Non-Acoustic Room Treatments For Intangible Effects

There are two key ways that real AV pros set their work apart from the offerings of both the big box retailers and the hang-and-bang guys.

The first one is that their integration of multiple devices, sources, display and controls actually work.

The second is that they know how to set the stage. A really nice home AV system is more than just a huge display, a bunch of sources, and a sound system; it’s a whole experience.

Part and parcel of the experience is the room treatment. Not only the tuning of the room for acoustic performance (which is a huge subject in itself), but dressing the room for maximum enjoyment, better known as the “WOW!” factor.

Lighting control seldom gets the credit it deserves for well-designed AV rooms, but it goes beyond just dimming the lights when the movie starts. Visual accents such as star ceiling panels, fiber optic lighting in general and LED strips are décor accents that add enormous visual appeal to a home cinema.

Fiber optic lighting solutions, whether simple or complex, have been inexpensive and mainstream for years. Most of them can be sourced locally through electrical supply outfitters. Pick up a few catalogs or go online and browse.

LED strip lighting, which comes in flexible low-voltage strips and an assortment of corner pieces, can be used to create highlight glow effects around the perimeter of the ceiling or on their own, as accent lighting, depending on the color pallet that you choose.

Rope lighting can be used to delineate steps and risers in a darkened room. Every one that I’ve ever seen are dimmable in the same way as conventional light fixtures, and thus are controllable.

The products themselves are inexpensive and easy to acquire, but the visual appeal they create is quite stunning, and adding them into the room treatment is both aesthetically pleasing and adds labor dollars into the project.

Some off-the shelf fiber optic and rope light products are entirely low voltage and just plug in to an outlet, but some connect directly to the home’s 120v AC and need to be connected by a licensed electrician. Choose your products accordingly.

Possibly the most dramatic décor accessory that integrators can add into an installation is a star ceiling, composed of ceiling tiles embedded with fiber optics.

Acoustically absorbent, they’re typically configured in 24×24″, 30×30″ and 48×48″ square panels that can surface mount to finished ceilings or cloud mount below the ceiling, as well as 24×24″ drop in panels for suspended ceilings. The panels can be easily cut to accommodate lighting fixtures, smoke alarms and such. Triangle and quarter round end piece panels with stars are also available to accommodate odd-shaped rooms.

The big advantage to star ceiling panels is their simplicity. Over a decade ago, installing a star ceiling required drilling thousands of holes and manually running individual fibers back to a home run location.

That’s the kind of install task that I’d rather do almost anything else to avoid.

The simplicity of panel star ceilings makes them accessible to clients with a broad range of budgets. Even installed in a modest sized room on a modest sized AV system (say $10K and up) it’s an easy few hundred to couple of thousand dollars to secure agreement on from the client.