Soundproofing

[KrayKaz]

Looking for some insight here.

 

Soundproofing. There has to got to be more to this than just slapping some foam panels on a couple of walls... What is the science behind this (besides dampening sound a great deal)?? What would be the likely scenario someone would want to do this? Is there a number of panels someone should use? If so, how many over how big of a space? Is should they spaced any certain distance apart or kept together? Thinking about doing a soundproof room, just unsure on where to start / if it will be worth it.

[creatip123]

In my understanding, one of the advantage of soundproofing is to make sounds in closed rooms feels like in open rooms. It's like if you clap your hands outdoors (yard, street, w/e) vs indoors, like a 5x5m empty room. The clapping sound in closed rooms will sound echoey. Your brain will automatically register it as 'okay this is how a closed room sounds like'. Soundproofing a room for movies/home theater makes the sound so much more natural, i.e. you won't hear a gunshot in the middle of a dessert to be echoey sounding. Soundproofing a room for musics, aside from minimizing/eliminating the horrible echoes, makes the frequencies stay as close as possible to the original. Bounced sound waves can interfere with other sound waves, distorting them. The ears then pick up the final distorted result, which could potentially be very horrible. 

 

Well, that's my understanding anyway. As for the technicalities, I don't know much about it

[SSL]

Sound proofing and sound treatment are two different things.

 

Sound proofing blocks incoming (and outgoing) sound to a room. Sound treatment controls the behavior of sound produced within the room, but not necessarily by containing it.

 

Effective soundproofing is difficult and expensive. It mostly depends on the mass of the barrier used, but is most effective when combined with mechanical decoupling of the sound proofed room from the rest of the structure. Materials such as mass-loaded rubber or vinyl can be used to retrofit a room, but these kinds of materials aren't enough to block the lowest frequencies. Anything more effective generally requires tearing up to room to some degree.

 

Treatment involves reducing sound reflections or absorbing sound within a space. The type and thickness of material used determines the lowest frequencies that can be damped. Placement can also be important if all surfaces in a room are not treated. There is more to this than putting rubber or egg cartons on the walls; these kinds of materials will disproportionately damp high frequencies without having an effect on much else. This can lead people to thinking that the "treatment" was effective because the sound changes, when in reality it's made things worse.

 

Treatment is a lot more doable than complete sound proofing, although it can still be expensive depending on what you want to do. If you are just prepping the area around your PC you can probably get away with something quicker and cheaper than doing a whole room.

[KrayKaz]

Ok. I think even I was a little confused as to what I was trying to figure out when I posted this.

Apparently sound "proofing" is something completely different from what I was initially attempting to figure out. I was more referring to creating a sound treatment set up for like a home theater system / surround sound gaming experience. So I am trying to figure out what would be best way to go about this? Will using the foam panels work by themselves or will I need to go more in depth to create a "theater" like sound without actually building a theater?? Do I need to concern myself with paneling all the walls, or just certain ones? I am not looking to make this a super expensive set up, but at the same time I don't want to scrub out on a basic set up and not be satisfied with the result. What would be a good budget to set for something like this?

[Valhallatier]

In my understanding, one of the advantage of soundproofing is to make sounds in closed rooms feels like in open rooms. It's like if you clap your hands outdoors (yard, street, w/e) vs indoors, like a 5x5m empty room. The clapping sound in closed rooms will sound echoey. Your brain will automatically register it as 'okay this is how a closed room sounds like'. Soundproofing a room for movies/home theater makes the sound so much more natural, i.e. you won't hear a gunshot in the middle of a dessert to be echoey sounding. Soundproofing a room for musics, aside from minimizing/eliminating the horrible echoes, makes the frequencies stay as close as possible to the original. Bounced sound waves can interfere with other sound waves, distorting them. The ears then pick up the final distorted result, which could potentially be very horrible. 

 

Well, that's my understanding anyway. As for the technicalities, I don't know much about it

actually its the other way around, soundproofing a room will make the ambient sound dead, making it for some claustrophobic.

[creatip123]

Sound proofing and sound treatment are two different things.

 

Sound proofing blocks incoming (and outgoing) sound to a room. Sound treatment controls the behavior of sound produced within the room, but not necessarily by containing it.

 

Effective soundproofing is difficult and expensive. It mostly depends on the mass of the barrier used, but is most effective when combined with mechanical decoupling of the sound proofed room from the rest of the structure. Materials such as mass-loaded rubber or vinyl can be used to retrofit a room, but these kinds of materials aren't enough to block the lowest frequencies. Anything more effective generally requires tearing up to room to some degree.

 

Treatment involves reducing sound reflections or absorbing sound within a space. The type and thickness of material used determines the lowest frequencies that can be damped. Placement can also be important if all surfaces in a room are not treated. There is more to this than putting rubber or egg cartons on the walls; these kinds of materials will disproportionately damp high frequencies without having an effect on much else. This can lead people to thinking that the "treatment" was effective because the sound changes, when in reality it's made things worse.

 

Treatment is a lot more doable than complete sound proofing, although it can still be expensive depending on what you want to do. If you are just prepping the area around your PC you can probably get away with something quicker and cheaper than doing a whole room.

 

Ah yes, my bad. Those 2 words (sound proof and sound treatment) translate into a same word in my language, and they depend on the context to differentiate one from the other. I got them mixed up when used in English...

[mr moose]

Start here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/EthanWiner

[ShearMe]

Ok. I think even I was a little confused as to what I was trying to figure out when I posted this.

Apparently sound "proofing" is something completely different from what I was initially attempting to figure out. I was more referring to creating a sound treatment set up for like a home theater system / surround sound gaming experience. So I am trying to figure out what would be best way to go about this? Will using the foam panels work by themselves or will I need to go more in depth to create a "theater" like sound without actually building a theater?? Do I need to concern myself with paneling all the walls, or just certain ones? I am not looking to make this a super expensive set up, but at the same time I don't want to scrub out on a basic set up and not be satisfied with the result. What would be a good budget to set for something like this?

 

Every room is different; you can't just slap some foam on the walls and have it be perfect. 

 

Studio:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec09/articles/beginnersacoustics.htm

http://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/beginners-guide-to-acoustic-treatment--audio-1274

 

Home Theater:

http://www.primacoustic.com/app-home-theatre.htm

[.Jay]

To keep this post alive, what are some good solutions for reducing vibration on walls?  I looked online and saw a bunch of blocks which could be hung up on the wall ...but which are the best and at what cost?