Kinetics Noise Control on Making Rooms Sound as Good as They Look

Rob Stott: All right, we are back on the Connected Design podcast. And I acoustics to me is ⁓ you know, when you're recording podcasts, you have to have great acoustics. So this is why probably most importantly why I reached out to you, Mr. Jason Ehrlich, ⁓ to learn a little bit about this space. So I know that I sound great when people listen to me, but I appreciate you jumping on with us today and diving into it. ⁓ so much to talk about. ⁓ the business development manager of room acoustics in the home market at Kinetics Noise Control. There's a mouthful. But I appreciate a lot. I appreciate you join jumping on with us and and diving into it. So how you doing? I'm doing well on a on a Friday afternoon. Thanks, Crafty. ⁓ that's awesome. Well, hey, ⁓ before we get super deep into this conversation and and about this really just unique ⁓ segment of the channel, ⁓ tell us a little bit about about yourself. For those that don't know you, you know, how you got your start in this industry, ⁓ you know, your background and and path to where you are today at at Kinetics. So it's kind of a crazy thing when you take it what I do for a living plus my background, because I've had a home theater since VCR Pro Logic Day, right? So it's actually always been an interest to me or even way back then. ⁓ little did I know when I got my degree in operations and I was hired at Kinetics as actually our production scheduler, ⁓ a job I had for a whole three months before they moved me into purchasing so you can throw that degree away. ⁓ that later on I would move into ⁓ our commercial noise control side did that for fifteen years or so ⁓ and then moved more in on the marketing side, believe it or not, with our commercial room acoustics, the home market, and ⁓ the commercial noise control side. ⁓ so it's been a total now of almost ⁓ twenty seven years. Yes, I'm that rare guy. I've had one interview since college, literally just one. and I have been at kinetics ever since. Wow, that's awesome. I like that's pretty cool though, right? I have to, you know, I it feels like a What's that term? Lifer that people use for a cut. Like that's pretty cool to to be able to say that. ⁓ yeah, was it was it always the acoustics industry that you thought you'd land at? Like what what was the dream job as you were going and getting your degree? ⁓ again, I just it the acoustics things was an accident. Wow, I just I stumbled into it and it was, you know, I started, like I said, three months in as production scheduler that cut my foot in the door. ⁓ job here and then literally three months later there the guy left and purchasing and I would think you'd be good at purchasing I know nothing about purchasing. Amazing. About two years and then ⁓ s I just gravitated towards the sales side of it because it was more puzzle solving than it was, at least here at Kinetics. Cause what when we say sales, it's really supporting contractors and consultants and architects and making sure the design is implemented right. So it's It's really support and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. In fact, that was he probably could not ask for a better acoustics education because I was privy to hundreds of different acoustical consultant designs and different situations and kind of and and got to experience that and and at the same time the acoustics world was changing. Right. ⁓ and building code in 2005, they actually put in standards for noise control in like condo things. And literally the world went from a five million dollar market to a, you know, fifty million dollar market like overnight with very little people. And even we still are learning new rules on this book of acoustics. I got to learn when it was, you know, a hundred pages and now it's, you know, seven hundred pages and ⁓ the second set of ⁓ rules under the first rule situationally and this is it's been fun. ⁓ my goodness. Well that's ⁓ you talk about drinking from the fire hose early on in a a career. I well that it's cool too that like you've got to see it evolve and ⁓ you know, I I think there's something to without at the risk of spoiling sort of where we're heading, like the fact that you've got to see the channel sort of, you know, itself evolve over time and and introduce to your point about the standards and everything like that. ⁓ I As someone that was new and not really like ⁓ you know, seeking out this industry, what was the I think any this and this could apply to this channel and and sort of more broadly, like, you know, educating yourself around a space that you were new to, what early on in your career like did you do to try to, you know, just make yourself ⁓ knowledgeable of of what you were diving into? Well it was kinda kind of forced, right? Because ⁓ like literally when I interviewed at Kinetics, it was a black ⁓ website with our logo on it. ⁓ and I came in here with that one single digital asset. Not one single digital asset and really had to build it from from scratch. And a lot of it was what questions we were asked that we couldn't support, having to do the research 'cause it this a lot of it this wasn't out there to be found. Right. And so we kinda had to put our heads together and then talk to some experts and just kind of figure it out. And That really was fun back in those wild wild west days. You look at some of the testings and theories and apply theories