Tagged with 'Acoustic Panels'

In the acoustics industry, the terms "panel" and "tile" are often used interchangeably to describe the same basic concept: a sound-absorbing quadrilateral of varying sizes and thicknesses that is mounted or installed within a space to reduce echoes and improve sound clarity.

At Audimute, both our acoustic panels and acoustic tiles are made with eco-C-tex®, our signature "green" sound absorption material comprised of recycled cotton and cellulose fibers. But there are also some key areas where our "panels" and "tiles" for wall applications differ from each other. (NOTE: The following distinctions do not apply to our AcoustiColor® Direct Mount Ceiling Tiles; read more on those here).

1. The Sides of the Panel / Tile

It's a subtle distinction but an important one. Our acoustic panels, from Fabric to AcoustiColor® to AcoustiWood® to AcoustiStone®, are fabric-wrapped (or, in the case of AcoustiColor, coated) on the face of the panel and then around the edges. Our acoustic tiles, on the other hand, have exposed eco-C-tex on the sides; only the face of the tile has been treated with the cover material of your choosing.

Here's some examples: this is a stack of our AcoustiColor panels. You can see that both the face of the panel and the sides have been coated. 

Now here's an AcoustiColor tile. Notice that the face has been coated in Sherwin-Williams paint, but the sides are still uncoated eco-C-tex.

2. Thickness / NRC

The thickness of an acoustic panel or tile directly corresponds to its sound-absorbing effectiveness. We measure sound absorption in NRC, or noise reduction coefficient. NRC ratings range from 0 to 1. An NRC of 0 means the product absorbs no sound, while an NRC of 1 means that the product absorbs all sound. The higher the NRC, the better the product is at soaking up sound.

Audimute's Acoustic Panels have thicknesses of 1.5" and NRC ratings of .95, meaning each panel will absorb an average of 95% of echoes, reverberations, and mid to high frequencies that it comes into contact with. Our Acoustic Tiles, on the other hand, are 1" thick and, depending on the cover material, have NRC ratings in the 0.70 to 0.75 range.

3. What You Get Per Order

Our acoustic panels are purchased and shipped as individual units, whereas our tiles are packaged together in different configurations (ranging from four 24" by 24" tiles to 48 4" x 12" tiles) totaling 16 square feet of material. Check the product pages for more information.

Whether you opt for acoustic panels or tiles from Audimute, you'll be getting high-performance sound absorption made with eco-friendly material. It all comes down to your preferences and what you need to allow you to use your space the way it was intended.

Want more information? Reach out to our Acoustic Specialists for a free acoustic consultation by calling 1.866.505.MUTE or filling out a Room Analysis Form.

Good acoustics in the office are no longer optional; in today's world of real-time collaboration, high-tech video conferencing, and fast-paced work environments, they are a necessity.

Every Audimute sound solution will make a big impact on improving acoustics in the office; in most cases, the decision on which one to choose is an aesthetic or logistical one.

Here's some of our favorite sound-absorbing solutions for different sections of the workplace:

CONFERENCE ROOMS

Zoom calls, video conferences, other forms of remote meetings: these new frontiers in business communication can suffer greatly when bad acoustics are in play. Too much echo or reverberation within a conference room can compromise the audio quality and make it difficult for the party on the other line -- whether it's a client or a co-worker -- to clearly hear what's being shared.

Fabric Acoustic Panels are an excellent way to treat sound in these high-traffic spaces, but we also love more design-driven options that keep your branding visible during Zoom calls and video chats.

Our Custom Image Acoustic Panels can be printed with pictures of your choosing: for instance, your company's logo, or an archival image from the company's history, or a top-selling product.

We also recommend our AcoustiColor® Acoustic Shapes to create dazzling geometric patterns on your walls.

SALES FLOOR / CALL CENTER

Do you have an open space or bullpen where sales reps or customer service specialists spend the day on the phone? Then you're no stranger to the chaotic noise that can arise from that area without proper acoustic treatment. As with conference rooms, AcoustiColor, Fabric, and Image Acoustic Panels are excellent options, but if you have limited wall space or want an acoustic solution that's out of sight and out of mind, we recommend a ceiling acoustic application.

