Sound-proofing material

[Ty Ford]

Hello Ramone and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum,

The door offers a good workable example of how to stop sound. Sound is stopped by having two dense layers on either side of an isolation layer. Density/Isolation/Denisity (DID)

As long as the sound isn’t sneakling in around the bottom and side, the best thing to do would be to affix dense material to both sides of the door, provided the door and hinges can handle the weight.

I have a cut sheet of acousti-lead lining the inside of the door of the closet in which I keep my computer, to keep the fan and drive noise from being picked up by my mics. I think I bought it from Markertek. Acousti-lead is a thin sheet of lead; very dense and capable of knocking down sound. I don’t know if they still sell it or not.

Anything dense will do. I’ll leave that to your creativity. Of course, you could also get a new door with heavier wood or double pane glass.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Want better production audio?: https://home.comcast.net/~tyreeford/AudioBootcamp.html
Watch Ty play guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

[Nathan Bettisworth]

It may be cheaper to have a new solid core door installed. A new solid core door is heavier and can be ordered in a pre-hung configuration. Of course, if you’re renting then your out of luck and should use the foam idea. By the way, foam isn’t a bad idea, but the solid core door coupled with foam would be ideal. New doors are less than $200, and a good handyman can hang it for around $100. Good luck!

[Ty Ford]

There are two completely separately issues; sound reflection and sound transfer.

Foam is used to stop sound reflection within an environment. It does little or nothing to stop sound transfer.

Reards,

Ty Ford

Want better production audio?: https://home.comcast.net/~tyreeford/AudioBootcamp.html
Watch Ty play guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

[John Fishback]

As Ty alluded, plug any air leaks. Sound travels easily through air, so any leak will let in sound. When we built our current studio, we built a room within a room. When I was testing the space, I heard people talking in the next room. When I closely reviewed the construction I found the contractor had failed to properly caulk all the seams around the sheetrock. Once that was done, the sound leak was gone. Use weather stripping around the door. Our sound booth has a device on the bottom of the door that presses down a seal to the threshold when the door is closed.

John

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[Rob Brambila]

I think Ty put it best. You are dealing with two different issues here. The first dealing with room reflections, which is what foam is utilized for. The foam is broadband absorption to take care of early room reflections and flutter echo. The process of stopping inter-room sound transmission is a much harder and more expensive problem to solve. The biggest issue is with low frequency vibration, which can and does move through solid objects easily. The best way to deal with that is multiple layers coupled with areas of isolation. If this seems like a big undertaking, it may be. It depends on the level of sound transmission that you are looking to stop. You may want to try in steps. Start with making sure that all the air gaps are secured. Then try applying Sheetblok to the door. https://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_sheetblok/sound_isolation_sheetblok.asp
It is about 6bd more effective than solid lead and it is not as heavy. Also check out https://www.acoustics101.com/ there is a ton of info there.

Thanks,

Rob Brambila

System Engineer
Promax Systems
rob.brambila@promax.com
http://www.promax.com