and actually rin out lab space and do testing and prove things. Yeah. It was fun. And I know that's something we're definitely gonna get into. But ⁓ the timing of us talking too is really cool because it's right on the heels and this was not planned. ⁓ just to throw it out there. And I know we're we'll publish this a couple of weeks after, you know, we talk here, but I as we're sitting here talking, C Dia has just announced that they're gonna do the the first ever North American training for that RP thirty two ⁓ standard at at CDA Expo and it's like a whole day course that they got planned and there's lots of information about it on our site. ⁓ but i you know something like that bring I it's I think it's it's been run that class at ISE over in Europe ⁓ and it's it's introduction to the North American market here. But ⁓ you know I I know they've got a lot of things going on with that RP thirty two, R P twenty two that's being incorporated into it. So a lot of You know, you talk about the standards and the ⁓ kind of the growth of that that ⁓ that book of knowledge that you need to know about the acoustic space. Talk about, you know, half of our audience here is that design build community where those letters and numbers are just mumble jumble to them, right? So what do what does RP thirty two mean to a designer or architect? ⁓ how would you explain it to them to help them understand, you know, what's going on there? Yeah, if you come from the commercial side, it's not the same as what you would consider like ASTM standards where it literally is like this is exactly how you do and how you measure and how you things. I I would call these guidelines, and it's the first, what I would say official guidelines that we have for home theaters, other than we've all kind of shake shake hands on and reverb time it and get into what that means. ⁓ traditionally we've had a reverb time kind of that we've fallen on since I've been doing this. ⁓ but this kind of outlines not only reverb time, but it gets into you know what your speaker power levels need to be, ⁓ what the noise control aspects inside the floors, walls, and ceilings need to be. ⁓ and it's great. It really is, because we've really needed this. There's been a lot of us that have been kind of preaching this and sometimes maybe accused of overdoing it, ⁓ which we'll have some fun talking about here in a little bit. ⁓ But ⁓ it it it is the first time we can kind of say back and say, hey, don't take our word for it. This is what they're saying and this is why they are saying it. And I think part of it too is I don't think some of the technology existed to be able to meet these things before. ⁓ that's that's been the history of this is kind of interesting, especially on the absorption side. ⁓ that just we just didn't have the right products to be able to meet some of these guidelines, at least in a in a any kind of efficient manner whatsoever. So so I think it's the timing's about right and we're really, really excited about it 'cause ⁓ If I I think if you look at what kinetics can do really well, ⁓ it's almost like we would have written that standard and I promise I wasn't on the committee. ⁓ but I but I would like to no that's all I appreciate that. ⁓ and it I mean it the other thing too, so to your point, right, it it it gives the the partners in the channel, the other home builders and you know, designers, architects, sort of a a set of, you know I say standards, but you're right, guidelines, right? ⁓ that they can use to almost, you know, validate the work of that that integrator that comes in, right? So it it's great for that side of the community for the integrator. It's like, hey, here's proof that I, you know, delivered on what I promised, right? Is kind of how they can look at it. Yeah. Yep, for sure. Yeah. It it's a really again, don't take my word for it. We're not doing this 'cause 'cause I say so. We're doing this because there are some rules and they all and they apply and there's reasons for it. ⁓ that that, you know, there's a lot of You know, sometimes you feel in the in the acoustics world, you know when ⁓ when a customer walks into a showroom, they know they need speakers, TV or screen. some of them even understand lighting and seats, but very few are like, ⁓ I need acoustics. Like, ⁓ the I you know, throw a few panels on the wall, the kind of thing. I'm like, well, no, not really. ⁓ here's why. And and and they I think they just feel like I'm spending all this money on a speaker, it's gonna sound good. I'm like, it is gonna sound good, ⁓ but your room's gonna cover up the details that you really gonna get on that speaker. And this is the kind of the guideline that helps you unleash right those those details. Well to to dive into that a little bit, ⁓ you know, if the integrators, I not to say that they need to tune this out because I think it's important for them. It's always important for them to hear it again, right? But to your point about they don't consider acoustics, especially on the client side, designers and architects architects maybe, builders, I don't know, but designers, ⁓ you know, I'm not nothing against them. But like there's there's areas to this space where it's like you don't realize when you're talking about let's take a listening room for example, right? You you can you know, you got your chairs in there. Everything in that room impacts the way sound travels. So I I I know I'm preaching