Acoustic wall panels

[Bill]

To help someone install his home office to support video and audio conferencing, I've been trying to find acoustic wall panels that would be easy for a local builder to obtain and fit.

We want to end up with something that looks like an upmarket office, and I'm thinking of 6 foot vertical or horizontal fabric covered panels on a wall behind the desk and an adjacent wall. I don't know why all the online literature seems to me so much gloss and flash with minimal info about prices, suppliers and so on.

I know of Echophon and believe that Armstrong tiles used to do something similar, and Amazon seems to sell some American panels, but I'm way out of date with this. My initial suggestion of heavy curtains and bookshelves is "not posh enough".

Has anyone done this sort of thing recently or knows of suppliers?

[Andy Burns]

If you/he fancies DIYing I've seen some on youtube where they made a frame from about 1" square timber, stuffed it full of old layers of towels (bought from a charity shop) I think they used a clean white towel stretched over the front like a canvas, maybe you could stretch a print over the frame?

Found it ...

[Nick Odell]

If this is for video-conferencing it doesn't have to be real: do what the v-bloggers do and create a studio set that gives the appearance of whatever you want.

Something like this:

can be as lavish or businesslike as you want.

Something like this:

can be the conference room overlooking the Houses of Parliament, the office with a view to the Eiffel Tower, the dock in the County Court or whatever the mood suggests at the time.

Nick

[jrwalliker]

Heavy fabric spaced a few cm away from the wall will certainly cut the reverberation considerably. A decorative rug would be a good choice.

John

[Brian Gaff]

We used to use old fashioned cardboard egg boxes in the 60s, not very, ahem, trendy, but a curtain in front was fine. Probably be a fire risk today. Brian

[fred]

The correct mic situated at the correct distance from the speaker will solve these prob;ems

[The Natural Philosopher]

Google 'sound absorption panels' at amazon for a huge range. Including acoustic booths that you can dismantle and store

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And they actually did very little, if anything. Heavy curtains would, though.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Google Helmholtz resonator. They (and variations on the theme) can be bought ready made and simply wall mounted. They control LF resonances, and HF ones are easier to deal with.

But if you want a really decent acoustic, probably best to contact a specialist to design it all for you. It's a bit of a black art. ;-)

[Bill]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I know that it's a black art and that diy solutions are likely to be variable, which is why I was thinking of ready made wall panelling.

I'm also very familiar with the psychological effects of too much sound deadening.

I was hoping someone had experience of panels like

or the (possibly) simpler

I don't think the audio in the systems will have much bass response, and he is adamant that it needs to be a working office with just an area for the conferencing. It's all a bit vague at the moment, but I'm trying to save him from his taste for plain painted walls, plain ceiling and uncarpeted floor.

I Googled Helmholtz Resonator, but panicked on seeing masses of square root signs and a bunch of videos from people in not acoustically brilliant rooms blowing over bottles.