Ready to put Linacoustic on side walls of my new theater and my wife asked if we could use velour over it instead of GOM. My responce to her was I would ask you guys. We allready have 35 yards of material left over from curtains she made in my theater in old house.

Thanks,
Steve :rolleyes:

I would thin no because whatever you put over the linacoustic needs to be acoustically transparent.

Velour would just make it a padded wall....

Velour is too heavy, I used stretch velvet which IS acoustically transparent when stretched. it is thinner and passes the blow test. It has worked fine for me. but I think the velour if in fact that is what it is would be too heavy for that purpose. now for diffussion etc. in curtains or another part of the theater they would work ok but you want the sound to pass through to the linacoustic not bounce off.

Another thing to consider...make sure any fabric you put on your walls is fire rated. That's one reason many use GOM, it's fire rated and fairly acoustically transparent.

Guy

I would thin no because whatever you put over the linacoustic needs to be acoustically transparent.



Actually I think it just needs to be non-reflective. If it absorbs some of the sound on it's own that is fine.

If the velvet only passes 60% of the sound and absorbs 40% (just for example) then what net difference is it compared to something that passes 95%. You need to measure the net of the two materials and the effect on the sound. Plenty of people have used wall materials that weren't strictly "transparent" with good results.

You just need to be careful over speakers.

Where is Ethan for the definitive answer?

Well it depends on what freq. you are wanting to absorb. Velour is probably not the same as linacoustic....acoustically.

just a thought...

Well thanks for the replys; I was just wishing I could use something I allready had. If any one has a counter thought on using the velour let me know. But it looks like I will need to get the GOM.
Steve

Since people usually don't put any absorption on the walls above ear level, maybe you could work the fabric in above that level.

Tim

Eh... we used a fabric (http://caesare.homeip.net:32171/basement/slides/IMG_2128.htm) that was not rated for it's accoustical properties. It's not as heavy as full velour, but it has some velour-like patterns on it.

We allied it over the linacoustic on the bottom as well as the batting on the top. While I don't have any GOM to compare it to, in my room it sounds great after I calibrate my AVR.

Actually I think it just needs to be non-reflective. If it absorbs some of the sound on it's own that is fine.

Where is Ethan for the definitive answer?

I believe I have seen this concept before in another thread. My question is how do you tell if a fabric is reflective (besides setting up a lab in the fabric store).

I would also like a definitive answer from an acoustics expert!

Steve, you could always wrap yourself and your wife in the velour when watching movies.
Just a thought.

Milt99 now there's the best use of the velour yet!
Thanks
Steve

Steve--you work for the Chicago PBS station?

Fatawan, Yes I do.
Steve

Do you know Bob Dove? He's a neighbor of mine.

I don't know if it's good or bad, but I did black Velour over rockwool.

http://www.bobgolds.com/LivingRoomPlasma/Construction/home.htm
(scroll down about 70% of the way. Sorry about the lots of pictures...)

Spot,
Yes I've worked with Bob for over 26 year. He a very great guy on the audio side of TV.
Steve

Actually I think it just needs to be non-reflective. If it absorbs some of the sound on it's own that is fine ... Where is Ethan for the definitive answer?

You nailed it. Acoustically "transparent" fabric is needed only for speaker grill cloth, not for covering absorber panels. As long as the material is not dense and reflective it will work fine. If it absorbs a little more on its own, that's okay.

--Ethan

Ethan Winer:

As long as the material is not ... reflective it will work fineThat's the tricky part, and the reason for the "if you can breath through it, it's fine" rule. If you can't breath through it, you have to think.

You can't breath through my black velour. It might be ok though. The velour itself might absorb high frequencies and pass low -- but I'll bet there's a freuency region that's reflected a bit. It might be colouring my sound, but I haven't done any measurements.

I'll bet there's a freuency region that's reflected a bit. It might be colouring my sound, but I haven't done any measurements.

This is easy to test yourself using ETF - as I'm sure you know! :D

--Ethan