For AV & home-cinema installers

The kit is only half the sound. The room is the other half.

A hard-walled, glass-fronted room can undo a well-specified speaker system before it's even switched on — reflections and reverberation smear the sound the kit was chosen to deliver cleanly. Check the room itself against a real critical-listening target before the install, not after the client asks why it doesn't sound like the demo.

Check the room →

Target for a small critical-listening room

0.4s

reverberation time, ITU-R BS.1116 / EBU Tech 3276

Echo's "Home cinema or studio" room type is already set to this real target — pick it and the room gets checked against the actual standard, not a rule of thumb.

Know the room before you size the system.

A real critical-listening target to check against.

Spec the kit with the room in view.

Avoid buying your way out of an acoustic problem.

A report you can hand to the client.

The room's numbers in plain words.

Not sure this is the right page? Answer three quick questions

Before you quote

Check the room before the spec is finalised — a room that needs acoustic treatment first is a different quote than one that doesn't, and that's worth knowing before the kit is on the invoice.

When a system underperforms

If a finished install sounds worse than the components suggest it should, check whether the room itself — not the kit — is the actual cause before troubleshooting the electronics.

For your own proposal

Attach a branded report showing the room checked against a real standard, so treatment is a specified, evidenced line in your quote rather than an afterthought if the client pushes back.

Where the sound lands is half the job

A short illustration, for meeting rooms and home cinemas alike: how speaker position and aim change where the sound goes, and why the room itself still has the last word.

Where the sound lands

1
Start from the ceiling plan
Looking down at a meeting room: the ceiling speakers sit too close together, so one spot is loud and the far seats get little.
2
Place them, then aim them
Slide the speakers to even them out, then tilt the front pair toward the seats. The gaps and the hot spot close up.
3
Same idea, a home cinema
A home cinema is the same job. The same four speakers move to the front and sides, all pointing at the seats.
4
Down to the listener's seat
From the middle seat you can see the room's own bass ripple. Where the sofa sits in a dip, bass thins out. Slide it and the dip moves away.
5
The room answers back
Hard walls and glass bounce sound back late (amber). Fit soft panels where the sound lands and the smear fades.
6
Take the controls
Drag a speaker, tilt the front pair, or switch the treatment on and off, and watch the seats change colour.

Illustration

Seats covered evenly: 0 of 8 (illustration)

Even coverage
Gap, hot spot or late echo

Keep scrolling. At the end you can move the speakers yourself.

Not a replacement for room-tuning, a check before it

Echo doesn't tune a system or measure a real installed room with a microphone — for that, you still need the calibration step you already run. What it checks, before any of that, is whether the room's own untreated acoustics are in the right range to begin with — the difference between a room the system has to fight and one it doesn't.

See every standard Echo checks against →