Darko's life changing hi-fi room

Acoustics that "blow the sound out of the water"

The hi-fi listening room of John Darko, in Lisbon, has become his new spot for the video reviews of his YouTube channel Darko Audio. For that reason, it required room acoustic treatment with a selection of acoustic panels that would contribute both to his hi-fi gear test reviews and for his voice recordings, not the least for his own personal fruition of the room.

The result was "life-changing", according to John Darko. "I would say that the sound of this room with the Vicoustic install does blow the sound it had without it out of the water."

"There's no way I could live without them"

After living over a year in Berlin, producing his videos in a room with acoustic treatment developed by UniVicoustic, when John Darko decided to live in Lisbon, Portugal, one thing was clear for him: "There's no way I could possibly live without them now, which is why when I completed the paperwork on buying this apartment last November the very first email I sent was to UniVicoustic to organize the treatment of this room."

Darko sent the dimensions of the rooms, photographs and details about the walls to UniVicoustic to develop a project. "I received a PDF proposal from them which detailed everything they were planning to install and also what it would look like, because basically UniVicoustic made all the acoustic decisions about what goes where in this room because they're the experts. Although obviously, I did have a say on the appearance of those panels so I got to choose the colors and the finishes. Now for me, one Golden Rule was anything that goes on the ceiling has to be white and the other thing is that I wanted a dark wood I knew I was going to put a green rug down so I thought well why not go with some dark green panels as well on the walls"

The aim was to reduce sound reverb

"The aim of this acoustic install was to tame the first reflections that were contributing to a very high Reverb time. This room previously had a Reverb time of around one second, between 300 Hertz and 4 kilohertz so essentially the mid-range and the treble. The technical aim of treating this room was to get that Reverb time sitting somewhere between 0.3 seconds and 0.6 seconds and with a couple of exceptions most of what has been installed in this room deal with absorption so basically you're sucking in the sound and not reflecting it back into the room."

Wooden panel VicStrip Spacer

"I've got four Cinema Round Premium on the front wall to either side of a brand new product from UniVicoustic called VicStrip Spacer Kit, the wooden panel effect that to which the TV is mounted now. It isn't just a wooden panel, there are several layers of pet foam behind it and I believe that pet foam is made from recycled plastic bottles. There's also an air gap and apparently that air gap also contributes to the absorption coefficient of this VicStrip product. It's mounted in a metal frame so you've got the wooden panels on the front and then you've got layers of foam and I believe mine was customized with an additional layer of foam for greater low-frequency absorption. The VicStrip also has an absorption coefficient of one above 300 Hertz which means it's absorbing everything pretty much above 300 Hertz now this was the first wall of the front wall".

For the ceiling, UniVicoustic chose Multifuser DC3 for sound diffusion combined with Cinema Round Premium sound absorbers, all in white as John Darko requested. For the back wall, Wavewood Ultra Lite brought the unmistakable flagship design of the brand to the room, combined with Cinema Round Premium. The corner required a Bass Trap, and Super Bass Extreme Ultra VMT was up for the challenge to help control low frequencies.

In the end, the aim was accomplished. "With the measurements, the Reverb time of this room between 300 Hertz and four kilohertz now sits comfortably between 0.3 seconds and 0.6 seconds just where we want it", says John Darko.

Follow Darko Audio YouTube Channel and Website to hear how it sounds like.