Sound dampener/deadener secrets

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Flex68
10+ year member

dilligaf
^^^^ Give me some!

Not really asking about the best or cheapest brand (tho comments to that effect are fine, and your choice), but how much of what is really enuff?

I got a quote from a guy who has a good rep and knows his stuff.

Unfortunately, the quote he sent on dampening/deadening the beast in my sig kinda shocked me, $ wise.

Made me wonder if there were reasonable corners I could cut and still get decent results....?

(My truck is just a daily driver with an SQ-leaning system, I'm not planning to do any competitions, and he is a dealer, after all....)

With that being noted, here's what was suggested for the '08 Dodge Ram quad cab:

75 CLD Tiles

1 roll Extruded Butyl Rope

1 85.5 ft² roll MLV

2 sheets 1/4" CCF

6 sheets 1/8" CCF

47.5 ft² 3M Thinsulate Acoustic

2 Velcro Strips, adh. 2 sides, 10-pack

1 Velcro Strips, adh. 2 sides, 2-pac

1 32 oz can HH-66 Vinyl Contact Cement

Do you think this is about as little as can be done, or are there things that can be dropped or redone as reasonable corner-cutting measures?

Not trying to suggest that I want to buy a box of BandAids , cover the interior panels, and call that deadening....just wondering if other's experience might indicate the above is a bit much/overkill?

Thanks!

 
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Depends on how quiet you want to get. Cld will help deaden vibrations which is a good start, the rest is for actual sound deadening. You don't have to do it all at once if you want to save a little money but there's no real corner cutting without sacrificing quality. If the quote you got was from Don at SDS then you can trust his knowledge and be sure his products are great.

 
If the quote you got was from Don at SDS then you can trust his knowledge and be sure his products are great.
I am one of those people who generally questions everything, and this whole topic may have already been hashed-out to the same degree as the Richard Clark premise that all-amplifiers-are-the-same...if so, I apologize.

However, I have no experience with deadening/dampening a vehicle, and don't know if the quote for materials I was given (not confirming or denying it was from Don //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif ) was tops, middle, or lower end requirements for max results in my particular ride.... and I dislike assuming!

Even if the quote was from the be-all, end-all guru from the 'quieting' end of car audio, it still brings up the following questions/concerns:

If one assumes it was the maximum or the 100th percentile of what is required, how much difference would there be in a non-competition, daily driver if I went with, say, 75%? Or even 50%?

How much difference in the SQ of my system would there be, or at what point would one aurally detect the "lack?"

Is there a general "rule of thumb" for what percentage of surface area needs tiles? Mat? Door coverage vs/ roof or floor?

Is there some scientific basis for what one applies, or does it come down to more of a trial-and-error kind of thing? How does one generally determine a "starting point" to work from?

Just hoping to get a few perspectives from others who have more experience and knowledge than do I ! (And that isn't hard, lol)

But I would prefer to hear from you guys and your "independent" or "real-world" experiences rather than simply accepting what some dealer sent me in an email....

Lots of questions, I know! Hope my post/ignorance doesn't offend anyone's sensibilities...just trying to learn!

 
When I contacted Don at SDS he got me a similar list of materials. He recommends no more product than you need to do an excellent, comprehensive job at sound deadening and creating an effective, tested and proven sound barrier. You don't just get the right products, you get incredible customer service as well.

 
Sure looks like Don since "CLD Tile" is a proprietary product name and because I remember writing the quote //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

I approach quotes like this in a few basic ways. If it's for an SPL system, I usually suggest that sound deadening isn't likely to be a good solution. If it's for a quieter ride or a more SQ kind of project I have a pretty consistent approach. I usually preface quotes like this with: "Here's what I would do -". I never really explain that, so this is a good opportunity.

My goal is primarily to make the vehicle a lot quieter, without going crazy. I try to cut along the line of diminishing returns. As an example, I advocate lining the door inner skin with barrier materials. If you have door mounted speakers, there performance will be increased because the barrier isolates the front and rear waves. Inner skin placement is almost always best for blocking noise intrusion because it puts noise entering through the front, rear top and bottom of the doors behind the barrier. Some additional gains can be had by also lining the outer door skin. This also makes it harder to hear door mounted speakers outside the car. I never recommend this additional step unless the potential customer specifically asks for a benefit it provides or specifically tells me they want to go over the top.

