WAF friendly, cost effective acoustic absorption panels

[voodooless]

So my room is quite reverberant, with a ceramic tiled floor (carpet in front of speakers) and plastered brick walls. The only plus side is the relatively high ceiling at 280 cm, as well as the fact that it's wood and plaster (90 years old original).

I did a few simulations using REW of the room (it doesn't do L-shapes.. but close enough) and found that my right sidewall and the rear wall would be best suited for some acoustic absorption panels. I thought about DIY'ing a few, but my time is a bit limited, and they should look quite nice. Also, I'm not good with fabrics

So some commercial product needs to come in and save the day once again. Sadly, as soon as the word "acoustic" is mentioned, prices go up quite a bit.

So this is the room:

The round green thing is an open spiral staircase.

I'd like to cover about 1.5 to 2 m^2 per wall. The only thing that I found that has an acceptable budget, is these things:

Available in various colours and sizes. I'd be interested in the 100x50x11 cm version. They also have some performance stats, which a lot's of other more expensive products often miss:

Sadly, no Amazon reviews yet. The question is: what other options are available with a decent price and availability in the EU?

Oh, and I want the things to work quite low down, so sub 150Hz would be very welcome

 

[Eetu]

GIK Acoustics?
https://gikacoustics.eu/product-category/acoustic-panels-6/

The Impression series has nice looking front plate options. And the regular absorption panels have a ton of color options as well.

 

[Bamboszek]

I'm not sure if they offer shipping to different countries, but you may try asking them.
Bought a couple of them a few months ago and I'm more than happy. It's local manufacturer about 60km from my place. Really well made, Isover PT80 wool inside and price for 120x60x10cm panel is two times lower than one from your link.
Site is in polish, but google translate should help.
Absorbery akustyczne - Ścienne i sufitowe - Atrakcyjne ceny (akustonic.com)

 

[voodooless]

I'm not sure if they offer shipping to different countries, but you may try asking them.
Bought a couple of them a few months ago and I'm more than happy. It's local manufacturer about 60km from my place. Really well made, Isover PT80 wool inside and price for 120x60x10cm panel is two times lower than one from your link.
Site is in polish, but google translate should help.
Absorbery akustyczne - Ścienne i sufitowe - Atrakcyjne ceny (akustonic.com)

Looking good. The Amazon product is also made in Poland. I'll ask them about shipping.

 

[FeddyLost]

sub 150Hz would be very welcome

Sub 150 effectiveness will be either much deeper of few times expensive.
Mineral wool without membrane don't work well below 200 Hz unless you have sophisticated layered combo of 25-30 cm deep.

 

[Zoomer]

Sub 150Hz absorption is a very different beast from absorption to remedy reverb and flutter echo.
With room treatment I would focus on the last and use room EQ for the low-end (can be very cost-effective).
Although, you'd make a lot of friends here if you could come up with WAF friendly bass-traps... Needs mass and volume, no way around that.

 

[voodooless]

Well, it doesn't need to go very deep sub 150. I know that it gets tricky down there. But take the graph in my first post as a reference. Even the other Polish company (the one @Bamboszek posted) provides quite good performance if you can believe it.

 

[Weeb Labs]

For optimal WAF, you need to DIY the panel and order custom fabric prints to make them resemble pretty posters or picture frames.

 

[AurekV]

I seriously doubt that any reasonably thick velocity absorber will help you much with response at the frequencies that REW's room simulator works at. If you're looking to reduce reflections above 250 Hz then absolutely velocity absorbers will work. Though, I'm not sure what you have indicated will be enough of them.

 

[AurekV]

.

I don't believe this graph makes sense for a 11 cm panel mounted to a wall. When looking at absorption measurements, methodology is everything. This panel was probably mounted across a corner for that mesurement, providing way better LF absorption due to the large air gap.

 

[Hipper]

GIK Acoustics?
https://gikacoustics.eu/product-category/acoustic-panels-6/

The Impression series has nice looking front plate options. And the regular absorption panels have a ton of color options as well.

For optimal WAF, you need to DIY the panel and order custom fabric prints to make them resemble pretty posters or picture frames.

In fact GIK can make 'Art Panels':

Acoustic Art Panels - GIK Acoustics - Sound Absorbing Wall Art

I've bought from GIK (not Art Panels) a few times and found them helpful. You can get free advice from them too. They also have a forum where you can ask anything:

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=183.0

 

[Weeb Labs]

Ooh, that's fun. Although they are charging EUR 183 (ex. VAT) for a single 120x60 panel.

 

[Eetu]

providing way better LF absorption due to the large air gap.

Yeah that's possible, easy to extend the amount of absorption by leaving an air gap ~ the same depth as the panel itself. Here's a good clip covering that.

 

[Hipper]

Interesting video - thanks.

My take is that, for a given space, and any amount of money/material, you are still better off using the full amount of material to fill that space rather then half the material plus air gap.

 

[AurekV]

Interesting video - thanks.

My take is that, for a given space, and any amount of money/material, you are still better off using the full amount of material to fill that space rather then half the material plus air gap.

For maximum performance yep, but for store bought treatments especially an air gap can be much more cost effective and some people prefer the look.

 

[voodooless]

some people prefer the look.

In was thinking along the same lines. Having something stand off the wall a bit might look quite nice. You could even mount some lights behind it for added effect.

Great resources guys! Really loving it

 

[q3cpma]

If you want to absorb bass, RPG's Modex plate usually works well:

 

[voodooless]

Well, a bit of bass absorption is more of a plus. Higher frequency absorption is still highest priority. Those things don’t seem to be cheap either.

 

[q3cpma]

Well, a bit of bass absorption is more of a plus. Higher frequency absorption is still highest priority. Those things don’t seem to be cheap either.

Could cover them in felt.

 

[voodooless]

Could cover them in felt.

Would a thin layer of felt make those work significantly better above 500 Hz? It won’t make it any cheaper though . A felt cover would make for a nice finish though!