to the expert here, but I I kinda wanna like give you the chance to dive into it. Like when when you talk about, you know, the impact that anything in a room can have on the performance of the equipment that's then in there and how, you know, your your product or any product in this space can you know, ultimately help with that. Like talk give a little bit without getting too deep, because I know it's easy to lose them, right? When you start talking about the waves and sciences and frequency and things like that, but like give that little bit of overview and help make sense of, you know, what that really means. Yeah, and you to your point, you can get lost really quickly. Even the room materials, how drywall behaves, how your stud spacing is spaced. Like all these little tiny things can affect it, ⁓ depending on what level you want to take things to, but Yeah, the shape of the room. ⁓ is it square versus rectangular? Is it do you have weird angles in your drywall because you because of the way you're the shape of the room? the way your seats are situated, how they affect it. Are your sheet are leather versus ⁓ more of a fabric, which is gonna be more absorptive, is gonna change things. How thick your carpeting is. All of those things change change the ha change the layout, your speakers, how your speakers project. Like there is much more that goes into this I think than most people, at least when they're walking into that store, ⁓ expect to expect to to hear about. Yeah. I one of the the funny exam I'm not sure if you're a big bang theory ⁓ fan, but there's always a set like when I think of acoustics, there people a term they might understand or know is like that that sweet spot in the room, right? Like that's always a a common, you know, term that's used and the the scene that comes to mind there for those that know it. Easy to find. Just go look at Sh Sheldon finding the sweet spot in the the theater that they go to. They go to going to see a movie and he like literally bounces around the room just making loud noises like ⁓ like screaming and whatever. Just to see how things how how it sounds where he is so he can find the sweet spot. ⁓ but no th that's like the I think of it too from a a a media standpoint, going and listening to different rooms and you know, there's always the one chair that they the people will tell you like that's the sweet b spot where you want to sit and listen to you know, the experience that we're trying to provide. And ⁓ you know, it's it's a real thing. 'Cause that, you know, ⁓ literally where you sit in a room to your point, you can change how you're hearing things as opposed to, you know, being in what would be that sweet spot. But I I could be wrong, but acoustics is like the the the reason for it, you know, why you want to try to apply them in in these types of projects is to expand that sweet spot, right? Like make the the room Like are you er is it is there ever a a way to implement these products where it makes the entire room a sweet spot, or is it just sort of you know, it ta dive into that a little bit. Well, I would be amiss if I didn't say, you know, when you say acoustics to ninety nine percent of the population, they're gonna think panels in a room. ⁓ but it technically does mean noise control and other a lot of other things too. But to get back to the to the room acoustics side of it is probably a better a better way to say that. ⁓ you are You're trying to remove the reflections of the room from the room. I I always start with when the conversation like, imagine what like what's ideal. Right. Like if I could say what's the ideal environment and then people say all kind of fun things about a rectangular room. I said, Well, the actual the best environment would be you floating in space with things producing sound that have no area or mass to reflect that sound back and all that sound bounces past past you. Now We can't do that. You can't make my room a vacuum? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. ⁓ so what's the next best thing? Well it from a in a and a listening room's gonna be very different than a theater. In a theater, theoretically you want no reflections. Right? If there is a scene in a cathedral, the sound designer's gonna add reverb to the space. You don't want the room to add reverb to the space. ⁓ unfortunately, as as humans have evolved, we do when we see a wall We do expect t to have a little bit of reverb. We get very uncomfortable. And that's why the new standards ⁓ have driven that reverb time from a kind of a r a half a second ⁓ time down. It's even lower and lower, lower. But we can't go to zero. If we go to zero, people get dizzy, they get upset. There's ⁓ so the main purpose of the cut you up like that, I I think I've experienced that, right? Like there are especially ⁓ and I I I don't know, you may or may not be familiar, but I I of the Clipsh ⁓ H H HQ not too long ago, they have a room that ⁓ it's like where they sort of like the baseline for when they test or are creating a speaker and they put the speaker in the room and it it like I mean it's got floor to ceiling, those what you write the foam tiles that you expect to see and it it creates an you know, the the door that's like a hyperbaric chamber type door and it seals and everything. So they're trying to like that's the type of environment they're trying to create, right? Is that You know, no noise and I I've heard too that it like