The acoustics of woven screens

There is a fundamental difference in the behaviour of the sound going through a perforated screen and through a woven screen. This is best illustrated by the two schematic drawings below :

Most of the sound (in inverse proportion of the opening factor) is reflected backwards. In worst cases, it reflects against a rear wall and comes back to the rear of the screen with a delay

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The sound waves are diffracting around the warp and weft threads, being only slightly absorbed

Another acoustic issue with the perforated screns is that they are mostly reflective. They have an unwanted influence on the acoustics of the room. This phenomenon is worsened in the case of curved screens.

Woven screens being only slightly absorbent and otherwise transparent to sound do not affect the acoustics of a room.