One of the best fixes? Ambient sound.
Sound Connects To Your Emotions
Auditory input and emotions are deeply intertwined. Loud, jarring noises can trigger stress and anxiety, while natural sounds such as rustling leaves and crashing waves induce calmness. In everyday life, we know that music, too, has a profound impact on the way we feel – it can lift our spirits, evoke nostalgia, and provide solace.
Research has shown that certain frequencies and rhythms can change our moods. Low frequency sounds are often associated with relaxation, while high frequency sounds help to energise the listener. Understanding sound emotion allows us to create an auditory environment to suit our emotional needs. This is where ambient sound comes in. It helps set the stage for a relaxing session at home.
Use Ambient Sound To Improve Your Living Space
Ambient sound refers to background audio that sets the mood for a particular space without dominating the listener’s attention. Often subtle and unobtrusive, it blends into the background, providing a soothing backdrop to regulate or improve your emotions.
Here’s how ambient sound can positively affect your mood at home:
Speaker Placement For Ambient Sound
If you already use external speakers for listening to music or watching movies at home, try utilising them as a useful tool for ambient sound. Here are our tips on where to place them:
Avoid Proximity To Walls
This is one of the most common mistakes people make – when your speakers are too close to the walls, especially corners, the bass frequencies can reflect off the surfaces, making the sound “muddy”. Proximity to the side walls can also create an imbalance in the timbre of the speakers.
Ensure Left And Right Side Walls Are Equidistant
Whenever possible, optimise the “sweet spot” – when the side walls are equidistant from the speakers, you get the best stereo sound quality. If the side walls are at varying distances, this could make one speaker sound louder or more dominant than the other, and could make the sound unbalanced.
Diffuse Instead Of Absorb
Standard rooms don’t have just four corners, they have 12. Each one can affect the way your ambient sound travels, so try to incorporate soft furnishings and fabrics into your living space to help diffuse the sound. Absorption might tame some reflections, but it might make your room sound dull and lifeless, so it’s good to retain a little reverberation. Also, try to avoid hard surfaces and too much glass.
Adjust The Degree Of Your Toe-In
When listening to music or watching movies, a sharp toe-in where the speakers are directly aimed at the listening position helps give you the best sound quality. For ambient sound, try a more moderate angle (10 – 15 degrees) and gradually increase the angle until you find your preferred balance.
Where Possible, Opt For Floorstanding Speakers
As you’ll most likely be moving about instead of remaining seated when ambient sound is being played, having your speakers at ear level provides the most ideal sound quality. If you already have a set of bookshelf speakers at home, sturdy floor stands provide the perfect performance platform for you to make the best of all your audio experiences.
“Among the most thrilling speaker systems we’ve heard.” – What Hi-Fi?
Offering great sound with no strings attached, LS50 Wireless II is more than a high-performance loudspeaker; it’s the perfect all-in-one system you need for your home. With exceptional connectivity (Spotify, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer) and wireless streaming services (AirPlay2, Google Chromecast, Bluetooth), all your favourite sounds and playlists are available at the touch of a button.
Compared to around 60% absorption from conventional loudspeakers, LS50 Wireless II’s Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT) absorbs 99% of unwanted sound, resulting in purer, more natural sound performance with almost no distortion.
“LSX II can replace a complete rack of HiFi separates and sound just as good!” – Expert Imaging and Sound Association (EISA)
Upgraded to deliver more balanced sound in higher resolution, LSX II is compact enough to fit into any setting but packs a mighty HiFi punch. Placed on a bookshelf, desktop or attached to the wall, you can listen the way you like with minimum fuss and maximum quality. Like LS50 Wireless II, it also comes with all-inclusive connectivity, making it the best partner for all your audio needs like listening to music, immersing yourself in gaming, or watching TV and movies.
“Audio clout without the massive cost.” – T3
Featuring the same key technologies as LSX II at a price you’ll love, this compact wireless HiFi speaker system is the gateway to immersive high-fidelity sound. Designed as a streamlined version of our award-winning LSX II, LSX II LT lets you enjoy room-filling, immersive sound. The convenient “plug and play” function also connects easily to your TV, desktop, laptop, or console.
Tech Spotlight: Uni-Q
Our Uni-Q technology maximises your speakers’ sweet spot, ensuring pure, high-quality sound travels across the room. With the tweeter placed at the acoustic centre of the bass/midrange cone, this single point source disperses sound evenly, allowing you to enjoy an immersive audio experience no matter where you’re seated.
In conventional loudspeakers, mid and high frequencies from different locations interfere with each other. Now in its 12th generation, the Uni-Q driver in our speakers ensures that sound is delivered from the same place, resulting in less distortion and higher accuracy.
Our Top Ambient Sound Suggestions
Equipped with speaker placement know-how and the right HiFi speakers, coming home to an audio oasis is something you can look forward to every day with the perfect setup. Take a look at our top ambient sound suggestions:
- Birdsong
- Ocean waves
- Rainfall
- Flowing water
- Wind chimes
- Indoor sounds (like a washing machine or fireplace)
- Atmospheric soundscapes
- Handpan music
- Instrumental music
- Binaural beats
Curate Your Own Soundscape
Create playlists that cater to different moods and activities – maybe fill your AM playlist with birdsong and instrumental music, and your PM playlist with rainfall or binaural beats. Play around with what you like the most.
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