Black Sea audio

Acoustic design
Hype

Some of our acoustic design customers ...

Commercial :

* What hi-fi magazine
* Tag Mclaren audio
* Acoustic energy
* Mercedes GP / Honda F1
* Partners BDDH
* Cadogan Hall / RPO
* BP / El-Gasi oil field
* Marks & Spencer
* Royal Northern college of Music
* Classic cinema chain
* Tape gallery
* De-Lane-Lea sound centre
* Eton college


Private ...

* Chris Rea.
* Level 42.
* Alan Darby.
* Sir Richard Branson
* Gary Kemp.
* Felix Dennis
* Sir Michael Caine

and their comments ...

  • "I'm having to re-listen to my entire record collection - the difference is amazing"  -  [UK private hi-fi owner]
  • "You were right, the acoustic treatment exposed an electronics problem"  -  [UK hi-fi manufacturer]
  • "The acoustics were fantastic and we were lucky to host two classical concerts. The musicians love playing there".  -  [Pieve, Italy]
  • "His patience, expertise and knowledge have always made seemingly impossible tasks enjoyable" -  [Private studio. London]
  • The sound is fucking fantastic. The lads love watching movies, all we need now is beer ! "  -  [BP oil platform]

Cadogan Hall Concert goers reviews :

* Tucked away just behind Sloane Square, this is a gem of a venue. Designed as a Church, the acoustics are great, and the auditorium is intimate rather than cavernous.

* Comfortable and well positioned seating throughout then allows you to select the much cheaper seats at the rear of the auditorium which at around £18 are nearly half the price of the ones at the front but with very little difference in the view or the sound quality.

* We had the most brilliant night, a bit art deco in style, lovely interior and very atmospheric. Not huge but very comfortable to the point of quite intimate .The stage gives the impression of being very close and the acoustics were wonderful .

* I do love classical music and, in that regard, I find this venue perfect as the sound quality is one of the best in London.
acoustic solutions

Acoustic design.  Acoustic solutions.

Picture
Our pioneering room modeling enables really quick, efficient  and embarrassingly accurate acoustic outcome prediction with the flexibility to account for design changes during project development.
Although we manufacture a small range of acoustic treatment devices, they are very specialist, for very specific purposes, which no one else makes, and our primary role remains acoustic design.

Picture
We work with every conceivable material: both specialist acoustic & standard building materials from suppliers world wide to achieve a desired look and sound quality, providing designers, architects and clients with the necessary acoustic information needed to successfully complete a beautiful sounding space with absolute surety.



Picture
Every project:  existing, new, or proposed, for any and every use, can seriously benefit from a variety of optimization techniques. Most fundamentally, room acoustics in the environment itself - making our work and entertainment spaces aurally comfortable.   Attention to audio system components and installation detail like: cables, mechanical mounting, speaker position, mains conditioning, intelligent and dynamic equalization of sound systems, ensures the best quality signal  "powers" the spaces we live, work & play in.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

 Picture








Cadogan Hall:
1000 seat concert hall in central London.
 Picture
Custom bass absorption for an octagonal church in Italy.


Every single environment needs a little help to sound it's best
acoustic design

Two short snippets of the same piece of music: first in an untreated room, then, in the same room after acoustic design


Listen and you'll see ...

Technically, it's the difference between

Picture
THIS




   &
 Picture
                                               THAT

You can guess this and that, you can get costly measurement of this and that, but we can predict and conduct acoustic design for a guaranteed this and that. Without even seeing the space ...
about
Picture
It all started a little over thirty years ago, when, as a school leaver Karl first worked in a recording studio in London's Tin Pan Alley.  After a number of years, and having worked on Grammy award and Eurovision song contest winning tracks he moved onto to freelance engineering and studio design.  Today, his experience spans just about every aspect of audio, from conception to final delivery - even on vinyl !.  It's all about passion, getting the best and most emotionally involving performance from every space or system.
While, at home, in the office, at the pool, in fact, everywhere and anywhere, it's about making the spaces we inhabit sound and feel comfortable.  Sound, made by a product, has a bearing on it's perceived quality - like the still talked about reassuring clunk of a VW golf door and the fact that modern washing machines are far quieter does actually get noticed.  It's the same for our lived in spaces, recreation spaces, restaurants and so on.  A good acoustic enhances our enjoyment of the space and makes us more likely to want to be there - crucial if you run cafe, just comforting indulgence at home.
more

Acoustic designs, acoustic solutions

In the home, cinema, restaurant, concert hall, studio, church, commercial  & public space

News and featured acoustic designs

Hi end Hi-Fi

KX JYM
With a very high end music system in a semi dedicated room, our customer Mark was experiencing an annoying stereo image problem. With everything "slightly louder on the left" it just doesn't sound right, and of course, for a system of such high value - just isn't right !
While the equipment could make adjustments for this, Mark knew he would always feel uneasy and always be aware of the issue. 
The cause was not the the system, but the room.
While it looked, and was, like a typical domestic room, with no really obvious acoustic issues, the difference between the absorption characteristics between the left & right side walls was enough.  Visually, you wouldn't think there would be much difference between sound reflected from one mainly glazed wall, compared to the opposite plastered wall - but there is.
Surprisingly to Mark, it wasn't a case of the glazed wall needing additional absorption to "calm down" reflections, but the complete opposite.
The plastered wall needed more reflectivity, to provide closer matched reflection paths to that of the glazed wall.  The cure, simplicity itself, was to re position an existing mirror, and commission a new additional mirror, placing them both on the side wall, opposite the glazing .  With mirror's  featuring in the rooms decor anyway, Mark had no aesthetic issues with adding a little more - particularly as he gained the perfect centre image he had been searching for.

It's time like these where acoustic design will always win over guess work and always be worth the effort.
With a raft of spinning bikes, a very loud music system, several grunting participants and a trainer giving encouraging commands, this was quite uncomfortably noisy.   The main problem was the acoustic liveness of the space, effectively adding to the cacophony.   Simple high level and upper wall mounted absorbers, in custom sizes to "work around" the existing display screens and mirror finishes reduce the liveness to sensible figures.   While, dynamic equalisation and group delay electronics match the music system to the room and eradicate the annoying delay effects normally associated with sound emanating from multiple loudspeakers.
Now you can hear the beads of sweat hit the floor !

From the sublime to the ridiculous - with pride