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How to properly sound proof and understanding how sound travels?

PaPaNurglle

So i bought These sound proof panels and I do not really understand how to properly lay them out in my apartment to be effective. This is my setup area and all my neighbors are pretty much entirely behind me. In front of me is the wall and then immediately outside.  I'm unsure where to place these panels to effectively dampen my screaming at my friends.     im sure someone here has experience with sound dampening. I'd really appreciate the help.  

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is it your neighbours behind you that you are worried about or is it the street in front of you?

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Just now, kraker said:

is it your neighbours behind you that you are worried about or is it the street in front of you?

the neighbors behind me in the apartment complex. Not worried about across the street.

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If the neighbours are behind you, I'd put all the panels in front of you. Without panels, the sound from your mouth hits the wall in front of you the most, and would then bounce around the room. With the panels, the majority of the sound will be absorbed.

If you plan to get more panels in the future, I'd recommend getting non-flat ones, as (from what I understand) they absorb better and don't allow bouncing as easily

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Disclaimer I'm in no way a professional. With that out of the way it can help if its in front of you by stopping sound from bouncing back to your neighbors, but IMO putting it up behind you might be the most effective.

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1 minute ago, kraker said:

Disclaimer I'm in no way a professional. With that out of the way it can help if its in front of you by stopping sound from bouncing back to your neighbors, but IMO putting it up behind you might be the most effective.

 

3 minutes ago, piratemonkey said:

If the neighbours are behind you, I'd put all the panels in front of you. Without panels, the sound from your mouth hits the wall in front of you the most, and would then bounce around the room. With the panels, the majority of the sound will be absorbed.

If you plan to get more panels in the future, I'd recommend getting non-flat ones, as (from what I understand) they absorb better and don't allow bouncing as easily

You guys are contradicting each other lol but i've read that sound waves are absorbed by the material so i mean logically infront makes sense? but maybe both front and back ?

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1 minute ago, kraker said:

Disclaimer I'm in no way a professional. With that out of the way it can help if its in front of you by stopping sound from bouncing back to your neighbors, but IMO putting it up behind you might be the most effective.

In front is best with only one pack. With more, both in front and behind would be great

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3 minutes ago, piratemonkey said:

If the neighbours are behind you, I'd put all the panels in front of you. Without panels, the sound from your mouth hits the wall in front of you the most, and would then bounce around the room. With the panels, the majority of the sound will be absorbed.

If you plan to get more panels in the future, I'd recommend getting non-flat ones, as (from what I understand) they absorb better and don't allow bouncing as easily

Angled panels prevent echoing. They're not really for blocking more sound, though they do sort of serve that purpose by letting less of the wave escape. When a wave hits a surface, part of it will be reflected back. The panels with all the different angled surfaces serve to cause the waves to bounce around on the panel and eventually disperse off into varying directions rather than bouncing directly back at the source. The bouncing directly back is where you get echo.

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Just now, piratemonkey said:

In front is best with only one pack. With more, both in front and behind would be great

Also i should add my apartment is a very tall ceiling does that help or hurt how the placement of my panels would be? like from where im standing i'd think directly behind my office chair and directly infront of myself is my option but lol... i am unsure acoustics act differently in such a tall room.

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3 minutes ago, PaPaNurglle said:

 

You guys are contradicting each other lol but i've read that sound waves are absorbed by the material so i mean logically infront makes sense? but maybe both front and back ?

piratemonkey sounds more professional, listen to him I've never dealt with soundproofing before

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4 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

 

Angled panels prevent echoing. They're not really for blocking more sound, though they do sort of serve that purpose by letting less of the wave escape. When a wave hits a surface, part of it will be reflected back. The panels with all the different angled surfaces serve to cause the waves to bounce around on the panel and eventually disperse off into varying directions rather than bouncing directly back at the source. The bouncing directly back is where you get echo.

That's pretty much what I meant, but clarification is always nice :)

5 minutes ago, PaPaNurglle said:

Also i should add my apartment is a very tall ceiling does that help or hurt how the placement of my panels would be? like from where im standing i'd think directly behind my office chair and directly infront of myself is my option but lol... i am unsure acoustics act differently in such a tall room.

I'd say if you have one pack, put it all in front. You can always get another pack to put behind you. With a tall ceiling, I'm pretty sure there'll be more echo, but panels in front of a sound source (you) would be best to prevent that.

