Acoustic wall treatments

I have a room I need to fit out for video conferencing that has apalling echo which is only improved when it is full of people. Unfortunately we pay our interns so I can’t just fill it up with staff; I’d be interested to know if anybody has any useful experience or expertise in this area. It’s a bright modern open space so I’m unable to use my previous strategy - hanging acres of bomb blast curtains. I’ve met people at trade shows in the past who specialise in this area but I don’t seem to be able to find their business cards.

Any ideas?

Egg boxes mate.

Failing that, andy is your man

Codename Bezelboy

GIK Acoustics are apparently good as are Blue Frog. I haven't used either but understand they are good.

If the room is devoid of furniture and carpets, it's a good idea to have drapes at windows, some rugs on the floor or even hanging on the walls. You can buy some very modern prints on rugs to display.
Ornaments like vases, pictures all help too.
The secret is to create uneven surfaces and to damp down echoes and reflective surfaces.

Drapes on the walls will be the cheapest option I think. Egg boxes and acoustic panels are good, but they will not look well as a video background. And don't overdo with echo cancelling, it might get really claustrophobic in there.

Fabric is great, large panels. I recently redecorated my cinema room and used some ‘cheap’ foam panels bought of ebay, some of them look quite funky so may work well both acoustically and visually.

Below is similar to what I purchased, you may need quite a few depending on room size. I used spray adhesive (floor tiles) to stick them on the walls, worked fine.

https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/24x-AFW305-...-/390587607684


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^ As above, these 'acoustic' foam tiles are the first step (though I would cover almost all of the walls 100%), though heavy drapes can be more effective I find and often make the place look less like some kind of government test facility.

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Originally Posted by T1ckT0ck

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Below is similar to what I purchased, you may need quite a few depending on room size. I used spray adhesive (floor tiles) to stick them on the walls, worked fine.

https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/24x-AFW305-...-/390587607684


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Put them on ceiling and might look like vents and not out of place.

Amount you need depends very much on size of the space, my room is very small so only needed light coverage to reduce that ‘snap’ kinda reverb sound - wasn’t looking to soundproof although my neighbours would!


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Carlton-Browne

I have a room I need to fit out for video conferencing that has apalling echo which is only improved when it is full of people. Unfortunately we pay our interns so I can’t just fill it up with staff; I’d be interested to know if anybody has any useful experience or expertise in this area. It’s a bright modern open space so I’m unable to use my previous strategy - hanging acres of bomb blast curtains. I’ve met people at trade shows in the past who specialise in this area but I don’t seem to be able to find their business cards.

Any ideas?

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You’ll want a mix of diffusors and absorbers, so as to tame the reflections, but not so as to create an acoustically dead space.
Have a chat with the guys at RPG and/or Custom Audio Designs – but if the room has a suspended ceiling, I’d be leaning towards a few RPG Skylines or FRG Omniffusors as a given, and then whatever is aesthetically and financially suitable for 2 adjacent walls.

This is all tremendously useful and many thanks for the responses. I think I want to avoid curtains; we have a venetian blinds on the outside of the windows - something quite common here - and one of the things I like about the space is the quality of light.

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/.../v0/800x-1.jpg

Look at one of the suppliers of music studio equipment (such as Studio Spares or try Thomann in Germany). They should be able to supply freestanding acoustic panels with which you could create when required a space with much reduced resonance within the room you want to use for video conferencing. Freestanding panels can be configured as required and if necessary parked out of the way when not needed.

The cause of your stated problem, called flutter echo, is that you have 2 or more reflective parallel surfaces in the room. Sound is bouncing back and forth between them, with very little loss at each pass.

There are some good suggestions here for adding absorbent material to the room. All materials have a different sound absorption coefficient, glass is one of the lowest, spun wool would be one of the highest. Here is a chart of common materials, including people. https://cds.cern.ch/record/1251519/f...BackMatter.pdf

Your goal is to add some absorbent material to the parallel surfaces, how much material is needed depends on how absorbent the material is. The most effective material that is easy to work with, for the dollar, is compressed fiberglass. Typically, fiberglass panels are wrapped in fabric to contain the fibers. As a rule, thicker materials continue to be absorbent to lower frequencies. 1" thick compressed fiberglass is a standard choice in room treatments because of its broad effective range, 2" is more common for critical listening spaces. If you do choose compressed fiberglass, our rule of thumb is to aim for a minimum of 20% of the wall surface.

There is a bit more to this, worth delving into if you plan to use the room in audio/video production; including the measurement of the Reverberation time (RT), the use of diffusion in addition to absorption, room modes and cancellation, noise floor, etc. But, all of that is potentially overkill for a general use space.

Drop me a PM I can help...

You need a basic room kit without bass traps.

However the better looking they are the more money they cost FYI - like anything I guess.