Most residential integration firms do not have an acoustician on staff, however, REDIAcoustics is looking to change that by offering its turnkey acoustical analytics and treatment materialization services to dealers in as seamless a way as possible.
“There’re no travel costs involved,” says PK Pandey, director and partner at REDIAcoustics. “We can predict what the room will sound like, as well as suggest efficient materialization solutions that will accommodate any design requirement, using our patent pending predictive analysis process.
Who’s Behind REDIAcoustics
Before tackling what REDIAcoustics can do and how it operates, it is important to know who is behind the company, which, in addition to its team of engineers, includes some heavy hitters from the pro audio world as its partners.
REDI partner and director of research, Dr. Peter D’Antonio, is a legend in acoustical design and the founder of RPG Diffusor Systems. He is a pioneer in the sound diffusion industry and has created a wide range of novel number-theoretic, fractal, and optimized diffusing and absorbing surfaces, for which he holds many trademarks and patents.
As a partner and advisor to REDI, architect and acoustician John Storyk of WSDG (Walters-Storyk Design Group) has provided design and construction supervision services for the professional audio and video recording industry since the 1969 design of Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Under Storyk’s guidance, WSDG, a 13-time NAMM TEC award winner, has designed some of the finest recording studios, event spaces, and home theaters around the world.
REDI senior acoustical engineer and partner Rinaldi Petrolli also hails from WSDG, working on various domains of acoustical analysis and computational simulations that put him regularly in touch with D’Antonio and Pandey.
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Pandey is the integrator of the group, having managed and had oversight in hundreds of projects, focusing on quality assurance and client relationships. He was the founder of GCPro, Guitar Center’s B2B division and AVN Systems (avnsys.com). He has been honored with 12 Platinum and Gold records by all the artist projects he has been involved in. He is also a studio owner.
That is an impressive pedigree that can be added to an integration company’s assets for typically under $5000 per project.
How It Works
REDIAcoustics offers a few different services, but essentially, they all work the same way.
“The integrators give us their floor plans and elevations to the space that they have available, and we design any kind of geometry if needed, or, if it is just a cuboid space, we would work within to determine the proper dimensions for the best scenario,” explains Pandey. “We would also predict what this room will sound like, so they have to tell us the speakers they’re using. We can tell you all the exact speaker positioning and where to put the subwoofers.
“We give them the ray tracing, the frequency response, and pressure map of the room. Then we design the treatments for them and tell them exactly where to place them on an XYZ 3-D model. We will also teach them how to make some of the treatments because it makes sense for them to make some of the treatments and the resonator plates — or we can arrange for approved manufacturers to make that product.”
For non-cuboid spaces, REDI offers two audio optimization services: NIRO for room geometry and positioning, and TORA for acoustic treatment. Integrators can choose one or the other or, for best results, use both.
If you are working in a straightforward cuboid room, you can use REDI Acoustics ROCS (Room Optimization of Cuboid Spaces) module, which offers several room-type options and lets you plug numbers right into the website and get the data you need in just a few minutes.
The company is also working on an app for cuboid listening room spaces where a user can enter the room dimensions and it will give results for up to three sets of speakers so you can compare the results. The app should be out by the end of the year and will cost $299 to analyze a room.
Working With REDIAcoustics
The best way to get involved with REDIAcoustics is through its website, rediacoustics.com, which has plenty of details about its processes and how they work. And if you are wondering why you haven’t heard of them before, that is by design.
“We’re totally invisible,” says Pandey. “There might be 200 recording studios that we’ve done whose owners don’t know we’ve done it, but the acousticians or studio designers have used our technology.
“The high-end theater designers call us in because they don’t want any guesswork. They want to provide data and a report for the client, which we will do but it will have their company name on it. If they are working with us, then they have confidence in designing a million-dollar theater and knowing where to put acoustical treartment that’ll work for everything — the high frequencies and low. And acoustics are more important than ever because of Dolby Atmos. When you have up to 22 speakers and many subwoofers, it’s just going to become a low-frequency nightmare — it’s not going to be an enjoyable listening environment.”
REDI won’t specify any of the gear for the room, but they can make refinements based on the client’s interests. “We don’t make speaker recommendations because we know they are all going to sound good in the room we’re designing,” says Pandey. “The speaker will behave and perform as it was designed to. And if the client wants the space to sound a little more live, like the hi-fi listening folks like, we can do that. Or if you want a home theater that is a little drier, we can do that, too. That discussion is part of the first meetings that we have with the integrators.”
In the Field
As with all things custom integration, the earlier REDIAcoustics can get involved in a project, the better — ideally during the pre-design phase, according to Pandey. Still, REDI can be used at any time during the process and is particularly effective on retrofits, where the company can tell integrators which existing treatments can be saved and which treatments need to be replaced.
If an integrator needs to justify the cost to the client, Pandey suggests, “The best way for a dealer to explain REDIAcoustics to the end user is to say it’s a high-end acoustic analysis and that they want to make sure the room sounds great. It’s that simple. And it is not that big of a line item comparably. Say a theater is $100,000 — we’re talking about a $5000 line item. If you had a huge theater with 22 speakers, maybe it would be $10,000. It all depends, but this is the neighborhood, and it is not that crazy.
“There are some homeowners who really want to get into the weeds, and we want to give the integrator a report so when they’re in the room with the client they can say, ‘We spent some time working on this room and these are the acoustics for it.’
“I think that knowledgeable homeowners are a trend that is going to grow and that is going to be more important in the future.”
For integrators who choose to go without an acoustician or REDI Acoustics, Pandey offers some suggestions. “Many integrators are applying acoustic treatment now with semi-rigid insulation and fabric, which is a great place to start, but if you put that in the wrong place, it makes it worse. I’d recommend diving into the science to give yourself a little education about how low-frequency waveforms behave in rooms — they all behave differently depending on the size and the dimensions of the room. For some integrators, it’s just trial and error. And then they’re going to keep designing the same room over and over again.
“Or they can hire REDIAcoustics and have every room they create sound the best that it can.”
For more information about REDIAcoustics, visit rediacoustics.com.
