[mark campbell]

I went to watch "Narnia" at the movies a couple of days ago and took particular note of lighting and decor for my new HT under construction. The movie theatre had carpet on the walls. It looked really great with some extra panel colours etc. This would really help stop reflected sound wouldn't it? Is it a good idea for my small situation..12 x 18 with thin plywood walls?
Has anyone here used carpet on their walls?
Any advice would be appreciated..starting to build walls in 2 days.
Mark

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Yes, carpet will definitely reduce reflected sound, but fully covering all the walls it might make a small room it too “dead.” You might try just the rear wall, or perhaps the two side walls.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

[Ron-P]

My front and side walls are covered with a heavy duty black felt. Not as dense as carpet and it killed reflections without making the room too dead. I tried acoustic panels and they did not fair near as well as covering the walls completely. I also have two layers of drywall (5/8" over 1/2") and my back wall is only covered with black drapes, no felt. My HT room is 16' x 9'.

Not sure how carpet would work but the felt works perfectly. iI bought it at Home Depot off their bulk rolls.

[David Noll]

Mark,

I used a "thin & tight" carpet on the lower 1/2 of my walls. I would not recommend a "plush & loose" carpet because it would make the room too dead. I also used the same carpet on my stage and on the back (facing screen side)of my bar cabinets for the same reason. I did use a more plush carpet on my floor. (See my link below) The black on the walls and stage is the carpet. It is glued on with a trowel and carpet adhesive.

David

[chris_everett]

Carpet will do a reasonable job of dampening high frequencies, but it won't help with mids, and even less for lows/bass. It's important that you incorporate some low-frequency bass trapping along with your HF absoption, and you don't want to make your room too dead.

[mark campbell]

Thanks for all your replies, I think I will go with that thin "felt-type" carpet and only have it half way down the walls.

I have grey indoor/outdoor carpet on the upper half of my theater walls and Linacoustic on the lower half. The end result is that my room is quiet dull sounding and was boring until I started adding more reflective surfaces back in (ie posters etc). In hindsight I wouldn't recomend doing a whole room with it but its pretty cheap and with the right glue goes on easy (though make sure you've got a couple of people to help as the glue dries quickly)

[mark campbell]

We put up the thin grey carpet on the upper half of one wall tonight. It looks pretty good. It's called "wonderwall" and is used for putting up posters etc in classrooms and the like. I expect it will cut down sound reflection a bit. The other walls will have a mixture of posters and photographs which will help break up the sound I think. Will have to wait and see how it sounds and adjust accordingly.
cheers
Mark
ps. i have a webshots page of photos but can't post a url yet