people that spend time in those rooms, it can get really freaky, right? Like 'cause you kinda lose a sense of where you are and and like what's going on. It's even it's even more interesting because again, we kinda su when you see a bear you're expect bear. So about half the people will go in that space, some can hear the blood rushing in their ears, but you'll get dizzy. But of the half that get dizzy, if you have them close their eyes, they're fine. Half of those. So it's our brain Our brain hears things. It's why it's very hard for us to do audio demos online. ⁓ because if you even with headphones on, if you're in a small space versus a big space, your brain makes all these weird adjustments. Yep. And so everyone's like, demo it, demo it. I'm like, I really I can't. I know, I know you want me to. I can do it fake ones, but I can't really do real ones. Right, right. No, that's awesome. ⁓ so the the interesting thing interesting thing too, I know that you know, we're talking about how to create these spaces and and the things you can do. The the testing within. I like I I know I think, you know, when I think about the training that's going on, one of the pictures that CDA had sent was, you know, with the the microphones in the middle of the room. So talk about like what what's going on there and and how do you sort of, you know, fine tune, adjust, like ⁓ those types of things that go into creating one of these spaces. What are some of the the I guess the tricks of the trade that you guys can use as you're ⁓ you know, designing a a system to, you know, meet your acoustic sort of requirements or or standards. Yeah. So it that's that that's a really good thing to talk about because I think a lot of people go into it and say, Well, my ⁓ A V receiver has all this room correction software built into it and I put these mics out and it corrects it. I'm like, well, what that's really doing is looking at levels and where the different seats are and you can move it around and it's trying its best to balance it out. ⁓ at best though, that's like that's like I describe it like this: the acoustics is the cake and the frosting. You want your room acoustics or you want your room correction software to literally be a decoration or a candle. You really want it to do the least amount of adjust because think about what it's doing. When it makes an adjustment, it's taking that soundtrack and making it different than what it's supposed to be. And so you really want to save that for that last little bit. And you really do want to rely upon. You know, the room design, the shape of the room, yes, but the room acoustic to do the bulk of the fix to try to remove any of that reverb and reflections from that space, because that's the big mark. Now, if you build a room where you're literally two inches away from your rears and ten feet from your fronts, yeah, the room correction software has got to do what it's got to do. ⁓ but you really do want to have that as as small of an adjustment as you can make and let the let the reverb time. controlled by acoustics, do the bulk of the adjustment. Yeah. I and I think ⁓ just in hearing you talk about it too, I think it helps whether you're a c ⁓ you know, a a potential customer or on that design build side, sort of the in intricacies of this space and ⁓ you know, the the work that needs to be done sort of proves the not proves the worth, that's that's the wrong term, but it it it shows why that it's so important to have a Whether it's the you a a brand like kinetics or the partners that that use you guys or others in the space to to come in and do that analysis of a of a room, right? To you know, make those adjustments or figure out, you know, where you know, again, not to simplify it to just panels, but like how how the room needs to be designed acoustically, ⁓ to to meet the needs or standards or or what that client is expecting. Yeah, literally, like I said, from like we want to get in before the drywall goes up if we can help it. Because there's things we can do inside the drywall. But even inside what you just mentioned, like kinetics, we are first and foremost a manufacturer. That's what we want to be. yes, we offer we do reverb calculations, right? We don't model a space. There's a whole group of other people, that's what they do. and th this obviously various levels of performance that you're gonna get out of that. at the very least though, we will give you an insight into what it looks like. Because we can take your if you give us your dimensions in your room materials, we can say, hey, here's where your reverb levels are, here's where they should be, here's where our products can get you to. But as a reminder, it's literally just a calculation. And and in fact and our calculations are a little bit limited because the data that we have for building materials such as drywall, carpet, that kind of stuff, doesn't go below a hundred and twenty five hertz. So we can only really do from 125 and up, which so all of your sub frequencies, all those fun things. ⁓ you know, we can we know what our absorbers do. Right. ⁓ we just don't know where your room starting is. And that's why you have levels of, you know, these these consultants out there that do what they do that are going to get into the room shape and the room materials ⁓ where we're just we're doing cows and they're good cows and they work very, very well. ⁓ but they are literally just calculations