Acoustic foam room treatment is best used to tackle high and mid frequency control problems in recording studios and often also in music rehersal and practice rooms as well as being often used in other larger interior spaces that benefit form a controlled acoustic environment such as in cafeterias, gyms. function halls etc, places anywhere where the sounds tend to be amplified echo and get magnified, This results in washed out, unclear and undefined sound within the room. another recent popular use of acoustic foam is its use in the home with the popularity of home recording enthusiasts and home cinemas. Acoustic foam is often also called acoustic treatment and room treatment as well as studio foam also "soundproofing foam" which is a poor term for the product as acoustic foam does little for soundproofing, please see the section on soundproofing. Acoustic foam works by dealing with two principle sound problems caused within a room these being the accumulation of noise and sound reverberation.

1] Noise Accumulation. This can occur when sound meets other sounds from other sources these can then build up on top of each another in enclosed spaces and build up leading to an overwhelming sound, and can give also background noise that obscures and distorts the sound that a person right next to you is making. A simplified example of this is imagine you could be having a quiet conversation with someone but when other people start talking around you this will make it difficult as you try to pick out only the words that are relevant to your conversation whilst trying to ignore all other words from other people. by having the ability to turn off evreyone else apart from who you are talking to you can then clearly hear what you want to.

2] Reverberation. This occurs when sounds travels around a room and reflects off surfaces it comes into contact with these can be ceilings or walls, partitions or any other surface that is non absorbent.

In a very reflective room the build up of decibels can amplify and can get quite loud, to deal with this you may need to treat your walls, ceilings and even other hard surfaces with sound absorbing materials such as acoustic foam, working by reducing the amount of sound at specific frequency ranges being bounced off surfaces by absorbing the sound. Please see the section on acoustic foam to see how this works. Comparing and contrasting different products on the market is dome by industry standard measurements the Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) being the most widley used term, the Absorption Coefficient (a), the Sound Transmission Class (STC), and the Sound Transmission Loss (STL or TL). are all measurements to measure how much sound is absorbed by an acoustic material in a defined sound frequency range or band.