Udipi Charlotte

Archive for April, 2010

Have you ever been inside of a crowded restaurant sitting at a table with your wife or girlfriend only to find out that you could not hear a word she was saying because the acoustics in the restaurant were so poor? Most restaurants employ hard surface areas throughout in order to easily keep the establishment clean and healthy. The problem with all the clean hard surfaces is that they reflect the sound. In other words, the sound bounces around the room making it difficult he understand what the person at your own table is saying, but instead clearly hearing the lady 5 tables away from you.

Restaurant acoustics are generally horrible. Here you are taking the lady you love out for your anniversary and paying at least $50 per plate and you can’t even carry on a conversation with her. Many restaurants are losing business because they don’t know the first thing about acoustics. There are many thing that restaurant owners and managers can do to make the room much more pleasant for their patrons.

These dining areas need to be acoustically treated or absorbent materials are needed to absorb the reflective noise in the restaurant. When furnishing a new restaurant, it is always best to add fabric covered chairs and booth seating because fabrics absorb the sound. The same goes for bar stools and lounge chairs and couches. Use fabric covered furnishings whenever possible. Here’s a handy trick for tuning up the acoustics in a restaurant. There is a product on the market now called Echoless Roll material. This is a bonded acoustical cotton roll material that has a black neutral fabric facing on one side. Not a very appealing look for an up scale restaurant, but here’s the trick.

 Take your tables and chairs and glue this Echoless roll material to the bottoms of both the chairs and tables where none of the patrons will be able to see this material. The Echoless roll can also be glued to the underside of the bar and bar stools or to the underside of any of the furnishings in the establishment where noise reflection is an issue. This material strategically placed can actually reduce the amount of reflective noise by at least 50% to 65%. The more of it you are able to use in the restaurant, the better your sound absorption will be. You can dramatically lower reverb times and increase speech intelligibility to the point where a normal conversation can take place in a very crowded eatery.

The Echoless roll material is available through Soundproofing America Inc. and is a very economical and low cost solution to the problem of noisy restaurants. There are many other options to improve restaurant acoustics, for more information go to www.soundproofingamerica.com or www.yahoosoundproofing.com Until next time, this is Dr. Bob…Out!!

Watch The Princess and the Frog Online Free

Online movies are the latest trend providing wholesome entertainment. Days are gone when people used to go to the cinema halls to watch the most anticipated films starring their favorite celebrity stars. All the action packed films can now be viewed sitting at home through the internet by the time of their release. In particular, many people are looking to watch The Princess and the Frog online free. There are many sites that provide this facility. While some of them are free, some of them will charge you money to watch The Princess and the Frog online. You don`t have to spend your time standing in long lines to buy the tickets to watch The Princess and the Frog anymore. If you have a high speed internet at home, then one thing that you could do is download The Princess and the Frog full movie. If you don’t want to download the movie, then you can simply watch The Princess and the Frog online free. You can store The Princess and the Frog and burn it or continually watch it straight online. There are many movies that are good enough to see at least once, but people often don`t watch them due to money related issues. But if you are supplied with movies sitting in the comfort of your own home, then you have the ability to watch The Princess and the Frog whenever you want.

Even I have faced a lot of problems finding a good site to watch The Princess and the Frog online free. There are couples of sites I found, which allow you to watch The Princess and the Frog online free within a couple of seconds. These sites save a lot of valuable time and money since they offer the opportunity to watch The Princess and the Frog online free. Let it be a comedy, an action, a romantic classic or a melodrama you can find all these movies online. So stop looking through the newspapers to find the movies in theaters. There is one site in particular that I’m quite fond of. If you click on one of these links, you can begin to watch The Princess and the Frog free full movie instantly.

Just browse a little bit online and your job will be easy. However, if you’re looking for a shortcut to download The Princess and the Frog full movie online, then I found the perfect site. You can comfortably watch The Princess and the Frog online free sitting in your favorite armchair once you download The Princess and the Frog full movie. You don’t have to wait for the reviews of the The Princess and the Frog film experts or friends to watch The Princess and the Frog online free. Just go to this website and begin to download The Princess and the Frog full movie. Once you get to the website, click on the The Princess and the Frog movie poster. You will be brought to the download page. Simply click “download now” and you will be able to download The Princess and the Frog full movie within 10 minutes. You can then either watch The Princess and the Frog online free or you can burn The Princess and the Frog movie to DVD and watch The Princess and the Frog in your home theater.

Watch The Princess and the Frog Online

Download The Princess and the Frog

So you have a noise issue and you don’t know where to turn. You could look in the phone book for a contractor, but where are you going to find a contractor who specializes in soundproofing? The fact of the matter is that you won’t find a soundproofing contractor in the phonebook. In my opinion, I really don’t honestly feel that there are any contractors out there with enough experience or know how to call themselves a soundproofing or nose control contractor. Contractors can be an arrogant lot and many of them think they know everything and are unwilling to learn anything new. I am not saying that all contractors are this way, only 99% or so. Just kidding, but many contractors seem to forget who is paying them to do this work. If you are hiring a contractor for the first time, make sure you find one that listens to what you are telling them. If your project involves soundproofing and you have researched the methods and the materials to complete the job and as you are explaining this to your contractor, you hear these words ways and materials needed to soundproofing and as you are explaining this to your contractor you hear these words “No, no, I know a better way”!!! If you hear these words coming from your contractor’s mouth, please do yourself a favor and show him right to the door!! I guarantee that no matter who your contractor is, he does NOT know a better way. Yeah I am including Bob Vila, though he does listen to his customers.

Now if you are able to locate a contractor who is open minded and willing to listen to the ideas that you have so carefully researched, then you have half the battle won. Contractors seem to have forgotten that the customer is always right. Period!! I learned this a long time ago and even there are times when it is necessary for me to give my customers a little guidance, I never talk down to my customers of make them feel that they are inferior because they do not have the soundproofing knowledge. If a customer insists on one particular product and it is wrong for their application, I will politely tell them that that is not the right materials for the job, but if they still insist on ordering that wrong material, I will box it up and ship it to them immediately. The customer is always right no matter what.

I guess my point here is to let people know that no contractor, builder, or developer should ever intimidate them. You are the customer and you are the one paying for this service, the contractor needs to listen and learn. That will be very difficult for many contractors, but the majority of contractors are indeed customer oriented and do their best to satisfy the needs of their customers and clients.

I am sure I will get a lot of feedback from contractors about this article, but if it empowers the customers, I’ll take the flack. That’s my perspective, what is yours? This is Dr. Bob…Out!!!