When the bass notes are ringing in your ears

[ptb/es] Joy or rage? Both feelings are not far apart when dealing with the sound of deep notes in our homes. Those of us who do not own a large concert hall but have a normal living room instead, can quickly be driven to despair when the new bass speakers which sounded so good in the shop just now are set up at home: they are sometimes too loud, sometimes too quiet, sometimes they drone unpleasantly - nowhere in the room seems to be perfect. The problem is that in rooms with rather small dimensions, deep notes (with long wavelengths) cause so-called room modes to be excited: these are standing waves with unpleasant side effects. So far there has practically been no solution to this at all. But now room acousticians from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have systematically dedicated themselves to the problem and have developed a method - patent pending - which can help. To do this, a Helmholtz resonator has to be specially optimized for each case. We are now looking for a company which offers just that - for recording studios, music academies, theatres or even private music enthusiasts.