Acoustic Panel Installation

Written on 02/03/2017

Marc Spagnuolo

Acoustic panels can make the shop a much more pleasant place to work, and in my case, make videos.

The Case for Acoustic Treatment

Since I record videos in my shop, the quality of the audio is very important to me. Most garages and shops features lots of hard surfaces and that means voices and tool noise tends to bounce around the space creating lots of echo and reverberations. To combat that, I’m installing ATS Acoustic Panels (2′ x 4′) on the ceiling. These panels are actually pretty easy to make as they consist of a acoustic panel core, a solid frame, a plywood back, all with a layer of acoustically-transparent fabric on top. But it’s been a few months since I built a piece of furniture and time is money, so I decided to buy my panels instead of building them myself.

Installation

While these panels are meant for the wall and the manufacturer specifically says NOT to install them on the ceiling, I’m going to do it anyway. Yes, I’m a rebel. The panels come with Z-clips which are like tiny aluminum French cleats. With four of these cleats per panel, I have no concerns about these panels coming down. But follow my lead at your own risk. Each cleat is attached to the ceiling using s.

The Difference

With 12 panels, I only covered about 1/3 of the shop space but I can already hear a significant difference. If you want to hear it too, use a pair of headphones and listen to me talk in the first scene of this video. Then skip to the last scene and listen again. You should hear less reverberation and room echo and my voice will have more presence. To be honest, the audio in this space wasn’t terrible to begin with so the difference isn’t quite as dramatic as the one I experienced in my last shop.

Soundproofing Vs Acoustic Treatment

I cover this in the video but it bears repeating: adding acoustic treatments does NOTHING for soundproofing. If you want to isolate sound in your shop space, you have a much bigger challenge on your hands. All we’re accomplishing here is improving the quality of sound within the space by cutting down on how much sound gets bounced around the room. If you want to get a good idea of what can be involved in sound isolation, check out what my buddy Andy Klein is doing in his basement shop. It’s a lot of work!

I plan on adding more panels to the shop just to make sure I have full coverage, but for now this is pretty effective in the areas I need it most.

Scott Currington

on 02/03/2017 at 01:12 PM

For anyone interested in making your own, look for Owens Corning 703. It’s 2″ thick rigid fiberglass panels. Probably not available at your local box store but many roofing suppliers will sell it. Wrap them in an acoustically transparent fabric (anything you can easily blow through, muslin works well) and use drywall outside corner guards to get crisp edges. Soak the back corners with fiberglass resign to give you something the screw into and mount with clancy’s, or just screw through them with long screws and fender washers. If you space them off the wall about 2″ you’ll mimic the lower frequency absorption of a 4″ panels, probably not much use for wood shop purposes. This is exactly the same stuff used in professionally designed recording studios and other acoustically treated spaces.

on 02/03/2017 at 01:16 PM

One other note, if you are spacing them off the wall, don’t put anything on the back, the sound waves need to pass through panel, reflect off the wall and then pass through the panel again.

on 02/03/2017 at 01:32 PM

If anyone is interested in actual sound isolation, look up resilient channels and/or green glue. The idea behind those are mechanical decoupling, basically not letting the mechanical vibrations of one surface travel through your houses framing and vibrating the surfaces in another room. But Like Mark said, there’s a lot more to that and your results are only as good as your weakest link (air gaps beneath doors, hollow core doors, HVAC ducts etc.)

Mad Hungarian

on 02/05/2017 at 01:37 AM

Are you going to show us the video shot when the first panel falls down in the background? (grin)Well, hopefully they work better than my first sound-deadening experiment a few months ago. I taped a bunch of 12″x12″ corrugated foam things behind/above my cyclone to see if i could cut the noise a bit, and of course they all fell down again within a couple days! Apparently duct tape doesn’t work for everything…(I put them up again with better tape, and they actually do cut the noise level a couple db. Cuts it a lot more when the car is in the garage, for some reason. I think because the car blocks a lot of the noise coming from the front of the cyclone and reflects it back into the sound panels, which then absorb some of it)

Martin Wennerstrom

on 08/18/2023 at 11:58 AM

I have bought exactly the same panels which some have been hung on the walls. I need to hang some on the ceiling, also. I also consider the provided clips would hold the panels in place, but was heeding the warning. So question: Have you had any issues with the panels coming down from the ceiling?Also, I use some carpenters glue when installing the screws in the back of the panels.

on 08/19/2023 at 04:35 PM

I no longer have that shop but I can tell you there was one panel that worked its way loose. We remedied the problem with a simple dab of silicone caulk on both long sides of the panel where it meets the ceiling. Worked like a charm.

Acoustic Panel Installation

The Case for Acoustic Treatment

Installation

The Difference

Soundproofing Vs Acoustic Treatment

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