Hear your speakers, not your room

Over the past 25 years I've lived in three different houses, and one thing they all had in common was a dedicated listening room. Although those rooms had different shapes and sizes, in each case I was able to improve the performance of my audio system by putting acoustic panels on the walls to reduce sound reflections. If I were setting up a listening room or home theater today, I'd be looking at Auralex's SonoLite foam panels. They're much less bulky than the panels I've tried, and they're a heck of a lot better looking.

Whether your audio setup includes a pair of stereo speakers or studio monitors, or a surround sound system, you want instruments to sound lifelike and vocals to sound clear. Unfortunately, the sound produced by your speakers gets bounced off your room's walls and other surfaces, and these reflections and echoes can muddy the sound, especially in the mid and high frequencies. Auralex's SonoLite acoustic foam panels absorb around 80% of the sound energy that strikes them, reducing reflections and restoring clarity to music and movie dialogue.

Great for a listening room, studio, or home theater

Each SonoLite panel is a 2-foot-square, 1-1/2"-thick slab of Auralex's Studiofoam® Pro wrapped in thin velour. These panels are an attractive, low-cost option for sound enhancement in a listening room, home theater, or home studio. They're also a smart choice for churches, restaurants, clubs, and other public venues that require Class A fire-rated acoustic treatment.

Taking the measure of a sound absorber

These SonoLite panels carry an overall NRC rating of .80. NRC (Noise Reduction Coefficient) is the most common spec listed with sound absorbing products, and represents the amount of energy absorbed when sound strikes a surface. An NRC of 0 indicates 100% reflection, while an NRC of 1.0 indicates 100% absorption. For more information on sound absorption, plus panel placement tips, check out our room acoustics article.