based on volume and room material and square footage of those room materials. Right. Well, it it's ⁓ important to hear that too though, ⁓ like regardless because I think people, you know, when they th again think about acoustics, they're just like, Well, yeah, i it's difficult for that, you know, someone that just walks into your showroom as an integrator and asks like, Hey, I I need some you know, I'm realizing that like my exper audio experience isn't right. So I I figure I need a couple of acoustic panels to fix things and and make it right. So they're just like, ⁓ it'll be, you know, I looked online, I went on Amazon and I found a couple of those cone, you know, the foam pads that I could put up and It's like ⁓ fifty bucks. Like, is that is that what you're thinking it'll be? But no. Like ⁓ probably not. So like the range of what a project could look like and the work that has to go into, you know, making it right or or making it optimal for what you're trying to experience, like the it it becomes really difficult to try to just guesstimate what an acoustical project could look like. It r it really is one of one of the frustrating things I get, even especially like on On LinkedIn and even on the commercial side, because if you look at like the product behind me, it's a it's a one inch thick, six pound per cubic foot density fiberglass board. And what that really means is if you go online and look up a fiberglass pin, that's what you're gonna get. ⁓ hey, it's our number one seller. And it's really, really, really good in high frequencies and it's really, really bad in mids and lows. Is this good, is this good for a noisy restaurant? Absolutely. Is this the product you want to use where you've got music? No. Because you can actually make it worse. And if you go out and you watch some of these YouTube videos and unfortunately even some new YouTube videos, they'll say, you're doing a home theater, just put down carpet and two of these panels. Well, they're not wrong in the sense that if you put more than two of these in there, that you have completely destroyed the highs. Like you it is flat as it can be. And unfortunately you haven't treated the mids or lows, so they're actually overpowering it. And I congratulate, like, hey, you made it worse. Good job. Right? It's like that ⁓ animal house. ⁓ like you get zero point zero. And and honestly, if you're talking to anybody and their first question isn't tell me about your room, you're probably not talking to the right people. Because that's really where it starts. Carpeting versus wood floor is a massive difference in the treatment that you want to start with. And you know, in our philosophy, the longer we've kind of doing it, we have actually tried to develop products that ⁓ absorb across the frequency range and actually absorb less, believe it or not, which is actually harder to do. ⁓ this product behind me like will remove almost all the highs out of a room. We want to be able to treat more square footage to have less reflective spots without ever overabsorbing. That's our first rule. Thou shalt not overabsorb. Right? ⁓ 'Cause it's really easy to do. And that's and that unfortunately, inexpensive products are gonna be really good at high frequency absorption. And it's the it's getting those larger wavelengths absorbed that's the expensive part, unfortunately. Right. Well, I'm glad you brought up that panel too, because I think ⁓ again, you know, people think acoustic treatments and it's like it's they think foam ⁓ the foam boards that are out, 'cause that's just what I for whatever reason, that's what comes maybe it's maybe like people like me, the p I don't have any in my view, I I don't have any in my room, truthfully. ⁓ but like podcasters have those boards that are very usually very visible around them, right? So it's probably what people just visually sort of, you know, correlate to acoustic treatment. And, you know, that is so short sighted. So I want to give you the chance, like, talk about it. When you talk about the different ranges of audio and how the you know you mentioned the highs, the mids, the lows. Like what are the types of ⁓ you know, when for a designer, like it'd be interesting. I I don't think that they would think coming into this conversation. you know, we're talking about audio, how all of a sudden are we gonna shift to talking about fiberglass and foam and you know the different materials that are out there. So the improvement in in the technology around this space that I know you alluded to at the top, you know, what what does that look like now? Like when you're talking about the different materials that go into, you know, designing a an a ⁓ acoustic system for a room? Sure. Well there's a couple of different approaches. I can say like generally speaking, all I'm not aware of any foam that's a composite That does anything but high frequency absorption and NIDs. ⁓ Even the very you some people may be aware of the standard, it's NRC as the main absorptive standard. It's extremely problematic. If you look at the frequency ranges, it it's only the vocal range. And that's what it's for. And that's one of my struggles with architects is I know you all think you know higher NRC is better, but it actually, what are we doing in the space? That should always be your first question. For a podcast where you're only doing vocals, you can put foam up. It's fine. ⁓ cause you don't worry about, you