About us
Poes Acoustics is a custom home acoustics design consultant with over 20 years of experience in the industry. Matthew Poes is a well-respected acoustical engineer with a very science-based approach.
Poes Acoustics has led the design of home theaters, listening rooms, and even mastering rooms that have ranged in price from $5000 to over $1 million. Few companies have the necessary design expertise to be able to design and manage the installation of such high caliber home theaters. We specialize in sound mitigation, acoustics, and home theater design. In addition to decades of experience with acoustics, sound mitigation, and system calibration and design, Poes also works as a senior technical editor for Audioholics. Through his work in the industry, work in the press, and strong reputation, Poes has deep connections to designers, manufactures, and integrators throughout the country. Contact us about your next project, we can work with you directly or your integrator throughout the country.
Our approach
We are both customer centric and science based at the same time. Everything Matthew incorporates into his designs follows a logical requirement of the system. The most important requirements of any system always come from the client. Regardless of what is best in some pure sense of a home theater or listening room, the client needs to like the space and want to use it. As such, we always start with the clients needs. Through a careful initial interview of the clients needs, a design approach is developed which is intended to meet those needs. Poes relies heavily on both experience and knowledge to achieve these requirements. This approach is known as a customer centric performance-based approach. We develop a set of metrics that the system must achieve, and the system is designed around these metrics. For example, if a client indicates a desire for a dedicated home theater which can replicate the cinema experience at home. This leads to an ultimate performance requirement. From there, budget is assessed to decide how best to achieve these requirements within budget. Further, the available space is evaluated to decide on what equipment will achieve those performance metrics in that space. Such a requirement means the system must achieve 105dB of continuous maximum output at the listening position for each front speaker, the surrounds as a group, ceiling speakers as a group, and more than 120dB from the subwoofers. That is a tall order even in a modest room. Poes uses proprietary design approaches, industry standard software, and often measurements of the products in question to develop a design that can be guaranteed to achieve those results.
Most systems don’t have these lofty requirements, instead a high-performance system is desired in a common space such as a family room, and in this case, a desire to minimize both sound and aesthetic compromises are required. Poes is experienced in working with the clients and interior designers to ensure that the system can achieve both. Specialized products and smart design can ensure high sound quality in a nearly invisible system.
At the Leading Edge
Poes acoustics is always at the leading edge of home theater and media room trends and designs. Matthew Poes has deep roots in the industry and is aware of emerging trends and design requirements. Poes is constantly testing and experimenting with design solutions to ensure that his work can meet the requirements not only of today, but tomorrows systems as well. Recently Poes embarked on a design exercise for micro-LED display based media rooms and theaters. Such rooms typically have displays which take up much of a wall, are over 100” in diameter (Poes has experience with screens as large as 240” diagonal), and leave little place for speakers. Studying available solutions from various manufacturers, Poes has been able to develop a set of solutions that work ideally in the home environment to achieve maximum sound quality with such displays. Poes has solutions for all budgets, room sizes, and needs. These approaches are cutting edge and include in-wall, in-ceiling, and screen reflected solutions that can all achieve sound on par with the best acoustically transparent screen solutions. Few other companies have experience with such displays and speaker layouts and often their compromised solutions rely on old thinking and off the shelf components. This type of work is what differentiates Poes Acoustics from much of the competition. We are who the pro’s go to when they can’t figure it out.
Sound Mitigation
Poes Acoustics is a leading expert in sound isolation or sound mitigation, often colloquially called soundproofing. While actually creating perfect isolation is never possible, it is possible to design a room to minimize the amount of sound that gets in or out. This has a number of important values and is not limited to home theaters or media rooms. Sound isolation can allow for comfortable listening at lower volumes while still clearly hearing the dialogue in movies. Besides the acoustics of the room, another factor that contributes to dialogue intelligibility is the masking effects of outside and white noise, such as HVAC noise. By designing the room to lower it’s overall noise floor, the masking effects are dramatically reduced. Poes has designed numerous theaters, including his own, with noise floors that require specialized equipment to accurately measure, sitting well below 15dBA. By contrast, a typical room’s noise floor with the HVAC on is often closer to 30dBA or more. That is 2.5 to 3x quieter than a typical room.
