What is the first thing you must know about acoustic treatment and noise absorption? This should be easy, but it’s not your fault if no one ever took the time to explain it to you. We will also explain what the difference between soundproofing and sound deadening is.
The first thing you’ve got to know about acoustics is the difference between soundproofing and acoustic treatment. If you want less noise, that’s soundproofing. If you want better sound, that’s sound treatment.
What is Acoustic in a Room?
Acoustics is basicaly how sound works in rooms. The majority of rooms in a house have flat walls and flat ceilings that sound bounces off of, and that affects how the sound is transmitted to your ears.
There is direct sound and reflected sound. Direct sound arrives at you faster than reflected sound because the reflected sound had to bounce off a flat surface to get to you; while direct; it would be something like a speaker pointing directly at you.
There are at least six flat surfaces in the average room, and that’s a lot reflected sound bouncing all over the place. The problem is that later arriving reflections distort the original soundwave coming out of a speaker. Also, sound travels fast at approximately 1130 feet per second.
A sound wave will bounce between two standard room walls about sixty times per second. Sound travels so fast that it fills a room almost instantly. That was just one bounce angle, and a typical room would have thousands of them.
Acoustical Absorber
The first of two acoustical tools is an acoustic absorber. Acoustic absorbers are to reduce the strength of sound bounces. To a sound wave, an absorber looks a little like a hole in the wall, so some of the energy never come back.
An absorber works by reducing the strength of reflective sound that would otherwise cause more destructive interference. But if we use only absorbers in a room, it makes it sound dull and unnatural. An acoustic absorber is also called an acoustic panel. Click here for our recommendation and the current price on Amazon.
Acoustical curved surface diffuser
So now we will talk about the second acoustical tool to complement the sound absorbers. An acoustical diffuser also reduces the strength of sound bounces, but the primary function of a diffuser is to scatter sound reflections in different directions. The diffuser smooths out the destructive interference throughout the room.
Click here for a curved surface diffuser Amazon price.
What is Acoustic Treatment?
How do we make a room sound better with acoustic treatment?
Acoustic treatment is to install the two acoustical tools we just explained. Noise absorbing acoustic panels and acoustic diffusers. Placing these two acoustical tools on the walls around a room will make a room sound a lot more natural.
An excellent way to know where to place the panels and diffusers is by determining where the majority of the sound bounces; by strategically placing the panels and diffusers in those areas.
What is Soundproofing?
Soundproofing is very similar to weatherproofing. Weatherproofing keeps the adverse weather from entering your house and will prevent your heating and cooling inside your home from leaking outdoors. You have to seal up all the holes and make sure everything is stable, it’s the same for soundproofing.
Soundproofing keeps noise out and music and movie sound inside. You can’t do weatherproofing by hanging pictures on the walls. Likewise, you can’t do soundproofing by attaching acoustic panels the walls. To achieve maximum soundproofing, you first need to plug the leaks and solidify everything. That way, noise stays out, and the sound stays inside the soundproofed room.
How to Soundproof a Room?
Some sound leaks are easy fixes like door and windows. You can soundproof a door by applying a soundproofing door seal kit and installing a solid core door. You can also soundproof a door and window by installing studio soundproof doors and studio soundproof windows in the room. There are many ways to soundproof doors and windows with many different price tags and effectiveness.
What about soundproofing air duct vibrations, lightweight walls, thin floors, light fixture holes and electrical outlet cracks. Soundproofing means increasing isolation by filling in every gap and crack inside a room. You also receive soundproofing by increasing mass with denser walls, ceilings, and floors, and isolation from the rest of the building.
Conclusion
Remember, less noise means soundproofing and better sound implies acoustic room treatments. Fortunately, you can find a large variety of both types of treatment material on Amazon at reasonable prices.