[Dougie085]

So my brother is being a bit cheap now that he dropped 2800 on the stereo. I'm trying to find economical sound deadening materials. We got a bunch of Butyl aluminum backed vibration dampening. I've been trying to think of what to use for a closed cell foam barrier. Anyways after thinking a while it dawned on me to use laminate floor underlaying. They have some that is closed cell and about 1/8" thick. This is about the same thickness of the RAAMmat stuff but the price is very nice at 200sq ft for 60 bucks shipped. If I had to I could double it up for better sound barrier.


Laminate Wood Floor Green Underlayment Foam Pad 3mm - eBay (item 190298529419 end time May-03-09 11:44:51 PDT)

 

[Dougie085]

Whoops wrong sub forum! Could a moderator move this to the Product Selection area?

 

[Rudeboy]

I used something almost exactly like that the first time I deadened a car and it didn't make any noticeable difference at all. In reality, the only good use for thin sheets of CCF is to gasket trim panels to reduce rattles. It would probably be fine for that but you'll need much less than 200 ft².

To actually block noise, I barrier needs to be very dense. Appropriate materials can get expensive pretty quickly since you need to cover everything. I'd just wait. If noise levels are unacceptably high, come back later, when there is more money for the project. with a barrier.

 

[Yoursogansta]

You can use many layers of green laminate underlying, it it very similar to neoprene. If you put silicone between those layers, it might exceed characteristics of commercially available deadeners.

 

[Dougie085]

Yeah I was going to say generally that underlaying stuff is rather dense. And if I put 3 layers it would be close to the same thickness of Luxury Liner Pro. 200 sq ft might be enough to get 3 layers down and using some good spray adhesive or something between each layer I'm sure it would work great I would think.

 

[Mooble]

If you use layers, you will make a good sound barrier. It won't do much of anything in its current form. If you really want an amazing barrier, sandwich some lead sheeting between them. Less expensive and easier to get would be tin foil. Sandwich about 10-15 layers of tin foil between the foam and see how that works.

 

[Dougie085]

Yeah I'm not looking for anything crazy good just something that's pretty good. It's a Chevy HHR so not a lot of sound deadening from the factory so I'm sure anything would be better.

 

[Rudeboy]

Yeah I was going to say generally that underlaying stuff is rather dense. And if I put 3 layers it would be close to the same thickness of Luxury Liner Pro. 200 sq ft might be enough to get 3 layers down and using some good spray adhesive or something between each layer I'm sure it would work great I would think.

I don't know. The stuff I used was similar in density to neoprene, ensolite and similar. To get an effective barrier you want something approaching 1 lb/ft². Since most foams are something like 5 lbs/ft³, you'd need to layer on enough to get to 2 or 3 inches thick. At 3mm thick, you'd need a little more than 21 layers to get to 2.5". I'm almost certain 21 layers would be very effective.

 

[Dougie085]

Hmm..... well I don't know. A bulk box of Luxury Liner Pro is like 300 bucks. Would love to get that stuff just don't think he's going to go for it. The Raamat foam looks like it's just felt or something but probably just a bad picture. It's also only 1/8" thick... I'd have to do at least 2 layers and probably something more like 3-4.

 

[Rudeboy]

I'm not trying to pitch you luxury liner or any other product, but luxury liner is a 1 lb/ft² vinyl layer bonded to foam. You want the 1 lb/ft² more than you want the foam. Any foam - RAAM's or anyone else's is going to perform similarly to the underlayment. It's best for isolating adjacent panels like plastic trim and sheet metal.

If you just go with the vibration damper, you will eliminate a lot of resonance and make a small dent in noise intrusion. That's actually a pretty good result and very useful to do. It's when you want to really bring the noise floor down that things get more expensive. If road, engine, exhaust and other noises aren't driving the guy crazy, save the money and just treat the resonance. You can always come back to it later.

