AliceScreen Innovations has announced that its Slate and Pure screen materials are now available in an acoustically transparent perforated material. The manufacturer says that Slate AT has been one of its long-term goals, based on its vision that the screen should not be a distraction for the viewer, instead adding to, or even improving, their experience.
“Hiding your speakers behind the screen is another way that this is accomplished-allowing the sound to improve your viewing experience but not detract from your visual experience,” says Tom Nugent, SI’s chief of technology, who led the project. “It has not been easy. Perforating is difficult in its own right, but working with a 106” tall material is nearly impossible. We are perforating over 28000, .55mm holes for every square foot; clearly a daunting task.”
SI says that Slate AT and Pure AT material was sent to the laboratory of an industry-leading speaker manufacturer for testing. “The effect of the perforated screen has very little attenuation starting at about 1-2kHz,” Tom explains.
“Typical impact on frequency response is well within the -3db range with a peak attenuation of -6db at 20kHz. This difference is easily corrected by most modern receivers with room correction. Additionally, many architectural speakers feature a treble compensation switch to adjust for this type of installation.”
“We created Slate AT and Pure AT to give our customers the best of both worlds; the best picture and the best sound,” adds Ryan Gustafson, CEO of SI. “Pure and Slate have solved the problem of image quality with the sharpest image reproduction in the market by managing the texture pattern down to nine times finer than standard white or gray materials, maintaining image uniformity. Merging Slate and Pure with our acoustic perforation technology has truly created the best of both worlds, picture and sound. Imagine hiding your favourite LCR speakers behind a massive Zero Edge screen with our popular Backlighting, even with the lights on thanks to Slate’s ALR properties.”
Slate AT and Pure AT screens are available to order now and can be configured on all the company’s screen form factors such as Zero Edge, Zero-G, Fixed and Motorized.