Righty guys, does anyone have any experience with sound dampening foam? From what I can see there are 4 options out there Silverstone SF01 Silence foam pad. sells for £11 for a single sheet of dimensions : 530 x 380 x 4 mm Acoustipack Ultimate pack - sells for £32 for a pack with dimensions 457 x 431mm x 7/4mm King Mod Premium Noise Damping Kit For Midi Tower Cases - sells for £35 a pack including 2x insulating mats 400 x 400 x 10 mm (WxHxD) and 4x insulation mats 400 x 200 x 10 mm (WxHxD) Akasa AK-PAX-2 PaxMate II Acoustic Sound Proofing Kit - sells for £13 for 2 pieces 50 x 35cm and 2 pieces 50 x 18cm Now. I'm tempted to go for the Akasa, because generally their products are ok nowadays (love the Akasa Apaches and EL lighting kits), and also because its about a third of the cost of the others. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch, so I'm wondering if I should be investing more money in one of the above. Anyone have any ideas/opinion/personal problems they want to get off their chest? My needs are: 3x 34 x 44cm pieces 1x 34 x 34cm piece
Dynamat is pretty good. I've used it quite a lot in car audio builds. What was left over from various car audio builds, ended up being used in my rigs at home. Works quite well. You can pick up cheap versions of this from most car body shops for little cash.
Have you looked at the second hand market? You could probably pick up leftover sheets on craigslist and such for dirt cheap. My brother has used dynamat in his car for stereo stuff in the trunk and door panels and it does work, be noted it is heavy. My fractal case came with it built in and not sure how great it works but it does add some weight to the case.
Oh man, I've just spent about 4 hours ripping that stuff out of the case. Its ugly as hell. Maybe Dynamode with the Akasa stuff on top? The Acoustipack stuff weighs 1.3Kg for three sheets. So that probably works in the same way as the Dynamode stuff.
I've used this and while it's effective (to a point) at 15mm it's quite thick. It is cheap compared to most of the other products. However while it does a good job of helping to dampen down some noise it doesn't obviously do anything for case fans that vent directly in/out of the case. It's also a real bu**er to remove, virtually impossible to remove the adhesive mat part in fact.
Yes, I've found the same with the Akasa stuff (case had a little bit on that I had to take off to spray paint it). Took about 2 hours of scrubbing and white spirit. Eventually resorted to Goo Gone which was slightly more effective.
Sound dampening works... but it dampens, not sound proof. Also sound will able to escape where you have holes (fans). So it only helps reduce system noise. It's no miracle product, it's the kind of stuff you want to use with a combination of other things like: -> Steal case -> HDD vibration absorption system -> Case has pads that absorbs the computer vibrations -> Better fans -> Set fans at lower speeds -> Improved cable management (remove all wires that pass though the case air flow -> Better case.
Things to remember with sound proofing or damping mats to give them their correct name is that they will simply reduce the wavelength of a given sound not stop it. I compete in a UK car audio championship so im well used to this stuff. Dynamat is a good but expensive start, cheaper options would be second skin 2 or 4mm i think its about £20 for a pack of 8 A3 ish sheets plenty for a PC case. That will deaden the panels reducing vibrations etc. over the top of that you want a foam layer a closed cell layer which will absorb airbourne sounds. To give you an idea you tap a normal car door it sound like knocking a metal drum that clangy sound, knock mine it just goes thud. Couple of links for you this is actually what i have in my car http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/silent-coat-door-kit.html http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/silent-coat-isolator-12.html If you look in the deadening section theres a whole host of solutions to choose from. Your best off with a two layer solution to create a mass load effect which will provide the largest reduction in noise. Bear in mind the sound will still escape via fan holes and vents. Only way i can see round that is baffles but that is a huge amount of work
Quite like the look of that. I'm tempted to put something like this over my dynamat on the rear wings, rear bulkhead and boot lid. That's after I've traced the source of a rattle at about 40Hz. Drives me insane. Nearly everything is velcro'd up, so I'm really struggling. You got any links to pics of your setup?
Wow, thank you very much for that! I’m aware that it’s very hard to maintain absolute silence. That said, I would like to get as close to it as possible. I’ll have a very aggressive fan solution in place using the BigNG fan controller, and water cooling using a 360mm and a 120mm rad setup, so it won’t be a loud rig by any means. The case I have at the moment is steel, and cube shaped. As a result it has several 1.2mm thick panels that basically act like a drum. However, I’ve found sound isolating sheets to be very expensive so far and I’m trying to keep my spend round about £30
I've used hard packing foam for sound dampening before. I think this time after the reactive armor goes on I'm going to upholster the interior of the side panels. Should function a lot like Dynamat.
Question - Does the sound dampening material not work as insulation making for higher temps in the case ? Also - Does the corresponding decrease in the cases internal volume not also help raise temps ?
I have 2x 120mm fans pushing cool air into the case, so should be fine when it comes to temps. I'd say the increase will be nothing to get concerned about.
Just get some tin peel from B&Q, it's essentially the same as dynamat, it's about £9 for a huge role (to cover a house roof). Alternatively buy a p182, nothing gets close. Also it's worth remembering that good old tin-foil is extremely effective at sound deadening, particualy when coupled with foam deadening talked about so far.
