Home Theater Sound Paneling... any ideas??? (1 Viewer)

[Leo Kerr]

It's also one of those errors of hearing and pronunciation... I know I heard it a number of times before I was certain I had a clue what they were saying.

 

[Nhoj]

My favorite cheap solution-

Attach a furring strip horizontally across the top and bottom of the wall and a vertical every 4 or 6 feet.
Get some 1" batting from a fabric store. Run some short drywall screws through to hold it up on the wall.
Get some craft felt (lots of colors) and use Liquid Nails Panel Adhesive to glue it to the strips. Spread the glue flat with a putty knife and stretch the felt as you go.
With practice, it can look great and give you a pretty dead room. It's not sound-proofing, but it will take care any upper ringing, and bring your rears to life.
Carpet is just too heavy to put on a wall.

 

[Bud Huey]

Thanks for the advise! Would it work if I used a fabric other than craft felt? The wife is going to want some input into the fabric selection and she is going to give a lot more weight to appearance than sound deadening.

Thanks,
Bud

 

[Nhoj]

You'd be surprise how good the felt can look if done right. It takes practice, so be prepared to destroy some. I've done whole rooms in black felt. With the screen on or the right lighting, the room is just in limbo. That's probably fine if you're married to Elvira.
Most other fabrics don't take to adhesives well and staples don't look good or last. Consider the felt as an undercoat for whatever dressy fabric or draping she wants. It can just hang over it. The felt stretches well and bonds to the liquid nails well. I have such a job that is eight years old now with no sags.
Or, compromise. Make the wall around or behind the screen black so your eyes have no clues about the room or its orientation. Spinning star fields will convince your stomach it's on a tilt-a-whirl.
My own policy, and in my opinion the only real solution to the wife issue... build two.

 

[Scott_Vonhof]

O.K. I have to take issue with this. First off, why won't staples last? They are not going to corrode away to nothing unless you are in a saltwater environment and they are not going to suddenly "let go" of the fabric or anything. This is obviously an opinion, but you need to state that it is.

I finished my theater walls over 4 years ago and have had no issues with a single staple or any kind of fabric problem. Also, when stapling, it is easiest to buy a $35 electric stapler so that you can shoot them every few inches. You go through lots of staples, but they are cheap and it helps hold the fabric tight with no stretch marks.

BTW, anyone know what the acoustic properties of felt are? The reason people use Linnacoustic and different sound treatments are because they are ideal for treating a rooms acoustics. The fabric is to make the room easier on the eyes and does nothing for the acoustics since the fabric chosen is typically acoustically transparent. The reason for choosing fabric that is not made to reflect or change the sound is so that the stuff behind it can do it's job. I doubt that felt is acoustically transparent. Yes, sound will go through it, but sound will also bounce off it, based on the weave.

Bud, do yourself a favor and see if you can get the fabric samples from Guilford of Maine. The one we used is one of the more basic fabrics, the FR 701 style. it is just your standard fabric similar to what you would find in a cubical, but if you want some other texture, others are available. Also, http://www.silentsource.com/index.html is an excellent source for the fabric. The colors we used are 556 Deep Burgundy, 408 Black and 553 Blue Plum.