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31 minutes ago, PaPaNurglle said:

So i bought These sound proof panels and I do not really understand how to properly lay them out in my apartment to be effective. This is my setup area and all my neighbors are pretty much entirely behind me. In front of me is the wall and then immediately outside.  I'm unsure where to place these panels to effectively dampen my screaming at my friends.     im sure someone here has experience with sound dampening. I'd really appreciate the help.  

I would call those panel more along the lines of sound treatment than proofing. It'll stop more echoing in the room rather sound going through the wall.

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19 minutes ago, vong said:

I would call those panel more along the lines of sound treatment than proofing. It'll stop more echoing in the room rather sound going through the wall.

Could you elaborate further? the panels you truly believe wouldn't stop the sounds from going through the walls ?

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20 minutes ago, PaPaNurglle said:

Could you elaborate further? the panels you truly believe wouldn't stop the sounds from going through the walls ?

It'll work to a certain extent, I just wouldn't solely rely on it to soundproof a room. If you want to make it as effective as possible then you would have to cover a majority of the wall with it, maybe have to double up on layering it too.

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2 minutes ago, vong said:

It'll work to a certain extent, I just wouldn't solely rely on it to soundproof a room. If you want to make it as effective as possible then you would have to cover a majority of the wall with it, maybe have to double up on layering it too.

lol and doing that would easily cost me a lot due to the high ceilings hmm well then that'd disappointing what do you recommend as an alternative ? These panels are going up at least partially but i've heard that there is a fabric that dampens sound well just not entirely sure how i'd go bout hanging that up hmmm.

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Those look like acoustic treatment more than soundproofing, if you want cheap soundproofing hang up moving blankets on the walls, as many layers as you want, they're great for the price.

 

Proper pro soundproofing happens in the building stage and costs a metric butttonne.

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16 minutes ago, PaPaNurglle said:

lol and doing that would easily cost me a lot due to the high ceilings hmm well then that'd disappointing what do you recommend as an alternative ? These panels are going up at least partially but i've heard that there is a fabric that dampens sound well just not entirely sure how i'd go bout hanging that up hmmm.

I've read moving blankets do an alright job and can be pretty cheap. You could try and find used acoustic blankets or MLV sheets (heavy though).

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6 minutes ago, vong said:

I've read moving blankets do an alright job and can be pretty cheap. You could try and find used acoustic blankets or MLV sheets (heavy though).

MLV is hella expensive though and acoustic sheets aren't much better. Moving blankets do a damn fine job, they're what I use when I have to record outside the studio.

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9 hours ago, PaPaNurglle said:

So i bought These sound proof panels and I do not really understand how to properly lay them out in my apartment to be effective. This is my setup area and all my neighbors are pretty much entirely behind me. In front of me is the wall and then immediately outside.  I'm unsure where to place these panels to effectively dampen my screaming at my friends.     im sure someone here has experience with sound dampening. I'd really appreciate the help.  

Stopping sound from propagating through walls is really hard.

 

Usually it's done by using two layers of wall with a cavity inbetween. When sound hits something, some gets absorbed, some gets reflected/scattered. The two wall's increases the absorption, but actually makes the wall worse at absorbing low frequencies due to the wall resonating. This is fixed by filling the cavity between the walls with damping compound that turns energy into heat.

 

We haven't actually ever made a fully soundproof room. The quitest room we have is the anechoic chamber at Orfield Labs IIRC.

 

Some cheap ways to somewhat soundproof a room is to hang heavy, thick blankets on the walls. Obviously try to use fire retardant material so you aren't encasing yourself in a tomb of sorts.

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10 minutes ago, Derkoli said:

Stopping sound from propagating through walls is really hard.

 

Usually it's done by using two layers of wall with a cavity inbetween. When sound hits something, some gets absorbed, some gets reflected/scattered. The two wall's increases the absorption, but actually makes the wall worse at absorbing low frequencies due to the wall resonating. This is fixed by filling the cavity between the walls with damping compound that turns energy into heat.

 

We haven't actually ever made a fully soundproof room. The quitest room we have is the anechoic chamber at Orfield Labs IIRC.

 

Some cheap ways to somewhat soundproof a room is to hang heavy, thick blankets on the walls. Obviously try to use fire retardant material so you aren't encasing yourself in a tomb of sorts.

There are two major schools of thought in aware of in the 'room within a room' design community. The first being filling the gap with foam or some such other filler material though others argue that physical connection allows more vibrations to pass through, these others typically offset the internal room by a few degrees to overcome the standing waves in the bass frequencies.