know, below 125, even below 250 Hertz. So unless you've got Johnny Cash talking with that really, really low voice, you're probably gonna be fine in those treatments. However, if you're gonna be playing music or recording or anything like that, very, very, very different approach. ⁓ and it gets into like generally like in the old days, we would just make the panels thicker and thicker and thicker. cause that this get the the longer, longer wavelengths. Right. ⁓ what I think kinetics has been kind of a pioneer on is because not only can we buy the materials like we have behind us, but then we can mold glass to different densities and build different composites. So if you look at some of our our profiles, we have a panel, for example, our VTLF, it's only two and a eighth inches thick, that does I hate to use the word I'm cheating a little bit. I say 85% absorption at 80 hertz. Which i I I know I'm just like I don't know what that means. Understand like even five years ago to do eighty hertz, you needed like a ten inch thick panel with wood on the front that weighed, you know, a hundred pounds easy. And now we can do it in just a fiberglass composite. And the idea then is that we try to balance that across all the different frequencies and tune literally tune these panels to the space exactly as it needs to be and and kind of that's the new key. And again, I don't think the new the new guidelines would have been able to be written. Right. Well no, it's awesome to see that ⁓ it it almost feels like and I know this is an oversimplification, but like the way TVs have gone from the tubes that are 7,000 pounds and 32 inches to like you know how thin they are and how big they are, right? So it's similar in in your space, you're realizing a a thinner, you know, ⁓ d material or product that still can perform better than you know what had been expected in the past. So that I awesome to to see that type of advancement. That's really cool. But then also too, the ⁓ Just the the the way you guys are able to like me like the the intricacies of this indust this space, you know, prove just how like you can't overlook it or oversimplify. Like there really is a a reason to be for these integrators that are going in and doing this work in a space, ⁓ and and ensuring that the experience is what, you know, they intend, what the customer intends, you know, that ultimately too, what the builder and architect and the designer intends in that space. So ⁓ Now and I I was gonna ask too, and I'm glad you you basically already addressed it on how to have these conversations, right? So it's leading with it kind of everything, it's it's I almost feels cliche at this point in this channel, but like leading with the experience and you know, how what are you intending to do in that room? ⁓ any other, you know, advice you'd offer in that regard, like how how an integrator could have these conversations around acoustics with whether it's the client or a a partner that they're working with. Well it It does get tough, and then and we are actually trying to be a little bit more tough on these integrators because then I tell them I'm like, look, there are some big box stores that sell pretty nice high-end things these days. So what where are your value? Where are you showing value beyond it? And I think there's there's a handful of conversations you need to have. Do fifty thousand dollars worth of amplifiers and speakers sound good? They do. They do, right? A Mercedes car has an excellent sound system. It but If you put in even modest headphones, you're gonna hear details that you can't hear when you're driving down the road. And that's what I don't think people understand that when we properly treat a room and we go in, you know, full end to do it the best we can, we can remove up to eight decibels of reflected sound that you should not be hearing. That's a lot. Which everybody's like, eight D B doesn't seem like well, well, ten is half, guys, it's it's a logarithmic scale, right? So eight is a ton. And that's all stuff that the sound designer didn't des didn't intend for you to hear. ⁓ we have a fun little ⁓ chamber here that we do that's the opposite of an anechoic chamber what were talking about. It's to do reflections so that we can product development test these things. And we have some JBL synthesis, quite expensive speakers in there. And I bring people in there and I play them songs, songs that they know that they're missing some details on. And I'm like, and it just sounds horrible. It's just that's it's supposed to, right? It's awful room. Then I take them out into our, it's actually our factory floor, part of the where we have storage. We have just a handful of panels, we didn't even tune the room, and I play the same thing on two dollar laptop speakers. And it sounds ten times better, right? And I'm like, that's the point. And it's and it's but and that and not even to go back. Yes, those speakers sound good in your room. I get it. People are like, I spent a lot of money on these things. They sound great to me. They do sound great, but you're also hearing up to eight decibels of reflected sound that you're not supposed to hear. And where it gets really interesting is on the listening, the the two channel guys, they want a little bit of that. And they're fun to talk to because they usually know like if I say, Hey, I can have a panel that'll take out a two fifty, like, ⁓ that's exactly what I