In this video, we discuss the different ceiling types and some common strategies to treat the acoustic challenges they naturally create. Get 100% FREE acoustic advice from our talented designers at www.gikacoustics.com/acoustic-advice/

How does my ceiling affect my room acoustics?

There’s some debate as to what is the ideal ceiling for room acoustics, and different room applications might favor certain ceiling styles, but 10 foot tall ceilings are generally considered to be a good height for room acoustics. Unfortunately the standard height for most rooms is about eight feet.

Why are low ceilings bad for acoustics?

While there's some debate as to what style of ceiling is best, low ceilings are never ideal for room acoustics. Low ceilings often cause issues with slap echo and comb filtering with the early reflection between the floor and ceiling bouncing sooner and with more energy than they would in a taller room.


Low ceilings can be even more of an issue for live recordings. Instruments like drums project a lot of sound upwards, that will then immediately reflect back down and distort the track.

Overhead “mic”ing becomes difficult as the early reflections of the ceiling will interfere with the signal and cause Phase issues.

Most of these issues can be mitigated with absorption, but the lower our ceiling the less room we have for acoustic treatment. Diffusion also becomes ineffective on low ceilings without the space needed for the diffusers to properly scatter the sound.

What issues do high ceilings cause?


High ceilings, in some cases can be a blessing, but having extra space above your head does come with a trade off.

With a high ceiling sound waves will travel longer distances and thus the room will have a longer reverberation time. Also due to higher ceilings, we have to cover more surface area on the walls of the room to prevent flutter echos.


In this case though we have more room for creative solutions like floating cloud panels for better low end or diffusion panels to scatter energy around the room for a more even sound.


What about angled or vaulted style ceilings?

With fewer parallel surfaces in the room Vaulted rooms tend to have fewer standing waves.
With a vaulted ceiling one of your axial room modes will be eliminated, but more complicated room modes can still develop off your ceiling, so the benefits of a vaulted ceiling can depend greatly on the specific dimensions of that room.

The extra volume of space afforded by the arched ceiling means you can expect longer reverberation times in a vaulted room.

Vaulted ceilings can tend to focus early reflections into certain hot spots, so finding your ideal speaker and listening position might be more difficult. Treating your first reflections might also require More coverage as well.


With any room the ratio of the ceiling to the other boundaries of the room will do more to determine the acoustics than the ceiling alone, so that’s why it’s always important to test and experiment if you want the best results.