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I've been to a lot of theaters and have seen all kinds of back drops behind the screen. From nothing to curtains to black mats. Is there any choice that is best or is it just what works for the theater owner?

Most of the ones I have seen are that Acoustic fiberglass batting that is colored black. I think some sort of sound absorbent material would be best. The batting seems to work well.

The purpose of drapping the stage area is to control reflections of sound that bounce off the back of the screen and are then bounced off the back wall and arrive in the theatre slightly later than the dirrect sound
This causes a loss of intelligability
That is one of the reasons that THX constructs the baffle wall as it stops the secondary reflection as well as extending the low frequency response of the speakers

behind all our screens lurks a wall of black fibergall batts applied onto the wall behind the speakers. That's for sound control.

Around the outer edge of the screen......We use the outer layers of black fabric and curtains to frame all our screens, drop down, side screens, you name it. curtains, etc.... that is all to frame the picture properly for presentation.

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com

I'm in the process of upgrading my sound system. part of that will be to get the fiberglass batts for behind the screen. right now i just have a black painted wall -- which was passable with mono sound and mostly subtitled films. but with the CP55 and new amps, i think i better improve on the flat black paint.

optically, the painted wall was fine. but the sound sucked when any scene with volume came on that included dialogue.

Gordon is correct --- the sound perforations in the screen only make up about 5% of the area, so lots of sound is reflected. Without an absorbent baffle wall (or at least black fiberglass batting) to absorb the reflected sound, it causes undesirable delays and phase shifts in the auditorium sound.

BTW, don't forget to paint shiny surfaces black, or you will see them glinting behind the screen.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
EI Worldwide Technical Services
Research Labs, Building 69
Eastman Kodak Company
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