Sound at its simplest form is just energy - technically a wave of energy traveling through molecules. That energy is created due to an object vibrating and transmitting that energy into the air or objects around it. A yell is the result of your vocal cords vibrating. A loud bang is the vibration caused by two objects colliding. Sound energy can travel through all types of matter, but we like to categorize it as structural (traveling through something solid like metal or wood) and airborne (traveling through the air). Eventually, those vibrations reach the air inside our ears where we perceive the vibrations as sound. That's why we sell so much car sound deadening material. The vibrating metal of the car creates a lot of noise. The concepts start simple enough, but they can get tricky. Imagine a metal door. While the door may do a good job of preventing airborne sound waves from traveling through it, if someone were to bang on the door the sound on the other side could be quite loud. To effectively stop unwanted sound, you need to understand the different types of noises and the different types of sound treatments.

When researching soundproofing solutions you'll often run into information about improving acoustics. It's important to understand that these are two distinct solutions to different problems.

However improving acoustics involves using sound absorbing materials, which will absorb sound and prevent it from being reflected back into the room. Sound absorbing materials, while helpful in soundproofing projects, do not block sound. For instance, a popular acoustical material is acoustic foam. Open cell foam a very porous material and if you were to hold in front of your face while you speak, you'd still be able to hear your voice quite clearly. Foam is used over microphones, on top of speakers, and even over earphones, all proving it's not an effective sound blocking material.

Acoustic foam (or as those uninitiated on the Second Skin website may affectionately call "soundproofing foam") is not an acoustics option we recommend very often (although hydrophobic melamine foam is great for some applications like vehicles). People use foam often because it's the only kind of acoustical material they know about. It's super cheap, easy to install, and it'll improve sound quality and reduce echo in a space. The problems are that it's not very durable, and the cheap polyurethan foam is not Class A fire rated, so you can't legally install it in a commercial building. That's why we offer a huge variety of other acoustic material across a wide variety of spaces like a recording studio, gun range, or a space with loud machinery. Some options are very economical and then others are designed for a more professional setting like an office. That's where we may steer you towards sound dampening panels due to better aesthetics, durability, and requiring less space to be effective.

The fact is that each of these strategies are helpful in different ways. To help you understand how, let's break down soundproofing and acoustics further to illustrate how the two methods can work separately and together.

There are 3 main elements to consider when evaluating soundproofing materials.

So now that we've run through the basics of soundproofing, let's talk about acoustics. When people talk about improving acoustics, they are trying to increase the sound quality in a space by reducing the amount of noise. This is usually done through implementing sound absorbing materials for reverberation and echo control and for noise reduction. Learn more about the difference between echo and reverb.

As we mentioned before soundproofing is all about blocking sound, and acoustics is about absorbing sound. While both of these things aim to reduce noise, improving acoustics has a specific goal of increasing sound quality in a space. To understand when and why you should focus on acoustics, you need to understand how sound moves.