Acoustic panels

Panels absorb sound; they do not block it. That distinction decides most projects. If the complaint is noise arriving from somewhere else, the answer is isolation. If the complaint is that the room itself is loud, harsh or unintelligible, panels are the answer — and the quantity follows from measurement, not from covering walls until it feels better.

• Absorption panels — the basic unit, in fabric, perforated timber or impact-resistant facings.
• Acoustic ceilings and wall panelling — treatment built into the interior, coordinated with services.
• Acoustic beams — linear baffles where there is no suspended ceiling.
• Acoustic enclosures — machinery and plant contained at the source.

Every layout starts from a measurement of the room as it stands and a target for what it is meant to do. The absorption needed to move from one to the other is calculated by frequency band, and that decides area, construction and placement. It is checked by measuring the finished room.

Acoustic performance comes from the construction behind the face, so the finish can follow the architecture without giving up the result — fabric, timber, perforated board, printed faces, or sculpted forms modelled and cut in house. Where panels sit in public buildings, fire performance of the facing and core is specified with the construction.

Placement matters as much as area. The right square metre does several times the work of the wrong one.

If sound is arriving from outside the room, treatment will not stop it. See doors, windows and partitions, sound and vibration control and air movement for the structural side of the same problem.