want, and then they know what they want. But the home theater environment, we really want to get rid of all of it that that we possibly can and drive that thing almost to the point of getting dizzy when you walk in the room. And that is what we're trying to do, and that's what we do. Yes, it sounds good. At the end of that day, when you're watching maybe that heavy English accent movie by Guy Ritchie, ⁓ are you like worn out after two hours? Or are you at least have a fighting chance on that room that I heard those those reflections as little as possible and I can at least tune in? Maybe I don't need to turn the subtitles on. Maybe I can get through this space and not have a headache when I'm all done for that, concentrating so hard on trying to hear. Exactly what they're saying. That's kind of what we're doing here. That's what I don't think people understand. Or like these things sound great to me. I'm like, it's what you're not hearing. It's the details. It's all those subtle things that that we bring out by putting the acoustics in. It really I and I, you know, less of a I say more of a, you know, ⁓ a reason to attend expo than I mean it to for the integrators, or or really the other side of the channel too, those designers and architects, because I like it's one of those things where we could talk ad nauseum about it and and go through a an hour long podcast of of trying to explain it, you gotta experience it to your like your point and everything you're saying, right? Like it's it's hard to explain. Like I know words and sound waves are moving right now through my my mouth into this microphone and through your ears and as you're listening to this, but like to explain the difference of what a a treated room versus an untreated room can do to that auditory experience. Like it is so impactful to actually go into a showroom and see what you guys are able to do with a you know, even just ⁓ like again to a couple of product. Like i it's not it doesn't have to be massive, but ⁓ enough to show that hey, this is what that experience could be and really what you're missing out on by not thinking about acoustics and and the ways you can, you know, improve upon that experience that you're already getting. It is a bit of a curse. ⁓ you could tell anybody who's worked at an acoustics company because when you walk into any lobby, you start looking around and you start listening. ⁓ but I go to I go to CD a lot of times and I see like, ⁓ there's half a million dollars worth of audio equipment in here, ⁓ but no treatment. I could make twenty grand worth of audio equipment sound better than this room if someone would just give me the opportunity to do that. That's awesome. I well I the funny thing too, I know Yeah, we've talked so much about the the rooms and it you know the residential side of things. We're missing a a giant chunk of the conversation here that I know you guys have, and that's the you know, that the noise control that we I we talked about it before we jumped into this, but kinetics noise control ⁓ really is about the commercial side and and everything going on there. So at at the risk of exp extending this, you know, too far, you know, I want to give you the chance to talk about cause it I mean, how different is I mean ⁓ It's a different type of space, right? You're talking about home theaters where it's very dialed in and you're trying to create a you know a specific experience. You know, for the commercial side of things, you know, is the how different are those conversations or or sort of what you guys are doing from a ⁓ you know a a a product standpoint, maybe. ⁓ massively different. when we when we bring in a lot of our reps for training, one of the questions I always go and I'm going over like, well, here's the standard for movie theaters. And here's the standard for home theaters. And it's like just the reverb time alone is much, much lower on the home theater side. And people are like, I don't understand. I'm like, you do know home theaters sound way better than a movie theater, right? You're like, they do? I'm like, yes, they do. ⁓ well, why is that? Well, there's expense involved, you know. and th it's just that's what they're gonna do. You you people in the theater is gonna be passionate about it and they want the best they can possibly do. But it does, it does The nice thing about kinetics is famous because we probably make more different acoustic products than anybody else on the planet, right? In fact, our number one division, if you're ever at a hotel and you look down and you see a bunch of air conditioning units on a roof sitting on a blue ⁓ curb with springs, that's probably ours. And we do that's what we do more than anybody else out there. ⁓ but literally you can make arguments that a home theater that's isolated actually will even sound better in that space and have the benefits of not hearing. noise outside of things. and the nice thing about kinetics is like we on the home side, we would never survive with the overhead of products we have if we didn't have the commercial market. ⁓ we did a theater that had a train that was 80 feet away. Wow. And and it was putting in ⁓ a 17 hertz frequency into the space. So for those of you don't know, like you can't hear that. You can just feel it. And so we literally put springs down, poured concrete around it, jacked that concrete stuff off the slab, built the walls and the ceilings all on top of that. Wow. Then