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sound panels for the basement


Budman

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i have a 20 x 27 basement home theater with no windows, all drywall, hardwood laminate over concrete floors, theater seating with throw rug, pool table etc. etc. played pool for the first time since ripping out all the carpet. the first game of pool when someone broke was ear piercing. the floor is killing me.

first thing i am going to do is put curtains over the closet doors on both sides of the tv.to see how much that helps. anyone have this same problem. i need wall mount sound panels. anyone can point me in the right direction for this.

have 2 ottomans upstairs for coffee tables made out of cloth that i'm going to put down there.

have plenty of wall space in the 2nd picture, not to much in the 1st picture.

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Very nice man cave. Really way too nice. The surfaces look pretty hard, you'll need to tame that down. The room looks a little difficult to treat, are those doors in use? I don't really like the look of most room treatments but if you could put some heavy drapes on your front wall it would help out a lot (like a theater screen curtain). If that's not possible do another wall with drapes. Thick area rugs will help also.

Thanx, Russ

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Be creative!!!

Nowadays there are plenty of "architectural" acoustical treatments available from the likes of Auralex, Sonex & others.

You might try cutting small sections of Auralex or Sonex open-cell acoustical foam sections and placing them in the wainscoting on the door panels. Also inbetween the wood trim on the wall. They make colors that I think would match pretty well.

http://www.auralex.com/

http://www.sonex-online.com/

Don't forget about using bass trapping if you really want things to work right sound wise. The idea is to not absorb too much in one frequency range. A combination of broadband absorption and diffusion works best. Avoid the small, cheezy acoustical treatments like those little corner "pillows", they're not the right size or materials to be of much use.

I've found curtains don't work very well either unless they were made specifically for acoustical use. They are usually too thin to do much good because the wavelengths of audio frequencies are too long. A frequency of 5000Hz for instance has a wavelength of about 3 inches, 1000Hz more than a foot, and 500Hz 27 inches. Avoid typical "acoustical" ceiling tiles if you can as they are designed to absorb a rather limited frequency range, primarily voice and office machine type noise.

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Almost forgot to mention, you simply attach the Auralex/Sonex acoustical foam using 2" to 3" steel T pins available at most office suppy stores. Do not use the adhesives recommended unless you don't care about damaging and replacing the surface. The T pins are easily removed and leave only a tiny puncture in the wood/drywall which can be easily covered up. This will also allow you to experiment with placement easily.

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ATS Acoustic panels has a very nice website. looks like you can buy them finished or DIY

Yes, they seem to have a variety of nice looking stuff that would fit in domestically. However, look at the intended applications, they're mostly aimed at things like offices, classrooms and such. On the other hand, you can buy that Owens Corning stuff they're using, as well as Roxul Stone Wool (IMO better performance) at many building supply/lumber yards and do it yourself without the middleman.

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  • 1 year later...

I know this is a old thread but its a great topic I have recently started on. So quick question, what is it that some of these sound panels actually do. The reason I ask is I had a friend over last night that installs a product in school gymnasium and tells me that this spaghetti looking product is the way to go, plus it also had different shaped and sized pyramids that "control the sound better" he also tells me anything with a flat surface is a waste of time, that sound panels need to have the pyramids structures. Maybe him and I are talking about 2 completely different things you want to do, maybe I am confused on what to do.

Artto I have read some of your old post on this maybe I need to go back and read it again so I understand.

thanks

Nick

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Laugh all you want, but check out Pendleton Woolen Mills. If you like Indian type wall hangings, you might find something you will like. You can call them and order hanging tabs for curtain rod hanging. Hang them about 3 inches from the walls to dampen the sound. Lots of nice patterns. I have given some of these as gifts. If you decide to go a similar route, make sure to get natural material, not man made fabric. Someone suggested calling this a "Martha Stewart" treatment, then someone else chimed in that they had looked up in a book they had and natural wool/cotten works better then comercial sound treatments. If I find the response I will post another reply. I am in no way affiliated with Pendleton.

By the way, nice looking room you have.

