GIK Acoustics Sound Blocks

There’s nothing new in acoustics! I’ve heard this several times from enthusiasts who happily churn through a new preamp every year as an excuse for acoustics avoidance. Sound Blocks are a revolutionary concept in the GIK Acoustics product line, establishing a new benchmark in performance and flexibility for high-end audio rooms that need world-class performance.

The Sound Block concept is modular and each Block is 23”×23”×10.5” deep. They can be mounted on the wall like regular acoustic panels, or they can be interlocked together with rails to make large, freestanding arrays to precisely fit your space as a false wall. You can choose from over 70 different fabric coverings, five solid wood back plates, 15 different front plate designs with five different finishes. Because they are so thick, these are powerhouse broadband bass traps with great performance still active below 50Hz, in all configurations.

How it works

Freestanding arrays are made with three slight variations in the product to accommodate the interlocking capacity of the array. Each array has a bottom row, designed to be on the ground, with a few options to determine its freestanding characteristics, and rails on the top to connect the next Sound Block. There will be a top row with a Sound Block with just rails on the bottom to connect to one or more Sound Blocks underneath it. You can also use middle pieces between the top and the bottom, for arrays that are 69” (one middle piece) or 92” (two middle pieces) tall.

These rails allow for some adjustment ‘on the fly’, for decorative purposes. So, you can move the middle one slightly to the left and the upper one slightly to the right or vice versa. Please remember that physics still holds sway, here. You can move them a bit, but make something that significantly overbalances and it will fall.

Regardless, the performance and flexibility comes not from the set-up, but from the midrange/treble response options available for each Sound Block: full absorption, range limited bass trapping, Alpha diffusion plates, and the visually-oriented Impression plates. Each Sound Block can be individually configured within the array for optimal midrange and treble balance.

In addition to the front face versatility for optimising both performance and aesthetics, GIK also has options to finish the rear of each Sound Block. This is useful in freestanding false wall applications, you can choose to install the same veneer plates the company uses in its Alpha and Impression panels, but uncut for a consistent, decorative rear face.

The high-end room

The most immediate application is for high-end audio rooms, both for audiophile listening rooms and high-end home cinemas and recording/mixing/mastering suites. Great bass response is a space/aesthetics commitment, in that you need a lot of thick panels in the room. Sound Blocks allow you to line the entire perimeter of the room if you wish, giving the power and flexibility of built-in treatments behind false walls without all the building work and in a proven, modular system that can be easily shipped and assembled on site.

We also expect companies with smaller audio booths in shows to use a plethora of Sound Blocks as virtual rooms.

Excuses, excuses

I’ve often found some audiophile push-back for room treatment, which often begins, “Yes, but…” The excuses tend to be “My room doesn’t need them!”, “I can listen past the room!”, or “They are divorce-makers!” Unless your room has been professionally acoustically treated, that first excuse tends to suffer from being total nonsense, while the second and third fall at the first hurdle; if you are unable to put up with the sound of your system without the correct alignment of feet, why would you be prepared to ‘listen past’ a poorly treated room that has an order of magnitude more problems? Also, if you think your six-foot-tall pair of large wooden coffins at one end of your room and a small steelyard at the other is met with warm fuzzies from your significant other, I have a bridge to sell you. In short, these excuses are excuses and nothing more!

The Sound Blocks do what they say they do; block (well, absorb) those sounds you don’t want in your audio system. We went for a full absorption array with top and bottom panels sporting Impression plates that gave the Blocks a look like an Art Deco wall panel (or maybe a 1930s radio); classic and useful. The removal and control of bass was extremely good, every bit as powerful as the corner traps we regularly use, or GIK’s own Monster Bass Trap we use along the wall behind the listener. Meanwhile the Impression panels helped diffuse mid and higher frequencies effectively, hacking through mild reverberation effects we get from a window’s contribution in the listening room.

Observations

There are a couple of criticisms of the Sound Block array, but they are more observations. Our array had Impression panels at the top and bottom and a standard panel in the middle, and for domestic listeners, where sitting in a sofa puts our ears aligned with the middle panel, the direct benefits of the diffusion panels were reduced; get that middle panel with the diffusion panel instead. Also, the two feet along the bottom rail tended to group together and as the weight of all three panels pressed down on them, they tended to stay slightly unaligned. A solid, single foot with a rail might be better than two feet.

Nit-picking aside, the only other problem is they are addictive; don’t be surprised if you start with one trio of Sound Blocks and end up with a wall or two of them dotted around your listening room. It’s possible to overdo acoustic treatment, but I think the Sound Block’s balance is such you’d need to absolutely fill a room with them to get close.

GIK’s Sound Blocks are a useful tool in the audio enthusiast’s arsenal. In fact, I can imagine there will be a host of audio dealers buying these in bulk if only to correct imbalances in their demonstration rooms. Whether bolted to the wall or used on their rail system, these are an extremely effective treatment that works exceptionally well. We love ‘em!

Price and contact details

• All prices excluding VAT
• Sound Block (top and base) £127.50
• Sound Block (middle) £135
• Sound Block (wall mount) £115

Manufacturer

GIK Acoustics

UK contact

Tel: +44(0)20 3815 8608

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