we did our acoustic treatment inside of that. So it it almost feels like it's as much keeping the noise out on the commercial side as it, you know, residential, it's more like it creating the noise within a space, right? Like you're trying to to optimize that. Commercially is it more about like I said, keeping it out, like all the external noises? Out and j gen ⁓ generally speaking, you know, most of these standards that would that that are out there, I mentioned NRC, but there's other ones for noise control, ⁓ most of them are still built around the voices. And so there's there's what you do that's just best practice in buildings versus, hey, this is a performing arts center, we gotta go a little few levels up more and more more kind of thing. And that's really what it's about. ⁓ gotcha. And I know you guys too, ⁓ I I wanna ask 'cause ⁓ I know integrators, whether you know, you're talking commercial or or residential, are always looking for ⁓ you know, ways to to connect with or or ⁓ you know, build inroads with the builders and designers that are out there. One of the ways I I know we talk about ⁓ at Cedia especially is, you know, creating opportunities to provide education or ⁓ you know, work with, you know, those partners to do like lunch and learn, something like that. They're always looking for those CEUs that are out there. And you guys actually have a really ⁓ unique set of those, right? That you're ⁓ AIA, the ⁓ American Institute of Architects, is am I right in that? That you guys have a couple programs that that you offer? Quite a few. ⁓ we have ⁓ we have a room acoustics one, we have a noise control one, we have a joint one that's if you really wanna like it's as fast as I can talk for an hour when I give that one. we have a vibration isolation one ⁓ I do have one that's oriented toward the home market. I might have let it expire. You kinda need to tweak that one a little bit now with this these new CD ⁓ standards will help kinda do that. I will say like, yes, that's generally speaking, if you can't get your foot in the door ⁓ with an architect, that's what we'll lead with. I will say, although it is purely educational and unfortunately I can't really because you can't mention products by name, you can't do this, it's not as thorough as I would like, but It i it is there and you can talk at least generically about approaches and things like that. Yeah, and that I mean at the end of the day, that's like the just again, the foot in the door, right? To be able to to get close to them and help them, you know, ⁓ there's the ha the education side of it is important, of course, right, 'cause you're helping them learn about the space and the impacts of it. But ⁓ it's also just sort of building education obviously plays a big part in this too, but like building that trust with them and and showing that, you know, you have that expertise and if Yeah, they're learning about it and the importance of it, but at the end of the day, w they may not necessarily want to be the ones that go in and actually do that. So like who are the partners that they can turn to? ⁓ and if you, you know, got ⁓ a list of integrators or you are that integrator that's there, you know, helping provide this, that shows them that, you know, they have at least one person right in front of them that they could turn to and and ⁓ use in this sense. So it's it's cool stuff that that you guys got going on. And I know I mean, even you know, almost thirty five, forty minutes into talking about this, there we I feel like we just like hit the tip of the iceberg ⁓ in terms of like what you guys do. So ⁓ no i it I think it should you know it more conversations to be had, I think. ⁓ For sure. So For sure, yes. No, that's awesome. Well Jason, this was ⁓ a lot of fun and like I said, one as a podcaster, I I I mentioned it at the top. It's just the acoustics are something I think about. So ⁓ to be able to to pick your brain a little bit and dive into it has been a lot of fun and ⁓ I hope, you know, for everyone involved, learn a little bit about why there is such a a gap in t in terms of you know, the type of conversation and and you know, the ultimately the ⁓ you know, I hate to say cost 'cause it sounds like a negative, but like when you're trying to, you know, map out these systems for a client or or a partner, you know, it it is more intricate than just slapping a few panels on the wall. It is, it is. The nice thing about it though, I mean and I know no one no one who walks into that showroom not knowing they have to do acoustics all of a sudden get this bill. But the nice thing about it is once you treat the room, it doesn't matter if you're using, you know, the modest b pieces of equipment up to the most expensive, the needs of the room don't change. So if you do that right for the beginning, you can just kind of grow with it. And I always say, take from your equipment budget if that's what you have to do, because it will sound better. than if you try to go up to that next level of of speaker or ample. Certainly worth it 'cause the last thing you want is an unhappy client coming back after the fact and being like, I don't like this. I don't know. Think about it earlier and more often. So no, we appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. And ⁓ like I said, look forward to catching up down the line with you 'cause ⁓ plenty's still to be learned in this space. Yeah, yeah, sounds great.