The golf simulator market is, if you'll pardon the pun, in full swing. According to the National Golf Foundation, an estimated 6.2 million Americans played in some sort of golf simulator in 2023, while Wise Guy Reports forecasts a 11.5% growth rate in the home golf simulator industry over the next eight years.
And while the main components of a good golf simulator – a tracking system, a projector, a screen, simulation software, a hitting mat – are as familiar to a seasoned golfer as tees and putters, one area that often gets neglected is acoustics.
Here's why your golf simulator needs an acoustic treatment:
Better Sound for You
The peacful pastoral sounds of a regular outdoor game of golf are replaced in a golf simulator by the hard thuds, thumps, and thwacks of the golf ball hitting the impact screen and ricocheting off walls. If not properly treated, these loud noises can quickly get more infuriating than a missed five-foot putt.
And if you're using golf simulation software that provides real-time feedback via AI or other features, you need to able to clearly hear that without bad acoustics burying it under echo and reverb.
Sound-absorbing features in your golf simulator like our AcoustiColor® panels or Sound Absorption Sheets will help soak up these sounds to give you the clarity and peace of mind you need to focus on your game. We recommend placing them along points of reflection on the side walls and the back wall (the back wall is also a great spot for one of our several golf-themed Acoustic Image Panels).
Better Sound for Others
Is your golf sim in your basement, garage, or another part of your home? Or maybe it's in a special rec room in the office next to areas where employees are trying to do work? You may want to control the sound so it's not disturbing others.
Acoustic panels themselves won't soundproof a golf sim, but they will help dampen some noise transmission. A more comprehensive soundproofing option like our Peacemaker® sound barrier will drastically cut down on sound leaving the space, BUT adding it will usually require new construction, so it's best to incorporate it before installing your golf sim.
Protects Your Walls
The walls of a golf simulator definitely take a beating over time. Traditionally, carpet, turf, netting, or foam have been used to limit wear and tear, but their sound-absorbing properties are, at best, limited.
Acoustic solutions like our Audimute Strata® or AcoustiColor panels not only help with the sound in your golf sim, but they are also dense and resilient, protecting your surfaces from golf balls gone wild.
Looks Great
Sound absorption and wall protection in a golf sim are important, but aesthetics matter, too. Again, carpet and turf can add color or texture, but our Audimute acoustic options take it to the next level.
Looking for a rustic elegance that evokes the "Cliffs of Doom" at Pebble Beach? Try our Audimute Strata in Commanding Clay or Granite Run. Want something simpler that brings to mind the sprawling fairways of Augusta National? Check out our AcoustiColor tiles or panels, available in Hep Green, Organic Green, or any other color available from Sherwin-Williams or other leading commercial brands.
Whether installed in a home, a business, or the clubhouse at the local golf course, a golf simulator is a serious investment, both financially and spatially. Make sure you're getting the most out of that investment by incorporating great acoustics, too!
Why are good acoustics so important for schools and classrooms? Let's dive in.
Most schools and universities are built from highly reflective materials such as concrete, brick, and drywall — good for durability and cleanliness, but bad for acoustics. Elsewhere, the spacious common areas and open-layout classrooms found in many modern schools allow sound to travel freely without getting blocked by walls or partitions. Overcrowded classrooms and noisy, outdated HVAC systems also add to the acoustic woes.
If a classroom hasn't received a proper acoustic treatment, students are more likely to struggle with concentration and information retention.
The science backs it up: a 2021 study published in Frontiers in Built Environment found that excessive noise levels and reverb in elementary school classrooms correlated with lower math and reading scores, while a 2022 study from the Acoustical Society of America said students can miss up to 25% of information in a classroom due to poor acoustics.
Even at the preschool level, acoustics play a role: excessive reverb and noise in a preschool classroom can negatively impact speech intelligibility, listening comprehension, and behavior.
Simply put, a student's cognitive skills, academic performance, and emotional well-being can suffer when acoustics don't make the grade. That's not even taking into consideration how bad acoustics in a classroom can impact the teacher, who may strain their voice to be heard.
Any acoustic solution will help significantly: we particularly like Fabric Acoustic Panels because they are durable and bleach-cleanable (making them perfect for high-traffic areas in a school like the hallway or cafeteria). Custom Image Acoustic Panels are a great way to add a touch of school spirit to your acoustic solution, while ceiling clouds, baffles, and direct mount tiles are excellent sound absorption options for areas with limited wall space, like classrooms, gymnasiums, auditoriums, and common areas.
Let's eliminate the echo so we can focus on the education!
Just a couple weeks before he played Lollapalooza as the bassist for headliner Luke Combs, the incredibly talented Mat Maxwell welcomed Audimute into his home to install an AcoustiWood® Chevrons Acoustic Panels Kit (pictured here: Style A feat. AcoustiWood Premium - Aged Dark Oak and AcoustiWood Exotic - Aged Teak). Designed to resemble real wood but made with our eco-C-tex® material, these AcoustiWood kits help absorb an average of 95% of echoes, reverb, and mid to high frequencies.
Speaking of absorbing, be sure to check out Mat's amazing book "Hired Musician: A Guide to Getting and Keeping Gigs", co-written with Seth Costner. It's an entertaining and super resourceful look at pursuing a career in music!
At Audimute, we love it when our acoustic solutions become the canvas for someone else's creativity -- in this case, literally!
After purchasing eight AcoustiColor® panels from Audimute to improve the acoustics in his game room, Clay Hildebrant hired artist Ariane O'Day to paint a mural directly onto the 4'x4' panels.
Says Ariane, who used Behr exterior latex paint on the panels: "I was honestly worried that the panels would just soak [the paint] all up and the paint wouldn’t be able to cover, but I was pleasantly surprised!"
