Are there cost-effective alternatives to fancy looking acoustic treatments? I'm mainly talking about things that are used to eliminate first reflections and not bass traps.

What makes the acoustic treatments work so well? Can they just absorb a lot of sound at all frequencies? The material just works a lot better than say, a blanket or something?

I'm asking because I'm a college student in a college student's apartment, and I don't need something that looks good. I just need something that gets the job done, as cost-effective as possible.

Thanks.

A raw insulation board will be about the best price/performance you can get and it most certainly does not look good but will work better than a blanket. But that is why you spend more money for fabric and framing - looks.

You can buy a bunch of R-13 fiberglass or mineral wool at the home depot, and hang on the wall at the reflection points. It'll work very well. It's kind of itchy, though -- you probably want to seal it up with some cloth around it.

A better alternative, without busting the budget, is getting compressed fiberglass boards, such as Owens-Corning 703, and wrapping that in cloth. A good source online for those things is ATS Acoustics (http://www.atsacoustics.com/). I got both cloth and 703 board from there -- it was actually cheaper than my local 703 distributor.
A yard of cloth for $8, a single SAFB board for $8, some shipping and some glue puts you around $20 per board. Without necessarily scaring away the college chicks :-)

You can get some rough idea of what to expect by finding absorption coefficients for different materials. E.g.:

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/pages/Coefficient%20Chart.htm
http://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/acoustic_IOI/101_13.htm

Mineral wool or rigid fiberglass is your best bet for bang-for-the-buck: it'll absorb more energy across a wider spectrum than pretty much anything else you'll commonly find (just compare the coefficients for fiberglass vs. draperies, rugs, etc.). However, rugs, blankets, drapes, etc. all can help; those coefficients are much better than bare surfaces, at least at 500Hz and above. If you're on a college campus and everyone's moving out right around now you might be able to get a ton of stuff for next to free when people abandon their dorm rooms. Hang some thick blankets or carpets on your wall and see how well you can do; maybe it'll be good enough for now. There's a good chance you'll kill off some flutter echoes and ringing.

I don't know how you can get cheaper than DIY fiberglass board panels. You can make them as fancy-looking or plain-looking as you want.

You can always get the fluffy fiberglass, leave it in the bags and stack it floor to ceiling in the corners. That will work as a bass trap for you.

Glenn

leave it in the bags and stack it floor to ceiling in the corners

The bags will make sure they don't over-dampen the high end. Genious!

It also guarantees never getting a date back to your college apt - but some small sacrifice during your college years for good sound must be made.....even though in a couple decades you will be saying - I could have been dating college coeds had I not been such a geek! But maybe by then the internet porn will be in holographic 3D and will be a good enough substitute for non-existent memories.

But anyways when I said insulation boards I meant the compressed fiberglass or rockwool. Don't use the pink foam ones used on basement walls - that will guarantee bad sound as well as no dates...

uhh..... okay kras..... :eek: