Tagged with 'Acoustic Panels'

Wood has long been one of the go-to materials for design and home decor due to its durability, its stunning aesthetics, and its versatility. So it only makes sense that wood has also become a popular option in acoustic panels and other sound management solutions.

But the type of wood matters: 

• Softwoods like pine, cedar, fir, and spruce are excellent for sound absorption due to their lower density and more open cell structure.
• Hardwoods such as oak and maple, on the other hand, are more dense and therefore more likely to reflect sound. It's why rooms with hardwood floors are more susceptible to echoes and reverberations.

There are no shortage of acoustic wood panels on the market, with wooden slat panels (typically featuring wooden slats mounted on a sound-absorbing panel) particularly popular. Wooden slats themselves have both sound-absorbing (where the wood soaks up sound waves instead of reflecting them back) and sound-diffusing (where the sound waves are broken up and reflected back as smaller, weaker pieces of energy) properties.

Here at Audimute, we love the look of wood as much as anyone, but we wanted to take a more eco-friendly approach to "acoustic wood panels." So we launched our AcoustiWood® line of sound absorption products. AcoustiWood has all the aesthetics of real wood, but is instead made with high-quality graphics printed on acoustical fabric that's then wrapped around our 100% recycled sound absorption material, eco-C-tex®. It's the acoustic wood wall panel without the wood.

Here's why we love AcoustiWood:

1. It's Effective

Thanks to its eco-C-tex core, our AcoustiWood panels have NRC ratings of .95, meaning they absorb an average of 95% of echoes, reverberations, and mid to high frequencies.

2. It's Beautiful

There's just nothing like the look of wood. Elegant, warm, and timeless, it connects us to the natural world while also projecting an image of strength and stability. Audimute offers AcoustiWood in more than 75 different cover material styles, including Chestnut, Brown Walnut, Red Mahogany, Aged Teak, Cerused Oak, and Earthy Birch.

3. It's Durable

Our AcoustiWood acoustic wall panels are Class A Fire-Rated (ASTM E-84). It's the highest rating under the ASTM standard and means it has minimal flame spread and low smoke production.

4. It's Versatile

From home to office and Old World extravagance to New Age minimalism, AcoustiWood, like real wood, visually fits in with any and all environments and design styles.

5. It's Eco-Friendly

Each AcoustiWood product is made with our eco-C-tex sound absorption material. Eco-c-tex is made of a blend of recycled cotton and cellulose fibers, the majority of which are post-consumer recycled newspaper. On top of that, making eco-C-tex takes 1/10th the energy of making fiberglass and 1/40th of making foam (two other materials popular for sound absorption solutions).


You shouldn't have to compromise on aesthetics when you're looking for great acoustics! AcoustiWood, along with other Audimute options like AcoustiStone® and AcoustiColor®, is proof of that.

Have you ever walked into a room and discovered that every sound you make – from your footsteps to your voice – is resonating loudly around the space? Or maybe your co-workers have commented that it's difficult to hear you on Zoom meetings because of all the echo? 
 
These are all too common acoustics problems, and they're caused by sound waves (from your footsteps, your voice, music you're listening to, etc.) reflecting off hard surfaces and then back to your ears.

Why Your Room Might Be Echoing: 

• Hard Surfaces - Uncarpeted floors, bare walls, long tables, large windows: these are highly reflective surfaces. In fact, sound waves will bounce off anything made from concrete, glass, tile, metal, or hardwood. If your room has too much echo, it's probably because of a preponderance of these reflective materials.
• High Ceilings – Rooms with tall ceilings mean more space, and more space means more distance for sound to travel before it hits a surface. Once this sound does bounce off a hard surface, it creates a delayed reflection, which then bounces around the vaulted ceilings several more times until it finally dissipates.
• Empty / Lacking Furniture – Empty rooms have nothing to absorb sound waves. Without fabric-covered furniture, thick rugs, or heavy curtains to soak up echoes, they will continue to reflect and resonate off the hard, empty surfaces. 

How to Fix Echo In Your Room: 

• Add Sound-Absorbing Materials - These could be acoustic panels like the ones we make here at Audimute, but they could also be more everyday items like rugs, carpets, upholstered furniture, or drapes. Basically, anything of a porous nature (such as rugs, drapes, or Audimute fabric acoustic panels) will trap sound (like echoes) and keep it from re-entering the space.
• Add Bookshelves – Bookshelves are usually made of hard, reflective material, but because of their unique shapes full of nooks, crannies, and compartments, they scatter sound waves in different directions. This is called diffusion. Plus, books themselves also help to break up sound and provide some minimal sound absorption.
• Rearrange Furniture – Maybe your room has some furniture in it, but there's also lots of open areas or exposed bare walls where sound can bounce around freely. Consider moving sound-absorbing furniture such as sofas, armchairs, or couches to strategic locations where the acoustics are particularly bad.  

You don't have to live a life full of echoes and reverberations! Any change – from adding a thick rug to hanging up a beautiful AcoustiWood® acoustic panel from Audimute – will make a substantial difference in reducing the echo in your room. 

How is it September already???

It feels like just yesterday that summer was starting, and yet here we are, on the cusp of autumn. Here at Audimute, we're looking forward to a season full of college football, changing leaves, and excellent acoustics.

And to get us in the mood, here's some design inspiration courtesy of sapphire (September's birthstone) and Audimute's FR701 Fabric Acoustic Panel of the same name, wrapped in high-quality fabric from Guilford of Maine:

In March 2024, Russell Township, Ohio, broke ground on a new 2,500-square-foot community building featuring a large room intended for use by both elected officials and the public. 
 
As construction on the space continued throughout 2024 and early 2025, a sound quality issue soon caught the attention of the township's Board of Trustees. 

 
"[The] acoustics in that room, it just echoes so badly,” said Russell Township Fiscal Officer Karen Walder to the Geagua County Maple Leaf in March 2025. 
 
Russell Township brought in Thomas Ryan from Technological Design Studios to conduct an acoustic analysis of the site, after which he presented his findings to the Board of Trustees and recommended Audimute as a partner on the acoustic solution. 
 
This past July, a team from Audimute installed custom-made 3" Fabric Acoustic Panels on the walls and ceiling of the community room to absorb echoes and reverberations. At Russell Township's request, the panels were mounted on rails to create 2" offsets.

And on August 7, with improved acoustics in place, the Russell Township Trustees finally held their first official meeting in the new community room.

 
Customers love our AcoustiColor® acoustic panels, tiles, shapes, and planks not just because of their excellent sound-absorbing properties (with NRC ratings of .95, they absorb sound as well as our Fabric Acoustic Panels) but also because they can be coated to match any color from Sherwin-Williams. 
 
And while some opt for vibrant, stand-out-from-the-crowd colors like Vigorous Violet or Organic Green, many of our clients instead use simpler, more neutral shades from Sherwin-Williams to create acoustic treatments that blend in with their surroundings. 
 
Here's a few of the most popular "blend-in" Sherwin-Williams colors included among our standard AcoustiColor options: 
 
Argos (SW 7065)
 


With its undertones of blue and green, this neutral gray can complement all sorts of décor and furniture choices. We love it for AcoustiColor acoustic solutions in offices, workplaces, and houses of worship, where its strong simplicity blends in with the more reserved surroundings. 

Tricorn Black (SW 6258)



This true black color is a perennial favorite. We love it for AcoustiColor acoustic solutions in breweries, bars, or anywhere with exposed ceilings, where, when installed as a ceiling application or between joists, it absorbs sound while disappearing visually. 
 
 
Software (SW 7074)



Sherwin-Williams calls this a "deep, charcoal gray" - to us, it's a happy medium between the lighter Argos and the darker Tricorn Black. We love it for AcoustiColor acoustic solutions in spaces where brighter, warmer colors are at play in the décor or furniture, or in more industrial spaces like warehouses. 


 
Here's two other popular colors that can be added as custom AcoustiColor options: 
 
Accessible Beige (SW 7036) 
With recent design trends moving toward beige, Sherwin-Williams' Accessible Beige has become one of the brand's most popular colors. We love it for AcoustiColor acoustic solutions in restaurants, homes, or community centers, where it helps reflect light, adds a sense of calm, and pairs well with almost any design.
 
Alabaster (SW 7008) 
Soft and warm, this white is classic and comforting. We love it for AcoustiColor acoustic solutions in schools or healthcare facilities, where its timeless look blends in well with the more reserved surroundings. 
 

Looking for more design inspiration? Check out some of Sherwin-Williams' most popular colors here, and, remember, Audimute can coat our AcoustiColor products to match any Sherwin-Williams color, so whether you want your acoustic solution to blend in or stand out, we can make it happen.

Just a couple weeks before he played Lollapalooza as the bassist for headliner Luke Combs, the incredibly talented Mat Maxwell welcomed Audimute into his home to install an AcoustiWood® Chevrons Acoustic Panels Kit (pictured here: Style A feat. AcoustiWood Premium - Aged Dark Oak and AcoustiWood Exotic - Aged Teak). Designed to resemble real wood but made with our eco-C-tex® material, these AcoustiWood kits help absorb an average of 95% of echoes, reverb, and mid to high frequencies.

Speaking of absorbing, be sure to check out Mat's amazing book "Hired Musician: A Guide to Getting and Keeping Gigs", co-written with Seth Costner. It's an entertaining and super resourceful look at pursuing a career in music!

At Audimute, we love it when our acoustic solutions become the canvas for someone else's creativity -- in this case, literally!

After purchasing eight AcoustiColor® panels from Audimute to improve the acoustics in his game room, Clay Hildebrant hired artist Ariane O'Day to paint a mural directly onto the 4'x4' panels.