The final result really took flight: a sound-absorbing mural perfect for reducing echoes and reverberations.
(And to those wondering: painting over an AcoustiColor panel may reduce the sound-absorbing efficacy of the area under the paint by 5% to 10%, but with AcoustiColor panels carrying an NRC rating of 0.95, you'll still have a solution that will significantly cut down on poor acoustics!)
Background noise in the workplace isn't just an annoyance; it can impact your productivity and even your health.
According to a 2015 report from the World Green Building Council, excessive background noise can lead to an astounding 66% drop in performance for tasks requiring concentration. This is especially troublesome for open layout offices, where the insistent chatter of computers, keyboards, phones, scanners, printers, and human conversation can result in a focus-shattering cacophony.
The stakes are even higher in industrial settings like factories and warehouses. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has said noise levels over 85 decibels can damage one's hearing, with the Center for Disease Control estimating that 22 million workers every year are exposed to such dangerous levels of noise in the workplace.
Acoustic solutions such as panels, clouds, or baffles can help absorb many of these echoes, reverberations, and mid to high frequencies, but that's just the beginning of addressing these noise issues. Workplaces should also mitigate excessive noise by relocating loud office equipment behind doors or partitions, designating "quiet zones" where employees can enjoy some much-needed auditory respite, and requiring the use of hearing protectors in areas where even the best acoustic solution can't entirely reduce noise to a manageable level.
In the end, you'll have happier and healthier workers. And that's always a good thing.
Life Point Church in Mentor, Ohio, recently contacted Audimute to address the acoustics in its newly constructed auditorium ahead of its opening. The size of the venue, its layout (two tiers of seating), and the role of live music and livestreaming in Life Point's services called for a sound-absorbing treatment that offered lots of effective coverage.
The Audimute solution — AcoustiColor® acoustic panels coated to match the surroundings and installed in three key locations:
The back walls of both the balcony and the ground floor
The sides of the auditorium
The back wall of the stage
Soon after hosting their first services in the new auditorium, Life Point reached out to Audimute with rave reviews: "Our services went great...such an exciting day for Life Point! The acoustical panels made a huge difference and we love the way they look. I must say you and your team made this part of the project so easy for us and we were really amazed at the attention to detail and the professionalism of your team."
At Audimute, we've been lucky to work with some of the top drummers in the music industry, and we've been even luckier that those drummers have shared the results of their Audimute acoustic solutions with their legions of followers on social media platforms like Instagram.
Recently, one of our drummer friends, Gabriel Staznik, showed his 90,000+ followers "Before Audimute" and "After Audimute" footage of him drumming in his drum room. In the "Before" footage, the boom of the floor tom bounced around the space while the crack of the snare was nearly lost in the reverberations from the rest of the drum kit.
The "After" footage, on the other hand, revealed an acoustically treated room courtesy of such Audimute solutions as our Planks Acoustic Panels Kit and AcoustiColor® Planks and Panels. In this footage, the sound was crisper. The drums were cleaner. It was a significant acoustic difference, and Gabriel was excited it to share with his followers.
Among the several comments on the post were a couple different ones that mentioned they liked the sound of the untreated room — the "before" — better.
And you know what? They weren't wrong.
'Wait a minute! How can you say that?' you might ask. "You're an acoustic solutions company, and you treated his drum room! Shouldn't those comments about liking the untreated sound make you upset?"
No.
Just like those commenters, we might ultimately prefer the "raw, untreated" sound of booming, echo-y drums, BUT we want it to be an intentional choice by the musician. In an untreated room, there's no choice: you're always going to get echo.
With an Audimute treatment, Gabriel is in control of the sound in his drum studio instead of the other way around. He now enjoys a crisp, clear sound in the room; if he wants to add reverb or effects after the fact, he can, as opposed to the more difficult task of cutting out the reverb post-recording if he doesn't want it.
There's nothing wrong with echo and reverb on a recording, of course. Many legendary artists, from the Beach Boys to Frank Sinatra to the Supremes to the Beatles, recorded vocals or instruments in specific rooms or studios with lots of echo to capture that special reverb-y sound. It all depends on the outcome you're going for.
Gabriel said it best in the comments on his post: "If you want raw, lively energy for a big, open drum sound, untreated rooms can be magic. [...] But if you need clarity, control, and mix-ready recordings, treatment makes all the difference."
In late 2024, an old water heater at the McDowell County Tourism & Visitor Center in western North Carolina finally gave out and flooded the building, causing such significant damage that the flooring and furnishings had to be replaced. And while echoes had always been a problem in the visitor center, they became even worse in the wake of the water damage.
"The acoustics were overwhelming," says Kim Effler, president and CEO of the McDowell Chamber of Commerce and McDowell Visitor Center. "There were days we truly couldn't hear ourselves think."
With upwards of 20,000 visitors passing through the center every year en route to McDowell County's many attractions and activities, Kim knew the acoustics needed to be addressed.
Her search for an effective yet affordable acoustic solution brought her to Audimute and our Fabric Accent Acoustic Ceiling Clouds. Ideal for rooms with high ceilings or limited wall space, each Fabric Accent Acoustic Ceiling Cloud has an NRC rating of .95, absorbing an average of 95% of echoes, reverberations, and mid to high frequencies.
With three hexagon-shaped Fabric Accent Acoustic Ceiling Clouds now installed, the difference in sound quality inside the McDowell County Visitor Center has been significant.
"Acoustically, the space is now so much better," Kim says. "The ceiling clouds have created a calmer, more productive environment. Our team noticed the improvement immediately, and even our visitors have commented on how peaceful the space feels. It’s been a game-changer."
