How Do Sound Panels Work?

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013

Sound panels are made of core material designed to captured and convert unwanted sound wave reflections within a room.   This lowers the level of ambient echo within a space, and in turn produces greater clarity to original sound.  As a result, music sounds better, human voice is more intelligible, crowd noise subsides, and rooms are rendered more user friendly.  From worship to dining, teaching to entertainment, cleaning a room acoustically is a great investment in the space, rendering it more user friendly.

Sound panels are made of two core materials…either foam panels or compressed fiberglass panels.  In either case, as the air born sound wave enters into a panel, whether wall or ceiling mounted within a room, the pores of the foam or the fibers of the fiberglass board vibrate.  As the sound wave continues to enter into either panel, the vibrations increase, producing friction between the pores or the fibers.   That friction you would recognize has heat.   The sound energy has been converted to kinetic energy, which in turn, dissipates unnoticed out of the room.  What the panel allows to reflect back into the room depends on how thick the panel is and how many panels are introduced in aggregate into the space.   A simple Room Analysis helps our clients understand the amount of material they need in order to capture and convert the right level of echo.   We safeguard to not under-treat the space, delivering a decay in sound values, nor do we want to over-treat the space, hit that point of diminishing returns, and force a spike in the budget.

So now you know that sound panels convert sound waves into heat, which delivers greater clarity back to the original sounds produced within the room.  For questions relating to your sound panel treatment, call NetWell Noise Control’s help desk at 1-800-638-9355 or visit us online at www.controlnoise.com.