Elite Screen: Overall Sound Levels
Sadly I don't own an SPL meter (sound pressure level), so I couldn't measure the volume difference between the sound system being behind, or in front of the screen. I spent many years in the high end audio business, though, so I can make an educated guess. Overall, I'd put the sound loss as very low, almost certainly less than 3db, and probably around 2db, or a small bit less.
Since again, I don't possess a good pair of in-wall speakers in the testing room, I also could not determine whether a speaker system with fairly large mid-range or woofer, will vibrate the surface of the screen enough to see it react, at high volume levels. (Think of the speaker cloth on your big old speakers moving/vibrating when loud passages with bass and lower mid-range content are played). The surface itself seems fairly rigid, compared to the typically thinner material used on non-acoustic projector screen surfaces.
Elite Screens: Light Interference and Reflections
Whoa! Remember, that when I am viewing this screen, it comes down directly in front of the Carada's surface.
And, boy, is that a problem. Light passes through the screen, bounces off the back screen, and passes back through the Elite screen. This makes for a major disaster. With a white surface behind this Elite screen, all kinds of terrible things happen. First, you get a sort of moire' pattern kind of effect from the slightest movement of your head. But even more important, you can see the edges reflected image all around the edge of the screen.
To some degree or another this is a reality with acoustic materials, though some companies no doubt do a better job than others.
The solution is simple. The wall behind the screen needs to be dark, very dark, ideally black, and assuming paint, flat paint - none reflective.
It is absolutely essential that whatever surface is behind your screen, is both dark and non-refective.
If you just happen to have in-wall speakers with a white grill, get black grills. If the surface of the screen grill is a black finish, but highly reflective, do something - repaint them with flat paint. You don't want anything reflecting back through the screen. Believe me!
I was able to place a large sheet of dull black surface behind the Elite screen, and the problems went away, nicely.
Elite Screens: Projector Screen Texture, Surface Visibility, Screen Door Effect
As you can see in the image below, there is a definite coarse texture to this screen material. The tip of the ball point pen gives you some scale.
Because of this texture I was concerned with whether it is visible at normal seating distances (no), and whether the texture would create a type of Screen Door Effect pattern, when matched with today's typical projectors.
I only tested the screen with a 1080p projector. Once the surface behind the screen was made dark to eliminate reflections, I noted no pattern effect such as screen door, at normal seating distances - in this case about 8 feet back when projecting about an 80" diagonal image. On the other hand, sometimes when looking for it, you can sort of see that the screen is not perfectly smooth, that there is a sort of texture. This is not to hard to spot in my testing room (at 9-10 feet - the very close side of normal viewing distance for a 100" screen), with no projected image, just overhead lighting (which essentially cast tiny shadows since the weave is not perfectly flat). While watching movies normally, I suspect that this is a non-issue for most, however some with a more perfectionist bent, will object.
That said, those with that "more perfectionist bent" are probably equally concerned about sound, and more reluctant to consider an acoustic screen if there is any audio quality loss.
I still have this screen hanging, so, if I get in a 720p resolution projector before Elite wants the screen back, I'll try that out, and update this review. (No promises.) Since the pixel structure is larger on a 720p projector, some of thse issues may come into play that are not issues when using a 1080p projector.
