By With all due respect, the establishment audiophile publications don’t spend enough time talking about the importance of room treatments, in even the most modest of stereo systems. Let me make this as clear as I possibly can: there is nothing that you can do to make your sound better (for less money) than to physically treat the basic elements of your listening room. Exactly how to treat your room is a matter for true experts. Some treatment companies, like Sonitus (for a small fee), will help you but the basics are this – you likely want absorptive and/or diffusion treatments on your first-order reflections (about three feet in front and besides your main speakers), you likely want some sort of absorption or diffraction behind your listening position, and you might consider dealing with standing bass waves. This review doesn’t deal with bass issues, like my review of the very effective GIK Acoustics Turbo Trap Pro (read my review) did. This is more about dealing with the two earlier issues.
Another important point for FutureAudiophile.com readers is that, while we love DRC (digital room correction) and spend a lot of time reviewing components that lean into this concept, dealing first with your room’s acoustic issues in the physical domain is always better. You can spend a fortune treating a room, just as you can with audiophile equipment, but by no means do you have to go crazy on room treatments. Even a renter like me (that was hard to write but my home is basically destroyed from the January 2025 Palisades Fire and also has resulted in my pending divorce from a marriage of long duration) can use basic room treatments to get fantastic results. This is my story of acoustical treatments.
What Makes Sonitus Wave X Acoustical Treatments Special?
- Anthony Grimani is one of the best acoustical designers and engineers in the business. While he doesn’t build the Sonitus products per se, as they come from a European factory, Grimani is the cult of personality behind the brand. For a nominal fee (I gladly paid it) I sent Spinal Tap-like drawings to Grimani and he specified a simple, under-$2,000 solution that was game-changing. Yes, there are free acoustic consultants out there, but to get Anthony Grimani for under four figures was irresistible for my system.
- The Sonitus Wave treatments are both absorptive and diffuse. The foam treatments don’t look like foam, but they basically are. When installed and seamed together, the modern wavy design looks really cool. No wife acceptance factor issues here, and that’s no small compliment in the acoustic treatment space. The additional Canvas absorption treatments were simple 2×4 foot rectangles finished in white that blend into the walls and, when positioned neatly, look good on the ceiling. This system worked as a good one-two punch.
- The Sonitus Wave treatments are physically light. The Wave treatments (they come in packs of four) barely weigh anything but look great and mount on the wall in a number of ways. In my case, it was with some pretty sticky double-sided tape. The Canvas absorption panels are also pretty light, relatively speaking, but they mounted to the ceiling differently. After a little trial and error, we got all the treatments to adhere to the ceiling and walls nicely.
- There are a limited number of designer colors available on the Sonitus Wave X. White, black and gray are your options. That isn’t a lot of color choice, but it covers a lot of territory nonetheless. My samples were the gray option that, when paired above my Pass Labs XA 160.8 monoblock amps (read the review) and below my 77-inch LG OLED video monitor on a wall, painted a very, very light blueish-gray, look very sexy, which is important, as I need to like the way my system looks when I am staring at it and it turns out that I do.
- Sonically, you can hear the difference that the Sonitus treatments made in mere seconds of listening. While the cost of the entire acoustical system was well under $2,000, the sonic impact was tenfold within seconds of installation. Good room acoustical treatments deliver a bigger WOW moment improvement than most component changes. Without question, this was the case at my place.
Why Should You Care About the Sonitus Wave Xand Canvas Absorption Products?
Audiophiles who are into the hobby are always looking for that next performance improvement. The more that we chase the dragon, the harder it becomes to find a big improvement. That is, until you get into really well-designed but often simple room treatments. If you are the type of audiophile who wants to get a big performance boost without spending big bucks – you are now barking up the right tree. Read on to find out more.
Some Things You Might Not Like About the Sonitus Wave Xand Canvas Absorption Products
- The Sonitus Wave treatments can be a little tricky to get to stick to the wall effectively. Sonitus offers brackets and magnets that you can install your treatments with, but they make a mess of your drywall. With the help of my contractor, I ended up using double-sided tape. Respectfully, the first batch from Home Depot didn’t do the job. My contractor was able to get some far stickier double-sided tape and that has worked well, as none of the treatments have fallen off of the wall since upgrading the double-sided tape.
- The Canvas absorption panels were also a little tricky to install in my case. For fear of losing my security deposit in this place, I was uncomfortable screwing the Canvas absorption to the ceiling, as I would have done in my soon-to-be-sold house, which had a more traditional drywall ceiling. The magnet solution would have been cool for A/B testing, but what happens when the next moderate earthquake comes along? I don’t want to find out.