 

My personal design of choice is the room within a room', drywall only on internal and external wall with insulation in both (empty space between the two and internal room slightly offset). I don't have any evidence to say it's better than any other design, I know little about MLV or Green Glue or anything like that but what little I remember of senior physics leads me to believe it's a design that works and some of the internet seems to agree.

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@PaPaNurglle
Ohh man, why are you buying stuff and ask the important questions later? Too late, IMHO. And in the wrong forum (not sub, but in general).

 

Where do I start? Your link isn't really working for me and I'm automatically redirected to the German Amazon page. The product listed there is only a laughable 0.4 inches thick. You can calculate the absorption of this material here.

grafik.png.a6791c771dd19c7e2ec5da6c63906098.png

Just look at it! A male voice has its most distinctive frequencies somewhere between 150 Hz and 2500 Hz and a panel of this thickness basically does nothing. I do hope these panels are at least non-flammable or flame-retardant. You shouldn't just use some random material for sound dampening (like some blankets on the wall). The most affordable material which is unable to burn down your home is mineral rock wool. There are a lot of guides about building absorbers out of this material.

 

I don't want to get too deep into the matter, but it basically doesn't matter where you put those panels. Put them around your monitor for a nice frame and that's the most you will get out of it -  a nice looking wall which is marginally less reflective in the higher frequencies.

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5 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

@PaPaNurglle
Ohh man, why are you buying stuff and ask the important questions later? Too late, IMHO. And in the wrong forum (not sub, but in general).

 

Where do I start? Your link isn't really working for me and I'm automatically redirected to the German Amazon page. The product listed there is only a laughable 0.4 inches thick. You can calculate the absorption of this material here.

grafik.png.a6791c771dd19c7e2ec5da6c63906098.png

Just look at it! A male voice has its most distinctive frequencies somewhere between 150 Hz and 2500 Hz and a panel of this thickness basically does nothing. I do hope these panels are at least non-flammable or flame-retardant. You shouldn't just use some random material for sound dampening (like some blankets on the wall). The most affordable material which is unable to burn down your home is mineral rock wool. There are a lot of guides about building absorbers out of this material.

 

I don't want to get too deep into the matter, but it basically doesn't matter where you put those panels. Put them around your monitor for a nice frame and that's the most you will get out of it -  a nice looking wall which is marginally less reflective in the higher frequencies.

Yeah... after making this post i've come to that conclusion. Also i never bought these actually, my girlfriend had bought them for me thinking i'd like them as i'd been talking aloud to her about sound proofing. She saw this on amazon and bam decided to buy it. Also, what do you mean this is the wrong forum in general? Just kinda assumed that if the sub discusses audio peripherals and all things audio sound proofing the audio that is produced may be an appropriate subject manner. My apologies if it's not the correct subject for the forum :( 

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3 hours ago, PaPaNurglle said:

Yeah... after making this post i've come to that conclusion. Also i never bought these actually, my girlfriend had bought them for me thinking i'd like them as i'd been talking aloud to her about sound proofing. She saw this on amazon and bam decided to buy it. Also, what do you mean this is the wrong forum in general? Just kinda assumed that if the sub discusses audio peripherals and all things audio sound proofing the audio that is produced may be an appropriate subject manner. My apologies if it's not the correct subject for the forum :( 

You came to the right place in this forum but there are other forums more dedicated to acoustic treatment and the like, again, for LTT this is absolutely the right place.

Sloth's the name, audio gear is the game
I'll do my best to lend a hand to anyone with audio questions, studio gear and value for money are my primary focus.

Click here for my Microphone and Interface guide, tips and recommendations
 

For advice I rely on The Brains Trust :
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On 7/27/2020 at 3:16 AM, PaPaNurglle said:

So i bought These sound proof panels and I do not really understand how to properly lay them out in my apartment to be effective. This is my setup area and all my neighbors are pretty much entirely behind me. In front of me is the wall and then immediately outside.  I'm unsure where to place these panels to effectively dampen my screaming at my friends.     im sure someone here has experience with sound dampening. I'd really appreciate the help.  

These are not sound proofing panels and will not change the volume your neighbours hear you.

So fun little study into reverberation and foam panels such as them discovered that putting them together in one spot or in front of the a sound source is not as effective as placing the panels evenly around the room.

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