What's the best way to diy soundproof a room?

Question

3mx3m. I need no interruption or distractions. Is the eggbox method option the only way?

Answer 1

quick cheap way not very good from low fequency but does a alright job is carpet everywhere with thick carpet including the roof

Answer 2

The eggcrate method is actually not very good, I've done it.

All it does is soak up the high frequencies, resulting in a muffled sounding room.  It's actually counterproductive (as far as keeping your noise from bothering others, because the muffled sound will make you turn up the sound to hear it better.

It all depends on what you're trying to do, how much time, work and money you want to put into it.

You're trying to do one or both of these things:

1. Keep extraneous noise from getting in.

2. Keeping the noise you're making, from getting out.

Most people want to do both.

OK, now for the acoustics lesson:

High frequencies (treble) don't have much energy, so can be blocked and/or absorbed easily.

Low frequencies (bass) have a lot of energy, so they can go through walls and other materials very easily. That's why when some moron with his car stereo is driving around you hear all the bass, but little or none of the high frequencies.

Only very dense materials block low frequencies. Like concrete, thick wood, etc.  Less dense materials, either just pass the low frequencies (like the car body does), or it will actually start vibrating at the same frequency, which actually makes the sound louder, now quieter.

So, to sum up, there are a few techniques they use in recording studios to soundproof them for ALL frequencies, both coming into the room, and going out of the room:

1. Airtightness. This goes for all frequencies. A 14% opening will pass about 95% of the sound through. You can test this by rolling the window of your car all the way up, then crack it just a bit. Most of the sound gets in with just an inch or two crack.

2. Isolation.  Studios frequently have a "room within a room" where they actuall have airspace between the inner and outer walls.  They also have double windows for this, with the window glass at angles to each other.  I'm guessing this is beyond what you're going to be willing to do!

3. Build or modify the rooms with dense materials. Studios tend to be in block or concrete buildings because of this. Then they build an inner structure, kinda like a house built inside the block building.

----Other methods that are cheaper than the above stuff;

A.   Fill the doors up with sand to increase their density (Get mondo door hinges if you're going to do this).

B.  Seal around doors with foam, etc., so when they close, they are totally airtight with no air (and therefore sound) passing.

C: Build a sandwich that will fit inside your window, made of two pieces of thin plywood, with about 2+ inches of styrofoam in the middle. Cover both sides with foam rubber, & fabric or leather type stuff on at least one face of it.

D.  You could build false walls inside the room with 2x4's, panelling, with fibreglass insulation inside. That would help a lot, but obviously, it's a lot of work.

I hope this isn't too discouraging to you.

It's very difficult to effectively soundproof a room, and using soft materials, like eggcrates, blankets, etc. makes people "think" that it's working, because it drastically changes how the room sounds (muffled), but it's not really doing anything but blocking high frequencies, which is not the problem to begin with!

And like I said, it makes things less intelligable, so you end up not hearing things as well, like everyone is talking through a pillow or something.

Answer 3

It depends on how much you want to spend, there are lots of soundproofing materials available in panels to fix to walls. Egg cartons aren't really any good. Cheapest would be a pair of industrial ear protectors lol.

Answer 4

since your room is all ready built , try carpet.on the floor,heavy drapery,waal hanging,s pillows, ect

Answer 5

If you don't want your home theater or what ever you might be trying to soundproof looking home-made, you might want to drop a couple bucks on some good, professional, sound proofing material.

You can look at some here:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Acoustic-Tre...

Those products are from Guitar Center, and the stuff works, and it looks nice, I think, too.

Good luck.

Answer 6

I had this problem and tried eggbox, foam and sand, but on asking an international oil company, the answer was Lead Sheeting.

Answer 7

you can put up a stud wood wall on the inside of the room and insulate with sound deadening material available on the net,

use wooden battens covered with plasterboard.