and they certainly give your home a pleasant aesthetic. However, hardwood and tile floors aren’t immune to sound wave reflection. Like windows, if floors are untreated, you will notice an impact in the quality of sound. A way to diffuse or absorb this impact would be to place throw rugs in your living room or throughout your home. By using throw rugs between where you sit and the speakers where your sound is coming out of, you can help reduce the sound reflections from your hardwood, as well as tile, flooring.
Walls
Similar to both windows and floors, your walls can block the nuances coming from your home theater sound system. This is easily remedied by hanging some sound absorption panels to your walls. Another solution would be to add a bookcase to your home theater or living room, helping better distribute the sound reflections - hopefully, not impacting the sound quality as much.
With these tips, we hope that the next time you sit down to watch a movie or listen to your favorite music album, you’ll be able to listen with a much higher quality sound experience.