For projects in Prague
Auditorium acoustics and soundproofing in Prague
A large hard volume where speech falls apart long before anyone calls the room echoey. The target is intelligibility at the back row, which is a reverberation and early reflection problem, not a loudspeaker problem. Concert halls, church buildings and civic rooms are long-decay volumes in stone and plaster.
- Reverberation time
- Set against use. Speech and music want different numbers, and a dual use hall needs a decision.
- Early reflections
- Shaped surfaces that send energy to the rear seats rather than absorbing everything.
- Rear wall
- The single worst surface in most halls, and the first one to treat.
- Quote
- From a plan and a section, within 48 hours
01 / What it is
The material, and what it actually does on a Prague job
A large hard volume where speech falls apart long before anyone calls the room echoey. The target is intelligibility at the back row, which is a reverberation and early reflection problem, not a loudspeaker problem.
Concert halls, church buildings and civic rooms are long-decay volumes in stone and plaster.
Work reaching us from Prague is mostly hotel conversions, apartments, production and studio spaces, offices, restaurants, clinics.
- Protected buildings, internal fixes only In the centre you often cannot alter the structure or the facade. The work has to be internal, shallow and ideally reversible, which rules out most thick framed systems.
- Conversions into guest rooms Old buildings divided into hotel rooms and short lets put beds either side of walls that were never separating walls. Door and corridor details cause more complaints than anything else.
- A production city Stages, edit rooms and post production spaces need the shell to isolate before anything else is decided. There is no partial credit on a room like that.
- Reverberation time Set against use. Speech and music want different numbers, and a dual use hall needs a decision.
Full specification
Thickness, density, NRC by frequency, fire class, standard sizes and build-up detail for auditorium acoustics are on the main product page. This page covers what that means for a project in Prague.
02 / The build-up
The stack, in the order it is installed
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Layer 1
Wooden slat acoustic panels
Timber slats on an acoustic backing. In Prague, mechanical ventilation in newer buildings and radiator heating in older stock, so duct noise is a newer problem than it looks.
Slats on a cavity. Backing plus an air gap behind moves absorption lower, which matters in music rooms.
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Layer 2
PET felt acoustic panels
A rigid non-woven panel pressed from 100% polyester fibre, a large part of it recycled. In Prague, concert halls, church buildings and civic rooms are long-decay volumes in stone and plaster.
Direct to wall. Panel bonded or mechanically fixed flat to the substrate. Simplest, and the weakest at low frequency.
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Layer 3
Acoustic carpet and rugs
A tile carpet with a dense polyester face on a felt backing. In Prague, school buildings are hard surfaced with long corridors, and gymnasiums double as assembly halls.
Zoned. Carpet in the circulation and meeting zones, hard floor elsewhere, so the treatment sits where the noise is made.
We would rather argue about the build-up at design stage than on site. See how we support architects.
03 / Local conditions
What the buildings in Prague do to the specification
- Protected buildings, internal fixes only
In the centre you often cannot alter the structure or the facade. The work has to be internal, shallow and ideally reversible, which rules out most thick framed systems.
- Conversions into guest rooms
Old buildings divided into hotel rooms and short lets put beds either side of walls that were never separating walls. Door and corridor details cause more complaints than anything else.
- A production city
Stages, edit rooms and post production spaces need the shell to isolate before anything else is decided. There is no partial credit on a room like that.
- Hard stone, long reverberation
Stone, plaster and tile in tall rooms hold sound for a long time. Speech stops being intelligible well before the room sounds obviously wrong.
- Assembly and performance rooms
Concert halls, church buildings and civic rooms are long-decay volumes in stone and plaster.
- School and campus buildings
School buildings are hard surfaced with long corridors, and gymnasiums double as assembly halls.
04 / Room by room
Room by room, on a typical Prague job
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Reverberation time
Set against use. Speech and music want different numbers, and a dual use hall needs a decision. In the centre you often cannot alter the structure or the facade. The work has to be internal, shallow and ideally reversible, which rules out most thick framed systems.
