Acoustics. Next to your speakers, your room is probably the biggest contributor to the quality of the sound. We care about acoustics as we understand that it is one of the major factors affecting your listening experience. The Auralex Room Analysis Plus gives you the ability to not only get recommendations about treating your room, but a report based on ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS! And it doesn’t cost thousands of dollars either.

Room Analysis
Auralex has introduced three levels of consultation. There is the Room Analysis, Room Analysis Plus, and Room Analysis Pro. The Pro version involves someone coming to your home with equipment. If you have the money for that (it starts at $1500 a day plus travel and expenses), stop reading and call Auralex. It’s probably worth it. For the rest of us, the other two options are much more accessible.

The basic Room Analysis involves a form. You fill it out. It asks you stuff like type of room, dimensions, listening preferences, speaker setup, and what you think your problems are. They also ask you to draw a picture of your room. If you have CAD drawings, blueprints, digital pictures, etc., they’ll take them as well. You fax/email in the form and they plug it into a program and tell you where your room problems probably lie and what they would suggest you do about them.

Cost? Zero.

Oh baby, that’s the kind of price I’m talking about. If you care even one iota about how your system sounds, you should have already done this. This is a no-brainer of epic proportions. Sure, they are going to suggest that you spend money but they aren’t requiring you to spend it with them. Heck you can do it yourself if you want. That’s where I started.

The Room Analysis Plus takes this service a step farther. You fill out of the form, draw your room, etc. just like before. On top of that, they send you an audio sweep file and you play it through one of your speakers while recording it. You’ll need to specify exactly where your speakers and the mic is in the room including measurements from the wall, the type of mic, and the make/model of speakers. You measure one speaker at a time - more on that later. Once you send all that in, they run it through their analysis program and send you a report. They also promise an hour or two of on-the-phone consultation for the inevitable questions you have. Price? $250 for up to five measurements (when I began this article, it was $250 for the first measurement, $100 for each additional measurement, they’ve apparently decided that this wasn’t enough bang for your buck. Better for you I say). The report you get will have all the measurements combined into the analysis (not a separate report for each).

Click here to read the entire review on Audioholics.com.