Tabs are sewn so blanket hangs with label in lower right hand corner. If you would like tabs sewn on differently than this, please call customer service at 1-800-649-1512 with your special instructions.

www.pendleton-usa.com

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SPEAKER OF ROOM TREATMENT
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John W. Henderson:
How about tapestry on the walls to reduce reflections?

I was surprised when I opened my Cyril Harris book (Handbook of Noise Control, 2nd Ed., 1979, McGraw-Hill, Table 21.1). It lists typical acoustic absorption coefficients for several architectural and acoustic treatment materials as a function of frequency. The absorption coefficients for heavy tapestries were fairly uniform all the way up the audible spectrum - even more so than Dow Corning acoustic fiberglass panels.

My understanding of the density of the tapestries that Harris tested is that they approach the weight/thickness of relatively thick bed comforters but are not filled with "fiber lite" man-made material, but instead something that is like heavy cotton or wool batting.

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John W. Henderson:
Possibly one inch or 2 from the wall?

Actually, if the tapestries are made of heavy material, spacing them out from the wall would actually be preferential: this is the same technique used in bass traps.

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John W. Henderson:
Or would it be better to mount something like this on insulation board?

You don't need to mount them - in fact, they may be more effective acoustically if hung from the ceiling or from a curtain rod near the ceiling. They do not need to be "mounted".

My $0.02

Chris

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I been looking up the use of hemholz resonators for porting cabinets, and had found a lot on using them to make absorption panels for studios. Slats or holes with the proper size cavity behind them allows you to tune and filter certain freq. There is a good bit of material out on it. The cost and build time might be more than you want, but I owuld think some of the wooden slat designs could look nice architecturally. Might not be what you want if you are needing more broadband, just to cut the liveness of the room.

Bruce

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After doing some research, I have discovered that solid surfaces cause sound to bounce off of the walls. So introduceing a soft panel absorbs it, looks there is all so treatments to reflect and diffuse this must be what the product does that my buddy was talking about, now I just have to make sure we were on the right page the other night if so than I have to find a way to convince him other wise. Since he seems to think that flat surfaces do absolutely nothing to sound which in a way he is right just hard flat surfaces.. Does anyone have any info on this.

NIck

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Since he seems to think that flat surfaces do absolutely nothing to sound which in a way he is right just hard flat surfaces.. Does anyone have any info on this?

If you are talking about sound diffusion, then flat-surfaced panels are not going to help. If you are talking about sound absorption, then flat absorption panels are helpful. The question is: what is the objective? Diffusion, absorption, or some of both? Is it high frequencies only, mid-frequencies only, mid-bass only, or some of all the above?

In your case, it appears that you have a room that is too live. I'd first recommend simple things...like putting down some more area rugs on the floor (in addition to the one in the pictures), moving that small coffee-like table away from your listening area, and putting large quilts/comforters on your leather/vinyl listening chairs (...this is a big deal and cheap/easy to implement...). Then you can think about putting up diffusing panels on the doors between your speakers, and putting absorption panels on the walls/doors immediately adjacent to your front three speakers. You might also think about absorption at the back of the room if it is still too live (i.e., reverberation time -- RT60 -- is higher than 0.6 at higher frequencies, and higher than 0.8 at lower frequencies). You might also have to put diffusors on the ceiling about halfway back from your front mains and your prime listening position (assuming that your ceiling is less than 8 feet high).

The cheap/easy way to do it is to use comforters and quilts pinned to the side and rear walls to hear the difference that absorption will make (hint: your stereo imaging will pick up dramatically if you cover the nearby surfaces to your speakers). Cheap approaches to diffuser panels are also on the web.

Chris

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Chris, Thanks for the advice but that isn't my room. I just brought up a old thread to ask a question on why people use sound panels do to a argument I had a with a friend. When I get to this point at least I know what I am looking at instead of throwing money away. I just see alot of guys that continue to add and install lots of sound panels, I never knew what desired them to do so. thats all.

But I all so got alot of sound treatment sites from this as well so thanks to all recomendations.

Nick

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