Listen Up: Before & After Acoustic Sound Panels + EnduraFab

In October, we announced the new acoustic rating for EnduraFab textiles for sound absorption and noise reduction when used with an acoustic board or foam. So Ryan Moore, Vice President of DFMGraphics in Newnan, Ga., decided to put EnduraFab™ Frontlit Premier to the test.

DFMGraphics uses an HP Latex 335 for printing EnduraFab panels.

Moore’s operation includes office space, printing facilities and a recording studio. “Everything in here is a hard edge, and sound is bouncing back and forth,” he says. “When you’re on the phone, you can hear people talking in the background.” Worse, when recording music, sounds would reverberate, echo and distort the clean sound he was looking for.

“I looked into buying panels, but the cost was too much, and I knew there’s got to be something I could print on,” he says. His LexJet representative mentioned EnduraFab, which, when mounted on an acoustic board, would trap the extraneous sounds in the panel. He paired EnduraFab™ Frontlit Premier with Rockboards from Rockwool. In his 855 square-foot room, he constructed three acoustic panels using 3/4-inch flooring plywood, 4 pieces of RockBoard 4’x2’x2” glued to the wood, then wrapped the whole thing with printed EnduraFab.

Moore installed three of the panels in the room, and immediately noticed a significant noise reduction, both when someone was speaking or when playing an instrument. “You can really hear it,” he says. “You can immediately hear my voice without any echo.”

He used fun music-related graphics for the panels, including a photo from a Nirvana concert, installed over his HP Latex 335 printer; an abstract grouping of speakers with the musical instruments and a collection of retro mix tapes in a utility area.

“The EnduraFab prints great — the color is perfect,” he says, noting some trial-and-error with profile settings. After installing the panels, he quickly received a new order from a customer for printed acoustic panels to be used in a small room to record YouTube videos.

For an ultimate test, he recorded himself speaking and playing a snare drum to illustrate the reverb and echo reduction. Take a listen below:

BEFORE Acoustic panels were installed:

 

AFTER Acoustic panels were installed:

 

If you have questions about using EnduraFab for acoustic panels, give a LexJet print specialist a call at 800-453-9538.