Direct Mount Ceiling Tiles can be flush-mounted directly to ceilings and coated to blend in with the surroundings, but if you're looking for something more eye-catching, our Clouds and Baffles are available in multiple styles, including Image, AcoustiColor, and AcoustiWood (our product line designed to resemble real wood).

Different shapes are available, too - opt for one of our Accent Acoustic Ceiling Clouds or Baffles if you want an exciting piece of geometric art that also just happens to improve sound clarity.

INDIVIDUAL OFFICE SPACE

For individual offices where singular employees or specialized teams work, consider customizable acoustic solutions like our Image Panels. You can order from our library of stock images in different categories (such as nature, sports, or landmarks) or opt for a personalized acoustic treatment by uploading your own imagery. Again, logos or company photos are great here.

If you want something more traditional, we recommend our Acoustic Panels Kits, comprised of different styles, looks, colors, and shapes.

LOBBIES & WAITING ROOMS

Your lobby or waiting room is often the first impression you are giving to clients. Why not make it look and sound great? Go for a sound solution that reflects the rest of your lobby's decor. AcoustiStone® acoustic panels and tiles blend in very well with marble features (and are much easier to lift), while our AcoustiColor products are an excellent cost-effective option if you're looking for lots of coverage.

Every workplace and its needs (be they acoustic, aesthetic, or budgetary) are different, so be sure you're choosing the right sound solution for you, your employees, and your clients. And if you want free assistance in solving your sound problem, contact our Acoustic Specialists at 1.866.505.MUTE or by filling out this form.

"What does success sound like to you?"

That's the first question Audimute wants to answer whenever we take on a new project for a client. Whether it's acoustic panels for walls, acoustic tiles for ceilings, soundproofing solutions, sound masking services, or a custom sound management solution combining a little bit of everything, we want to make sure the end result is reflective of your goals for the room, studio, or space in question.

To guide us on this journey, we follow a project methodology we call PISO.

Problem
Integration
Solution
Outcome

Every project is different, of course, with its own expectations, sound challenges, and design ambitions. But by following PISO, Audimute and its team of acoustic specialists ensures that the outcome is always the same: a beautiful sound solution that lets you use your space the way it was initially intended.

For more information on PISO, check out this page.

You don't have to sacrifice style when it comes to sound management. That's why we wrap our Fabric Acoustic Panels in stunning, high-quality Anchorage, FR701, and Synopsis fabric from Guilford of Maine. And it's not just what's on the outside that counts: each panel, made with our eco-C-tex® sound absorption material, has an NRC of .95, meaning it absorbs 95% of echoes, reverberations, and mid to high frequencies it comes into contact with.

Looking for design inspiration for your sound solution? Here's some of our favorite Fabric Acoustic Panels inspired by October:

Fabric Acoustic Panels - Anchorage - Pumpkin

October means Halloween, and Halloween means pumpkins. Our Fabric Acoustic Panel wrapped in Pumpkin Anchorage fabric brings together orange and brown to create a panel that evokes autumn leaves, harvest moons, and jack o' lanterns. It's an excellent acoustic addition to spaces with cooler shades and neutral colors.

Fabric Acoustic Panels - Anchorage - Onyx

Our Onyx Anchorage Fabric Acoustic Panel is deep, rich, and versatile: it can blend in with dark spaces or stand out when paired with lighter colors. It's perfect year-round, but we're loving it this October because it reminds us of Halloween nights and jack o' lantern smiles.

Fabric Acoustic Panels - FR701 - Opal

Opal is October's birthstone, and our Fabric Acoustic Panel of the same name showcases a similarly elusive "play-of-color" appearance. At first glance, it seems to be a simple creamy white, but upon closer inspection, there is an almost-shimmering quality to the textile, as if blues and greens and silvers were just beneath the surface. It will make any space look and sound better.

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!