Early Sound Scattering

Early Sound Scattering (ESS) is a design for control rooms where the characteristic reflections are so random that they have no character to impose on the listening space. An ESS control room is one that features a highly diffusive front end (including the monitor walls), which scatters the early reflections using Schroeder-type diffusers. The body of the room is absorbent, with most of the low frequencies damped by membrane panels. These rooms can be made fairly “live” compared to older, acoustically “dead” or absorbent control rooms, with a flat frequency response and good stereo imaging, both of which remain stable all the way to the rear corners of the room.