In addition, often it is desirable to listen to movies at reference levels. As noted elsewhere on this website, reference levels may include SPL levels in excess of 105dB just from one speaker, subwoofers may be exceeding 120dB at peak. A typical wall of standard construction will have a Sound Transmission Class rating of around 20 to 30 points, which means that at a curve is fitted that is centered around 500hz, where 20-30dB of noise is blocked. Typically 6dB per octave more noise is blocked as you move higher in frequency, and less at low frequencies. Various resonances would make this a less than linear looking curve. If we consider a best case scenario, where dialogue is at it’s average level, we will say around 85dB, then others in the house would hear these movies at 55-65dB or so, a fairly high volume level on par with a conversation, if not a loud one. During peaks, we would see very loud levels, in fact, if we hit 120dB of bass output, we would likely hear almost just as loud bass in adjacent room, as most walls block very little bass, and resonances can cause the bass to be as loud or louder in adjacent spaces. If everyone in the house is watching movies, this may not matter. For many that isn’t the case. Maybe a spouse is working in another room, maybe the kids are doing homework or even trying to sleep, or maybe others in the home are simply noise sensitive.
Matthew Poes became passionate about sound isolation specifically because of this problem, he wanted to enjoy high volume levels with a maximally low noise floor in his room, and without bothering others in the home. After studying acoustical physics and learning more about architectural acoustics, Poes developed a deep understanding of the physics of sound isolation. This has allowed him to design rooms which can achieve very high STC levels. Poes does not simply use off the shelf designs and generically apply them to a space. Using knowledge of sound isolation, the requirements of the client, and knowledge of the space, Poes can design a room that can provide anywhere from 10 to 50 additional STC points, along with the ability to improve LF isolation in particular. Many other companies miss-apply the mass laws to sound isolation and provide misguided and inaccurate claims about their sound isolation designs. Few, if any, have ever measured their own designs in-situ and cannot prove their claims. Poes Acoustics has the expertise to measure sound isolation in a real room accurately and has done so with many designs. Poes has achieved STC levels in excess of 62 in their own demo theater, and STC 72 in some other past projects. It should be understood that many companies exaggerate their STC claims by cherry picking their lab results to maximize the results and using labs with known inaccuracies There are only two labs in the United States that can accurately test without flanking errors an STC level beyond 62, and any company claiming an STC level beyond 70 had that test conducted in a space with significant errors if not from one of these labs. That makes the results questionable. Further, few of these companies ever back up their lab results with real world results. Lab’s are idealized situations with no penetrations or typical real world problems. Poes Acoustics has the knowledge and experience to deal with these real world situations and still achieve a high degree of isolation. Real world results are always worse than lab results, making an STC 62 in the real world more equal to an STC 68 or better in the lab.
When looking to add sound isolation to your next project, consult with Poes Acoustics first. We have the best capabilities to meet your project needs. Further, if you are in the Sarasota Florida area, come check out our sound mitigated demo room to experience real world sound isolation for yourself.
Room Acoustics
Room acoustics in the sense of a media room or home theater typically refers to the manipulation of reflections in the room to achieve a specific sound. Many acousticians are simply not acousticians. That is, most people practicing studio acoustics, room acoustics, etc. fell into the field through another means, often a passion for good sound. While these is nothing wrong with this, it also means there is often a huge variety of skills and knowledge amongst us, and everyone has their own approach. Poes Acoustics differentiates itself from the competition because we do not believe that it is fair or true to claim a scientifically valid approach to room acoustic design. Manipulating the reflections in the room changes the sound, nobody will argue this point. However, it is quite arguable how desirable that is or what is the right approach. As such, Poes treats acoustic design no different than any other part of the total system design. Client expectations and requirements come first. Using our vast experience designing the acoustics of rooms and studying the topic, Poes designs the acoustics to meet those requirements. We do not claim a singular correct approach, and instead, see acoustics as more like tone controls. They change the sound to taste, and the key in the design is to understand what the clients taste will be.
