Can the panels go behind fabric?

Yes: behind an acoustically transparent finish is how they are meant to be installed, and no C-ATS panel is ever painted. All three panels sit behind a stretch-fabric wall or ceiling system, concealed, and any acoustically transparent cover works. Fabric Walls pairs naturally and is not a requirement. The full answer, including the painting half, is in the article on covering the panels: it holds range-wide and is not repeated here.

What is different about this door is where the reflection points are. The side walls between screen and seats, and the wall the screen sits on, are usually the same build. So the decision about the treatment behind the fabric and the decision about the screen wall are one decision, taken at the same moment, by the same people.

The consequence is the same one the whole system runs on: a concealed layer is planned, not retro-fitted. In a real project the physical architecture comes first, then the interior concept, and then the cinema is engineered as one, with nothing decided in isolation. Left to the end, the acoustic layer becomes whatever the build-up has room for, and at a reflection point, the build-up is exactly what determines whether the panel can be where the design needs it.

What to read next

The range-wide answer on covering and painting. The finished face itself is Fabric Walls, the stretch-fabric system that delivers the surface the client sees.