AV Tip: Eliminate Background Noise In Your Home Theater

Background noise can drown out soft dialogue in movies or soft details in music. Unfortunately, most people only think about blocking noise from leaving a home theater, instead of stopping noise from coming in. 

To test the noise floor in your home theater pull out your trusty SPL meter (if you have a trusty SPL meter, if not then go buy one). Next, measure the noise floor in your room at a dead quiet. If you're lucky and you've got a dedicated listening room, maybe you can get into the 20-30dB range, but the odds are it will be higher. Now turn on your HVAC system and see what happens....... The noise in your room will likely dump significantly. So, before you go spending money on amplifiers with a 120dB SNR rating, it might be a wise idea to mitigate background noise first. A humming refrigerator or a HVAC pumping air into your room is going to be a far greater issue than equipment with a higher than ideal noise floor.

Three Simple Tips

• Decrease the velocity of the air coming through the vents by increasing the number of vents or size of ducts.
• Insulate the ducts to decrease vibrations.
• Soundproof your room to eliminate noise from entering for leaving your room.

Source: forum member Steve_81