Gordon's DIY Fiberglass Wall Panels
Ok, so I had some problems with my SL3's sounding somewhat bright in my theater / basement. When watching movies, my wife kept saying "what did he say"? etc, so I was not very happy with having a hard time hearing the center channel clearly... I searched these forums and found out that I need some kind of absorption behind the center. I threw some pillows behind the center to test it out and it immediately changed the sound for the better. I know I had to do something permanent that looks decent as well so here we go... ( I talked about this in another thread).
After some great advice in this forum I decided to tackle my acoustical issues myself, as I am pretty impatient and need immediated satisfaction!
I went to Lowes and bought a box of 12 Armstrong Contractor series ceiling panels. They only have one type that is made out of fiberglass with a white decorative textured film on the front. The box of 12 was $80 and each sheet is 24x48, which is exactly how wide the area is between my screen and side walls so no cutting for me. Since I did not want to turn this into a huge project (because then the wife usually gets suspicious!) I decided not to build any frames for these as the boards in themselves are rigid enough to have fabric stretched around them.
For each 24x48 finished panel you will need the following:
- 3 ceiling panels
- about 1 yard of "speaker cloth" bought at Han**** Fabrics
- spray adhesive ( DURO - i bought at lowes)
I started by removing the white plastic facing in order to have the fiberglass on both sides. It just pulls right off with no big effort. I sandwiched the 3 boards on top of one another, layed them on top of the black speaker cloth I had precut at the store, sprayed some adhesive on the fiberglass and folded the edges over and pulled everything nice and tight and voila! You do NOT need to glue the front of the panels, just put glue on the back so the speaker cloth has something to grab onto. It holds surprisingly well... Folding the corners is always a pain, but since my wall around my screen is black, it was not that much of an issue! Now, that they are mounted on the wall, they are pretty invisible!
I attached the panels to the wall left and right of the screen, and also in the 14" space below my screen, right behind my "Theater" center speaker. I just used a few finishing nails on the top and bottom of the panels to kind of squeeze the panels in place and that worked great for me.
All in all I spent $80 for the box of ceiling tiles, $20 for fabric, and $3 for glue. Also I had some panels left over that I ended up using in my furnace room that is right behind my theater, and also in the back of my equipment cabinet to soak up the sounds of the fan from my Cable Receiver, etc...
Result: Going in I was afraid that treating the walls behind the speakers would degrade sound of thes Dipolar speakers - not so. The sound is still crystal clear, but a TON more detailed and alot easier to understand. You do not have to turn up your system to be able to hear clear dialogue when watching movies. It simply feels like you are now listening to a huge wall of speakers, and the soundstage seems like it expands 10' beyond my speakers.
It took about 1.5 hours from start to finish and was well worth it. THis is probably the best bang for your buck cheap fix for a $100 you will ever be able to make in this crazy hobby / obsession of ours!
If you try to do this, good luck! It is very easy and offers great results for minimum expense!
gordon
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Bernard
) 
Update
