Sound deadening

[rivan]

This isn't HT-specific, but I thought you guys might know better than most how to deaden a space.

My house is noisy, and I want to quiet it. We've got hardwood flooring and plaster walls throughout both floors. We've got area rugs in appropriate spots already.

We can't/won't do wall to wall carpet and generally dislike popcorn ceilings.

Have any suggestions?

 

[Modelworks]

I had a similar issue in my apartment , has tiled floors, flat ceilings, and drywall walls.
Easy to get an echo.
Not a lot you can do that will not change appearances.
One thing that does work is hanging a blanket loosely on the wall.
Yeah I know thats less than ideal, but it worked for me in the living room with the surround sound on.

 

[Muadib]

What do you mean by the house is noisy? Are the floors creaking? Do the rooms echo? Can't get the wife to shut up? What noise?

 

[pennylane]

By noisy, do you mean with echoes and sound staying "alive" for a long time (high reverberation time), or are you referring to sound being transmitted through walls so you hear what someone's doing in the kitchen from your bedroom?

If it's the former, adding sound absorptive materials (like blankets, carpets, etc) would help. Even adding furniture helps, as long as it can absorb sound. You need to kill reflections of sound bouncing around, but to do that you need things that actually absorb sound, so you'll have to deal with putting them out in the (somewhat) open.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: rivan
We can't/won't do wall to wall carpet and generally dislike popcorn ceilings.

You might need a wizard. Can't diffuse/absorb sound without diffusers/absorbers.

While you probably have no way of 'deadening' the room without doing anything to it, you can move the speakers closer to you to reduce the listener-wall distance ratio, thereby reducing the effects. Also, move the speakers as close to the front wall as possible so there is lots of 'decay' space behind you.

 

[BigJ]

Unless you're willing to start ripping down walls/ceilings, you're going to have a hard time dampening noise by a substantial amount.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Muadib
What do you mean by the house is noisy? Are the floors creaking? Do the rooms echo? Can't get the wife to shut up? What noise?

Floors creak. The rooms don't really echo, but sound really travels through the house - talking almost anywhere can be heard almost everywhere.

And no, my wife won't shut up ;P

Originally posted by: fanerman91
By noisy, do you mean with echoes and sound staying "alive" for a long time (high reverberation time), or are you referring to sound being transmitted through walls so you hear what someone's doing in the kitchen from your bedroom?

I don't think it's going through walls - I don't think they're allowing through anything at all, actually making the problem worse.

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
You might need a wizard. Can't diffuse/absorb sound without diffusers/absorbers.

Where can I buy one of these "wizards"?

In all seriousness, I was hoping there might be ... I dunno, paint additives or something. Dynamat for home walls. Something unobtrusive.

Originally posted by: BigJ
Unless you're willing to start ripping down walls/ceilings, you're going to have a hard time dampening noise by a substantial amount.

What would my options be then? Oddly enough, it might be a possibility in the core of the house - we've been trying to get paint over some particularly nasty wallpaper paste without any luck for a year or so. The plaster & lathe might some down, even though it'd be a damned dirty job.

 

[NanoStuff]

Paint, heh 🙂

There are physical restrictions on what sound can be diffused with materials of a certain thickness. 1cm honeycomb cannot diffuse bass frequencies, the wavelength simply reflects from such fine structures, much like RF reflects from a faraday mesh.

Reasonably thin fiberglass with a 1-inch offset could give you highly effective absorbtion even below 1000Hz. While bass will still suffer from standing waves, arguably the most important part of the spectrum will be nice and clean. With pretty cotton covers of any desired color or pattern, it could even be potentially decorative.

Even with much effort and dollars you won't get an anechoic chamber, a large reason why I ditched speakers altogether for headphones 🙂

 

[potato28]

Theres only a few options if you don't wanna destroy the house to deaden it. Blankets, heavy rugs and heavy cloth to help absorb the sound waves tremendously in a house. Closed doors also reduce the sound, but they have to be fire proof to seal the air movement beyond the door....

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Curtians are good.

 

[rivan]

Thanks for the responses guys - you're pretty much telling me what I already knew.

I was hoping there might be a magic bullet out there I hadn't heard of.

 

[emfiend]

I have very similar problems in my house.

Sounds like you're looking for decorative bass traps. If you're a DIY'er like me, there's plenty of stuff you can find from google on how to make them yourself.

The other thing to try if you're a bit artistic is wall tapestries. Can either make them or buy them. Buying can get pretty expensive.

The other thing I once saw on TV (that I haven't tried myself, yet) is paint that dries to reveal a fabric-like texture (kind of like linen). Can't imagine this would be the magic bullet but it might take off a fraction of the reverb when used together with everything else. Incidentally, I tried home depot and they had no clue where this paint could be found. I spent all of 5 seconds trying to search for it, but if you do find it please post back...