- The color selections of the Sonitus treatments are limited. The cost for these products is low, thus there aren’t rainbow colors to choose from.
Listening to the Sonitus Wave Xand Canvas Absorption Products
Because of my aforementioned installation requirements, I couldn’t do the type of A/B testing that I would have liked but, friends, you would have to be stone-cold deaf to not hear the improvement. My main music playback system is getting pretty high end these days (thank you The Hartford for being a real insurance company that took good care of me on my system post-fires). I rock a BlueSound Node Icon (a new addition), a VPI Avenger Turntable, an SPL phonostage, Pass Labs XP-32 stereo preamp, and Pass Labs XA 160.8 Class-A mono amps into Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4 speakers,with an SVS SB-4000 subwoofer and all WireWorld cables. I am not sure where to go to take my system much more high end? Perhaps I will play with expensive streamers. The last time that I did this, they weren’t worth the money, but I saw some pretty cool ones at AXPONA recently.
On “When I’m 64” from The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album on Qobuz, the overall imaging with the Sonitus system in place sounded noticeably better. The woodwinds in this classic little ditty sounded livelier and more believable. The overall focus of the sound was just night-and-day different. The chimes or bells resonated with a vibrancy that I simply didn’t hear before the Sonitus treatments. Everything just sounded a little bit more musical, and that type of improvement in this level of system is hard to find – especially at this level of investment.
On “Lady (You Bring Me Up)” by the Commodores on Qobuz, a more complex mix felt somehow less complex. The layering of the backup vocals in the mix seemed to have more depth. The synth had more pop and thus higher frequencies of the bass, or at least it seems that way. Lionel Richie’s voice also had that laser-focus effect that I heard with iconic The Beatles track before it. The shine on the horns was resolved but still vibrant, mainly because we didn’t over-treat the room, which is a common mistake that we audiophiles make (present company very much included). Please make note: more of a good thing doesn’t make for a better thing when it comes to absorption in your audiophile system.
I used Brian Kahn’s favorite bass demo track that I have “audiophile appropriated” (I am putting that on Urban Dictionary), which is “Vigilante Shit” from Taylor Swift on Qobuz. These treatments aren’t designed for bass performance, but the vocal focus of this bass-heavy track is sounds really great. On the bridge, the reverb was open and spacy, but the main verse had that in-the-studio sound that I just love.
Will the Sonitus Wave Xand Canvas Absorption Products Hold Their Value?
Nope. The Sonitus Wave X treatments, as well as the Canvas absorption, are low-cost products that require some form of installation. I am not sure that they will uninstall that well, and so what? These treatments are also physically large, thus they aren’t really worth sending all over the country because of the dimensional shipping.
In the end, it just doesn’t matter, in that if you can’t absorb all the costs of an audiophile upgrade like this, then you aren’t trying hard enough. Some audiophile products are better than others on resale. This is one where it just doesn’t matter.
What is the Competition for the Sonitus Wave Xand Canvas Absorption?
This is a tricky one, in that acoustical treatments are not normally used on an ala carte basis, but more as a system. There are lots of companies that make good room acoustics – some are more expensive than others.
GIK Acoustics is a favorite and their free design help for their entry-level-priced products are likely the best comparable for the Sonitus Wave X and Canvas absorption. Vicoustic was another brand that I considered, but the additional costs in a place that I likely won’t live in forever just made it a less perfect match for me. However, the Vicoustic stuff is very nicely-made and finished. It is a notch above GIK and Sonitus overall which, of course, you pay for. RPG makes my favorite room acoustic products, which I used for my listening room and screening room when I lived in Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood, eons ago. RPG treatments are even more money than Vicoustic, and they can look pretty good, too, but again, that was a big investment with little to no hope of significant resale in a year (for me), thus it wasn’t a good fit – not that I don’t like their products, because I do.
Final Thoughts on the Sonitus Wave Xand Canvas Absorption
Room treatments are the most affordable and fastest way for most audiophiles to get a big boost in performance. You don’t need to spend a fortune on them, either, and that is where the Sonitus Wave Xand Canvas absorption come in. They are real-world audiophile products that fall into a sweet spot for price and performance that just worked for me.
My last room in a much bigger condo in this same gorgeous building was simply a better listening space. There was nothing that I could do to stay there, as the owner wanted it back. My new place is $5,500 a month less rent, but 750 square feet smaller, which includes a smaller listening room. Thanks to the work that Anthony Grimani did, as well as the impact of the Sonitus Wave X and Canvas absorption, I am loving the way my system sounds in the smaller, quirkier room. I’ve got more focus, more detail and more layering. The price might be minimal, but the result is not. The Sonitus Wave X and Canvas absorption products were a great investment that have yielded results that are just fantastic.
