Affordable acoustic treatment for small rooms has never been easier to get hold of, but some problems require an entirely different approach.

Optimising the listening environment of our mix rooms is one of the most complex and potentially expensive challenges to be undertaken in a studio of any size. Most of us spend years learning our craft, but for those working in small non-purpose built rooms, the issue of poor acoustics can be so serious as to completely ruin our ability to hear what we’re doing, or worse still, to not even realise that there’s a problem in the first place.

What Are The Challenges Of a Small Room?

In many ways, the small room presents a worst case scenario when it comes to accurate loudspeaker monitoring. This is because many smaller domestic environments have room dimensions that not only tend to exacerbate lumpy low end problems, but also conspire to place the chair in exactly the wrong place as well!

At the other end of the spectrum the prognosis is slightly better. Foam acoustic panels, when well placed, can make real improvements throughout the mid and high frequencies. You can read all about the physics of this and hear for yourself the big improvements they can bring in our article Do Acoustic Panels Really Work?

Sonarworks Sound ID Reference

Acoustic treatment to deal with the low end has to have mass and/or physical thickness that most off-the-shelf panels are simply too light and/or thin to absorb. In a small room, by far the easiest, most cost effective way to hear accurate low end at your chair is to apply intelligent corrective EQ across your monitoring.

Sonarworks Sound ID Reference measures your room’s response, and then applies the inverted EQ curve for your combination of room, monitors, and listening position to give a vastly flatter response for mixing.

The Best Way?

In a recent article, I talked about what a revelation using SoundID Reference has been for me working in a room that is far from ideal. For anyone else, in combination with optional well-placed acoustic panels using SoundID Reference is undoubtedly the best way to treat a small room that will deliver a level of accuracy that used to be practically unachievable.

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