A similar case is CCF and MLV on the roof. A barrier is there to block noise hitting the vehicle in a straight line. There aren't enough noise sources directly overhead to justify this. I did have one customer who spent all day driving his truck on airport runways and a roof barrier made sense for him.

Something that pushes the price up and has caused me some concern is the inclusion of 3M Thinsulate Acoustic. I started using this on roofs and was amazed at the results. It's an incredibly effective absorber of middle to high frequency noise. Using it makes a very noticeable reduction in noise levels. These are texts a customer sent me as he was installing it:

June 21, 11:03 AM

Got the roof liner back on with the thinsulate and it seems to not only help with external noise but also absorbs reflected sound inside the car.

June 21, 11:16 AM

What an awesome product.

June 21, 4:54 PM

my car is seriously like the fortress of solitude.

June 21, 4:55 AM

it is so quiet inside it's unbelievable.

Brandon

Now I've started using it to line door trim panels - as has Acura //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif It's an amazing decoupler and soaks up even more noise. It's also an excellent thermal insulator, so that';s a nice side benefit. You can get good results without it, but the results have been better every time I've used it so I include it by default.

All of this trouble to reduce noise levels goes beyond just having a quieter vehicle, not that having a quiet vehicle isn't really nice and the sole objective of many of my customers. Some of my customers are competitors and have special needs. The vast majority just want to listen to good music when they are driving. That's where the noise comes from. Your stereo will probably sound quite good when you're parked with the engine off after just adding some vibration damper.

When you're moving the noise coming in interferes with the music. Say you're watching TV and your wife or girlfriend is sitting next to you talking about something that doesn't interest you at all. That chatter makes it hard to concentrate on what you';re watching. Noise does the same thing to music. You turn the volume up to cover the noise and push your sound system into distortion and end up listening at a higher level than you want. I am 100% convinced that the single best thing you can do for musical fidelity is to reduce noise levels. Doesn't matter if it's a stock system or much more. Doesn't matter if you like it quiet or loud. Music sounds better with out the junk noise mixed in.

I never know how my quotes are going to be met. I get about as many: "That's way more than I expected" as I get: "That's a lot less than I expected". I believe in economizing by reducing the areas being treated instead of pulling a layer back from everything. The doors are generally the best bang for the buck. If you have an aggressive exhaust, the floor and trunk or floor and back wall in a pickup make sense as the first step.

After that I'll usually go to the roof since it's a large, resonant panel directly over your head. I'm reluctant not to put Thinsulate on the roof because it is so effective and the roof is usually hard enough to get to that I don't want to go there twice. Eliminating the Thinsalate from the doors is a reasonable cost saving measure - especially since it's relatively easy to go back in and add it later if you want.

One last thing to consider is the amount of work involved in a project like this. It's not easy. I can treat most vehicle in one really long and really hard day but I have done it many times. Most people should expect to put 2-3 days into the job. It doesn't have to be all at once, but expect that much time. You are basically rebuilding a vehicle to do something it wasn't designed to do. It's not something you want to do more times than you need to.

 
Sure looks like Don since "CLD Tile" is a proprietary product name and because I remember writing the quote //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif
CraaaP!! Shudda tooken that out! lol

Oh, well. I was hoping for good advice/comments on the quote that were "independent" of the very comprehensive and professional email you sent, but its all good. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/suave.gif.858fc102f7646e678ee8af7e1fbc41d1.gif

I definitely do appreciate your nice explanation here, too, tho.

Maybe one day I will have a clearer understanding of some of the "why's" and can answer my own questions from the post, above.

(I feel sure there is a scientific basis for the percentage of coverage, size/wt of the tiles, thickness of the mat, etc, etc. Or, to copy the lingo you used, learning the sweet spot that is just inside that point of "diminishing returns")

You'll prolly see my order placed before too long, lol.

Thanks!

 
Not stalking you - with luck more people will chime in. The science behind this pretty simple. It only gets complicated when you try to convince people to do things that don't work. 25% is definitely the sweet spot for vibration damper. Below that and you'll notice a reduction in performance. More than that and you won't hear any improvement. That's the standard in every field except aftermarket automotive.

The concept behind 100% barrier coverage below the glass line is simple too. Sound will bend around obstacles and find the openings so you want to minimize the number and size.

 
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Flex68

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dilligaf
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