Says Ariane, who used Behr exterior latex paint on the panels: "I was honestly worried that the panels would just soak [the paint] all up and the paint wouldn’t be able to cover, but I was pleasantly surprised!"

The final result really took flight: a sound-absorbing mural perfect for reducing echoes and reverberations.

(And to those wondering: painting over an AcoustiColor panel may reduce the sound-absorbing efficacy of the area under the paint by 5% to 10%, but with AcoustiColor panels carrying an NRC rating of 0.95, you'll still have a solution that will significantly cut down on poor acoustics!)

Some design inspiration for you, courtesy of August's birthstones and Audimute's Fabric Acoustic Panels.

News out of England that recently caught our attention: Meta has opened a $16 million lab to conduct audio research and development for the company's AI glasses and other AI equipment. In addition to anechoic and semi-anechoic chambers, the lab also features what it is calling "one of the world’s largest configurable reverberation rooms," equipped with "101 individually adjustable acoustic panels" to simulate different environments ranging in size.

Whereas anechoic chambers completely absorb sound (to the point that people have reported feeling disoriented after standing in one for a prolonged period of time), reverberation rooms are designed to create reverberation and send sound energy around the space. In fact, when an acoustics company like Audimute wants to calculate the noise reduction coefficient, or NRC, of its acoustic panels, it sends them to laboratories that test the acoustic products in such reverberation rooms. NRC ratings range from 0.0 (no absorption) to 1.00 (total absorption), with Audimute's panels boasting NRC ratings as high as 0.95.

We're excited to learn more about the role that acoustics will play in, as Meta says, "developing intelligent audio that adapts to users and their surroundings." And, hey, Meta - if you ever want to build a reverberation room stateside, feel free to reach out to our Acoustic Specialists for a consultation!

Many times at Audimute, we'll hear from folks who need help with "soundproofing." Their office is too echo-y, there's some high-frequency sound in their restaurant, they want to be able to hear their drums, etc. All completely valid acoustic concerns; except the solution they're looking for isn't soundproofing; it's sound-absorbing. 
 
At Audimute, we do both (more on that later). But let's delve into what those terms really mean. 
 
Soundproofing has become the easy, shorthand term for any kind of sound management solution, but it really only speaks to a specific kind: the total containment of a room or space so that no sound is getting in or out. 100% soundproofing is possible, but it can result in an acoustic environment so tightly regimented that it ceases to be comfortable (check out anechoic chambers for more).  
 
Maybe you don't want 100% soundproofing, but you do want to block some sound from getting into or out of a space. There are plenty of scenarios where where that's the case: 

• You live in a house next to noisy train tracks
• You own a loud rock venue and don't want your sound to bleed into the quiet coffeeshop next door 
• You live in a house next to noisy train tracks and a loud rock club 
• You own a loud rock club located inside a house next to a quiet coffeeshop by train tracks

...You get the idea. 
 
Soundproofing – in the truest sense - requires new construction: tearing up a wall, adding a false floor, etc. It requires a significant amount of time, money, and labor. In short, it can be done, but it calls for a lot of commitment.
 
Sound absorption, on the other hand, is the use of mounted products such as acoustic panels to absorb echoes, reverberations, and mid to high frequencies within a room (We often tell people to think of sound waves as water and a sound-absorbing acoustic panel as a giant sponge soaking up those sound waves). There's installation involved with sound-absorbing panels, but likely no construction. 
 
Let's futher explore the difference between soundproofing and sound absorption with some real-world scenarios featuring our friend, Audie: 
 
Audie wants to drum loudly in his home studio but he doesn't want to disturb his neighbors. 
Audie needs a soundproofing solution. (Like our Peacemaker® Sound Barrier – 3mm). 
 
Audie is drumming but his drums sound muddy due to echoes in his home studio. 
Audie needs a sound-absorbing solution. (Like our Sound Absorption Sheets). 
 
Here's another one: 
 
Audie's clients at work have a hard time hearing him during conference calls due to reverberations in his meeting room. 
Audie needs a sound-absorbing solution. (Like our Fabric Acoustic Panels). 
 
Audie's desk at work is constantly rumbling and shaking due to vibrations from the parking garage downstairs. 
Audie needs a soundproofing solution. (Like our Peacemaker® Soundproofing Underlayment – 6mm). 
 
One last one: 
 
Audie wants to drum loudly in his home studio but he doesn't want to disturb his neighbors AND he wants his drums to sound less echo-y in his home studio. 
Audie needs a sound-absorbing AND soundproofing solution (Like our 2-in-1 isolé® Sound Barrier Sheets). 
 
In summation, when it comes to soundproofing vs. sound absorption, here's a nifty little rhyme to help you remember the difference: 
 
If loud noise is coming through the walls, floor, or roofing 
Then the solution you want is soundproofing. 
But if echoes create distraction and distortion, 
Then the solution you want is sound absorption. 
 
Ready to discover your sound-absorbing or soundproofing solution? Contact our Acoustic Specialists for a free acoustic consultation!