Lively vs. dead rooms
Many assume that a lively room or a room with a lot of strong reflections is not desirable. They seek to lower the RT60 to very low levels and remove all reflections. Conversely, there are those with the opposite view, they consider a lively room desirable and seek to avoid any room treatment to enhance realism. Poes would contend that both approaches are equally wrong or equally right, depending on your perspective. Two channel systems are typically devoid of any three dimensional spatial cues on their own. While the sound of those cues exist in the recording, the ear-brain mechanism is not perceiving them as it would in nature. Without those cues, we can’t be convinced we are there in the real environment of the original performance. As such, for those into acoustic music or music recorded with some form of acoustical environment, a more lively room could be desirable. The reflections in the room, especially if later in nature and more diffused, could give the impression of a larger real acoustic environment. The speakers would disappear more and the image would be more diffused (which is correct for typical large room environments where the reflected to direct sound ratio is higher). By contrast, studio recordings may have no real environment and the room reflections are that of your own room, not that of the studio environment or any real large performance space. Removing the room from the equation may thus be more desirable. This achieves a more focused image with more tightly focused instrument placement. Neither is right or wrong, it is just a different approach. However, research into this topic has found that in multi-channel environments where the acoustic space is being reproduced by the surround speakers, a more dead room is likely desirable. Poes would argue that with a high channel count theater, an anechoic environment is probably best, if not unrealistic. However, the room must also be livable and work with a variety of materials. As such, Poes designs the acoustics to work in a range of spaces and to be a comfortable space to spend time.
Aesthetics and Acoustics
In many cases the aesthetics and acoustics of a room are at odds with each other. It seems impossible to have both. While many acoustic companies have attempted to achieve high aesthetic value with their acoustic treatments, often it remains true that these are 2” to 4” thick panels (twice the thickness of typical wall artwork) with fairly basic front designs which do not match the aesthetics of the room. Rarely do such acoustic treatments enhance the aesthetic of the room and ultimately serve more an acoustic purpose. While this works for some, in our experience, this does not work for far more. As such Poes Acoustics focuses on achieving high acoustic performance without compromising the aesthetic. While this does increase the cost of the acoustics, it improves the so-called wife acceptance factor substantially. We can design custom acoustic features for a space or provide pre-designed products from companies like Artnovion. No longer is it true that acoustics must be an eye-sore.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough
Poes Acoustics prides itself on being a practical system designer. All rooms make compromises, no room or budget will ever achieve perfection in all regards. Matthew Poes understands the limitations of all design choices and can design systems and acoustics to minimize the limitations or push the limitations to areas of low importance to the client. In even the best home theaters, the acoustically transparent screen may introduce a small distortion to the sound. Poes knows the best products to minimize these distortions as well as the right designs for the baffle wall, speaker placement, etc. No speaker is perfect, all speakers make some compromises, and these compromises can be manipulated depending on the requirements. This is the art of engineering, pushing the compromises to where they don’t matter. Poes achieves this in his room designs. By thoroughly understanding both the needs of the client and the capabilities of the system as a whole, a design can be achieved where compromises may exist, but do not impact the desired experience in a meaningful way. We do not strive to achieve perfection; we strive to optimally meet the clients needs. Anyone claiming perfection or a focus on perfection is likely making bigger performance compromises than those who achieve optimal system designs. That is simply because the axiom that perfection is the enemy of good enough always holds true. We will never achieve what we set out to achieve if our minimum standard is perfection. .
*pictures above are of Artnovion acoustic panels for which Poes Acoustics represents