- PET felt acoustic panels, 100% PET non-woven, no added binder
- Ceiling baffles and clouds, 9 to 24 mm
- Acoustic carpet and rugs, High density polyester
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Early reflections
Shaped surfaces that send energy to the rear seats rather than absorbing everything. Old buildings divided into hotel rooms and short lets put beds either side of walls that were never separating walls. Door and corridor details cause more complaints than anything else.
- PET felt acoustic panels, 9, 12, 18 and 24 mm standard, tolerance plus or minus 5 percent
- Ceiling baffles and clouds, Made to the drawing, standard and custom
- Acoustic carpet and rugs, Felt
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Rear wall
The single worst surface in most halls, and the first one to treat. Stages, edit rooms and post production spaces need the shell to isolate before anything else is decided. There is no partial credit on a room like that.
- PET felt acoustic panels, 4 to 24 mm
- Ceiling baffles and clouds, Both faces work, which is why suspended area outperforms the same area laid flat
- Acoustic carpet and rugs, 64 sq ft per pack
Interior designers tend to arrive with the look already decided. We will tell you which finish gets there without losing the acoustics. See how we work with interior designers.
04 / Climate and durability
Durability in Prague, before acoustics is discussed
Prague is cool and damp, with long heating seasons and cold external walls, and that narrows the material list before acoustics is discussed.
Cold wall build-ups and long heating seasons mean interstitial condensation is a real risk behind any lining. PET felt is unaffected by damp air and will not feed mould where a fabric-faced mineral product would.
The failure we design against here is condensation behind linings in older, poorly insulated stock.
If a consultant has set the target, we will quote against their figures rather than ours, and stay out of the scope they own. More on working with acoustic consultants.
06 / Straight talk
Where this kind of project usually fails
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Absorbing the whole room and losing the back rows
Small on the drawing, expensive on site, and almost always found after handover.
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Adding speakers to fix a reverberation problem
Small on the drawing, expensive on site, and almost always found after handover.
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Ignoring the rear wall because it is behind the audience
This is the one that comes back as a second fit-out rather than a snag.
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Treating it as a generic Prague job
In the centre you often cannot alter the structure or the facade. The work has to be internal, shallow and ideally reversible, which rules out most thick framed systems.
05 / Route to site
What the route into Prague actually looks like
| Ships from | Palwal, Haryana, India |
|---|---|
| Arrives at | Hamburg, then rail and road into Prague |
| Dispatch | 4 to 7 working days |
| Freight | Sea via Hamburg |
| Support | Drawings, build-ups, BOQ and material that arrives complete |
Standard items dispatch in 4 to 7 working days. Grooved panels and custom colours take longer, and we say so before you order, not after.
Sea freight into Hamburg, then rail and road into Prague. Air freight for samples and urgent quantities.
Questions from Prague projects
What makes auditorium acoustics and soundproofing different in Prague?
Concert halls, church buildings and civic rooms are long-decay volumes in stone and plaster. In the centre you often cannot alter the structure or the facade. The work has to be internal, shallow and ideally reversible, which rules out most thick framed systems.
Where should the budget go first on a Prague project?
Reverberation time. Set against use. Speech and music want different numbers, and a dual use hall needs a decision. Early reflections. Shaped surfaces that send energy to the rear seats rather than absorbing everything.
Do you have an office or installation team in Prague?
No. We manufacture in India and supply into Prague. We give you drawings, build-ups, a BOQ and material that arrives complete, and we will tell you plainly when a job needs a local contractor we cannot be.
How does material get to a Prague site?
ships from: Palwal, Haryana, India, arrives at: Hamburg, then rail and road into Prague, dispatch: 4 to 7 working days. Standard items dispatch in 4 to 7 working days. Grooved panels and custom colours take longer, and we say so before you order, not after.
What goes wrong most often on this kind of project?
Absorbing the whole room and losing the back rows. Adding speakers to fix a reverberation problem.
What do you need from us to quote?
A plan, a section through the critical partition or ceiling, and what the room is for. From that we can give a build-up and a BOQ rather than a price per square foot.
Next step
Drawings in, BOQ and a delivered date out
We quote from drawings, not from a square foot rate. Send a plan and the section through the critical wall or ceiling and you will get something you can actually build from.