Acoustic Panels

You may have noticed the white panels placed on the walls around my home theater when looking at my Current Theater Pictures, they are acoustic treatments used to dampen echos (or "reflections") in the room. When sound is produced by your speakers it is reflected off of any large flat surfaces (blank walls, windows, etc.) around them and will cause distortions. This can be prevented by placing sound dampening panels on these large flat surfaces to absorb the acoustic energy that would normally be reflected. I can highly recommend these for any dedicated theater or listening room because they make a very noticable difference, they are cheap, and they are pretty easy to make. The hardest part about this whole project is finding a place to buy some nice, stiff fiberglass panels. I used 1" thick, 2 foot by 4 foot Knauf Insulation Board which worked very well because it is very stiff and light. Conveniently enough Knauf also lists each type of board's NRC (Noise Reduction Coefficient) which descirbes the percentage of acoustic energy that strikes the panel that is neutralized, although I'm not sure how accurate their measurements are because some of their panels have an NRC of over 1. A NRC of 1 would mean that 100% of the acoustic energy that strikes the panel is neutralized, but that isn't nessicary for this application. I found these panels at a local insulation distributor called "BWI Distribution Inc", which was listed along with many others under the "Insulation Materials" section of my local yellow pages. They were very helpful and I bought the panels at $0.18 per square foot, not a bad deal at all. The panels are yellow so to make them blend in with my walls I covered them with a sheet of thin polyester I bought from a local fabric store. I chose the polyester because it was white and cheap, you could use any fabric or none at all. Once I had glued the polyester onto the panels I tacked them to my walls using small finishing nails. I tried to place a panel on every section of wall that was empty, these large flat surfaces are what cause echoes. Each time I placed a panel I would walk around the room a little bit clapping my hands together sharply. This would make it very easy to hear what echoes were occuring and where in the room they occured. I then placed another panel in the area I thought was most problematic and continued with my testing until I heard little to no echos throughout the entire room. These panels have had an interesting effect on my theater. For starters, the room is much quieter than the other rooms in my apartment. I notice the differences most when listening to music, but also during quiet scenes of movies. These panels have definately made a significant improvement that I enjoy very much.