DIY Acoustic panels

Discussion in 'Soundcards, Speakers HiFI & File formats' started by Rebel975, Apr 28, 2017.

  1. Rebel975

    Rebel975 Guest

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    Hey everyone. The wife and I recently bought our first house. In the initial walkthrough I quickly identified which room would be mine, but there was a problem - it was so echoey. It has bamboo floors, plain walls, and huge windows. I figured as soon as I moved in and put in a couch, desk, rug, etc. it would go away. Well, it didn't.

    My inspiration came from this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/19-de...inted-movie-poster-acoustic-panels-cheap.html

    Basically, I ordered 13 custom printed cloths from https://www.spoonflower.com/ The 3 Lord of the Rings posters, a map of Middle Earth, a Star Wars poster, a Dark Souls 1 map, and 7 images of galaxies (mostly for the ceiling). I ordered the "Performance Knit" fabric from Spoonflower. It's a very light fabric, and somewhat stretchy.

    Some movie posters were acquired here: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=220892 - other designs were simply found on a Google image search. I tried to work with the largest resolution images I could find, and then used Gimp to scale them to fit the panel size. I have a mix of 36"x24" and 48"x24" panels (actually slightly bigger when you account for board thickness).

    For the frames, I simply went to Home Depot and got a couple SUV loads of these furring strips: http://www.homedepot.com/p/1-in-x-3-in-x-8-ft-Furring-Strip-Board-164704/100094214 . And a couple nails per side to hold the boards together. I then used some heavy duty picture wire to hang the wall mounted panels.

    For the ceiling mounted ones, I screwed 4 eye hooks per panel into the studs in the ceiling. I found it too difficult to match up 4 with 4, so on the panels themselves, I only have 2 eye hooks on the bottom half. On the top halves, I have little loops of picture wire. This gave me some wiggle room to make sure my panels could hook up with all 4 of the eye hooks in the ceiling. An a related note- because I used eye hooks, the ceiling panels aren't perfectly flush. They hang down ever so slightly. I hear this makes them more effective over a wider spectrum? Don't quote me on that.

    After assembling all of the wood frames, we wrapped the back sides in a simple burlap. Nothing fancy. Just something to hold the insulation in.

    Speaking of insulation... the acoustic panels I made from Roxul Rockboard 80. I ended up using 12 sheets of it (so two packs). I also made 3 bass traps, for which I used (2x) packages of Roxul Safe 'n' Sound. Nice thing about that was that I could just pick it up from Home Depot. The Rockboard 80 was kind of annoying in that I simply could not find a local supplier.

    The bass traps are simply a 1 foot square frame wrapped in fabric. I cut the Safe n Sound into 1 foot square pieces and stacked them up from floor to ceiling in the back two corners of the room. I also have another one laying down across the bottom of the room, behind the couch. I think I need to make some more of these later, just not sure where to put them. Perhaps I could stack some more on top of the one that is laying down back there. With the layout of my room, I can't really put any in the front corners.

    Now, none of the stuff I make is professional quality. But it's good enough for me, especially if it works right. And do these ever. I get like a recording studio vibe when I come in to this room. It's my first experience with a treated home theater and I really like it. No more echo!

    Anyway, some photos:

    My dog Sif, figuring out where she needs to go to get the ring to Mordor:
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    Example of the printed cloths:
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    Built frames having the burlap put on to the back and then filled with Rockboard. The stuff isn't nearly as bad as I hear fiberglass is, but we still wore gloves and respirators when working with it. Any skin that touched it was left itchy and irritated.
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    Could have done a better job wrapping the fabric. Also, the first batch of cloth I ordered I left with a white background. If I had to do it again, I would make everything have a black background to hide things better. :)
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    Ceiling mounting was a pain in the butt!
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    Black backgrounds are the best backgrounds. Actually, on the star pattern prints I simply chose the option on Spoonflower to "repeat" the image to fill the entire cloth.
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    You can see a corner bass trap behind one of my Minimartysubs, and some 3" acoustic foam panels I put up on the back wall.
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    Definitely won't need any more mid-high frequency panels, but could probably use more bass traps. Also, more subwoofers. Aaaand I need to upgrade to 7.1 or even Atmos soon as well. And upgrade my center. After I build a sliding barn door for the room. And a bedframe, and, and... lol. :)

    Thanks for looking.
     
  2. Rebel975

    Rebel975 Guest

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    Just put a pair of PA460-8's in my room to compliment my UXL-18's. Added a couple of 4" precision ports to each 4cu ft box to tune them to 40hz. They are acting as midbass modules. Currently running them up to 150hz. Going to experiment with 200hz, and maybe even 250hz.

    Also, I'm in the process of replacing my rear speakers and center. I'll build a couple more in a few weeks to act as side speakers as well and have a super sweet 7.2 setup. :)

    It was my first time using a router, so my roundover attempt on the center channel is a bit messed up. Made kind of a lip... oh well.

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  3. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    A friend of mine had a rather odd approach to this issue.
    Bought a lot of acoustic pyramid foam on the back of which he glued one huge poster made with The Rasterbator.https://rasterbator.net.The acoustic pyramid foam was around 2,5 cm thick with hardened base.
    Then he fixed the "tiles" on the wall with cones facing the wall leaving a 2 cm distance to the wall and put some left over pyramid foam in the corners and no more echo, sound was neutral, so to say.Also, changed the room completely.
     
  4. The1

    The1 Member Guru

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    Nice DIY Sir, I look forward to learning more.
    Thanks for the inspiration...
     

  5. Rebel975

    Rebel975 Guest

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    [​IMG]


    Comparing the size to a Dayton RS621.
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  6. Rebel975

    Rebel975 Guest

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    Going with foam alone was definitely a consideration for me, as it would have been a lot easier. However, (as far as I am aware) it's acoustic properties are not nearly as good as sheets of insulation. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

    But a main thing for me as well was the DIY aspect. Foam is a done deal. With the insulation I had to build frames, wrap it in cloth, etc. Just seemed more fun. :nerd:
     
  7. Rebel975

    Rebel975 Guest

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    Finished late last night. No chance to use them.

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  8. Rebel975

    Rebel975 Guest

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    I used a $10 1.5" foam mattress topper to line the walls of each speaker. I did two layers of foam on all walls except for where the ports are. Used hot glue to hold it all in.

    I was going to take a pic of the inside of the box, but didn't want to show the crossovers, because as far as I know it's not to be shared without permission from EricH/Jeff Bagby (the designers). IDK.

    The crossovers for the regular Fusion-8's are perfect though. They offer a PCB with very easy to follow instructions on where to put each part, where to put zip ties to secure the heavier parts, where to put the wires that need soldered, etc. It's almost idiot proof.

    The center didn't offer a crossover PCB, and the instructions had the hi and low sections split. So I did two different boards. Woofer board and tweeter board, and placed them on opposite sides of the box to keep the inductors far away from each other. Then I just wired the positive and negative wires from each crossover to each other and attached them to the respective binding posts.

    I used a scrap piece of bamboo floor board as crossover boards lol. It's all I had on hand.

    On a related note- I really wish I had some more quick connects for the woofers. The tweeters came with some, but not the woofers. Didn't feel like ordering and waiting for some to arrive, so I just soldered the wires onto the woofers. Oh well. :nerd:
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2017

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