 

[Dougie085]

Yeah we got a bunch of vibration dampener, I feel we should do some kind of extra noise treatments though. I had thought about getting some 1/2" thick OC703 compressed fiberglass panels haha. I don't know if anyone here has done that but it works really well but I'm not sure if I could get it any cheaper then luxury liner.

 

[Rudeboy]

Thing is, most of the noise you are concerned with in a car is in the 50-250Hz range and that's just about impossible to absorb with the space we have available in a car. It really needs to be blocked and that requires mass. Since space is so limited, we really need density. People have used heavy rubber sheeting used for roofing and other things to get there.

 

[capnxtreme]

You can use many layers of green laminate underlying, it it very similar to neoprene. If you put silicone between those layers, it might exceed characteristics of commercially available deadeners.

1) No.
2) Barriers are not deadeners.
3) CCF and neoprene are not barriers.

Luxury Liner is just 1/4" CCF + 1/8" MLV. If you are concerned about the cost, try to find a good deal on MLV.

 

[Dougie085]

I don't know guess I'll have to think on this a bit. Is regular luxury liner even really adequate? Kind of looks more like a closed cell foam but you say it has a vinyl layer.

There as some heavy Vinyl on ebay I saw that was 1lb per sqft I believe.

REINFORCED ACOUSTIC SOUND PROOFING BARRIER GRAY 135 SF - eBay (item 110373863699 end time Apr-13-09 12:24:47 PDT)

Doesn't seem like it's very thick though.

 

[capnxtreme]

Thickness doesn't matter. Mass does.

You can look up the specs on LL vs. LLP for yourself and see that the barrier layer is identical. LL uses OCF as the "decoupler" and LLP uses CCF.

 

[Rudeboy]

I don't know guess I'll have to think on this a bit. Is regular luxury liner even really adequate? Kind of looks more like a closed cell foam but you say it has a vinyl layer.

There as some heavy Vinyl on ebay I saw that was 1lb per sqft I believe.

REINFORCED ACOUSTIC SOUND PROOFING BARRIER GRAY 135 SF - eBay (item 110373863699 end time Apr-13-09 12:24:47 PDT)

Doesn't seem like it's very thick though.

Thickness is almost irrelevant when it comes to blocking sound - Mass and to some extent density are what you care about.. The difference between LL and LLP is that LL uses open cell foam and LLP uses closed cell foam. Closed cell is more durable and will compress less under load. That's it.

 

[Dougie085]

So using 2-3 layers of that vinyl would work really well then? Although it is approaching the price of LL. Wonder how well a layer for like 1/2" or 3/8" thick compressed fiberglass with a layer of the vinyl over it would work. I know you said it's hard to absorb in a car but surely it can't hurt. Just thinking out loud really.

 

[Rudeboy]

So using 2-3 layers of that vinyl would work really well then? Although it is approaching the price of LL. Wonder how well a layer for like 1/2" or 3/8" thick compressed fiberglass with a layer of the vinyl over it would work. I know you said it's hard to absorb in a car but surely it can't hurt. Just thinking out loud really.

No, it doesn't hurt to absorb some high frequencies along the way. The idea of the foam is to isolate the barrier from the substrate, but that seems to be more theoretical than real when you're only dealing with a 1/4" foam/air space.

The problem with buying MLV in bulk is shipping. The roll you linked weighs 135 lbs which puts it out of UPS shipping and into the freight category. That's the biggest problem with something that weighs 1 lb/ft². You either want to order exactly what you need or find a local supplier.

 

[Dougie085]

Yeah I was wondering if someone local would sell it for about the same price or would I expect paying much much more?

 

[rain27]

So is there any consensus on what material to use to quiet down a car? I have to LLP and ensolite to try. I now hear ensolite won't do anything from reading some of these threads. Maybe I should have bought a used Lexus instead of a new Honda. What makes a luxury car quiet and why can't this be recreated in another car by using the same materials??? Why is this so difficult?