Spring-Loaded Screw Turns Drywall Into Sound-Absorbing Panels
This looks promising for a 9db reduction in sound escape in homes.
Apparently the spring loaded screw acts as a dampener of sound vibrations that hit a regular dry-wall.In principle, the screw is split in the middle with a spring placed inside. The screw tip goes into the wooden joist, the head holds the plasterboard in place and in between a thin resilient mechanical coupling that prevents the sound waves from advancing is formed.
This has already been posted , discussed, and generally panned as anywhere ranging from skepticism to snake oil in alternate forums. Mostly cuz it doesn’t measure to North American ratings standards.
Whenever I read the sneering comments of "engineers" I am always reminded that they are the same geniuses who gave us the Titanic and the Tacoma Narrows bridge.
I'll wait for actual tests. I cannot see how it will work but that by no means it doesn't.
Click the link, look at the graph. It shows sound transmission rising from 400 to 4kHz. Has anyone ever heard sound coming through a wall? Does it sound like this? No. It is the exact opposite- the wall blocks higher frequencies more than lower. Even the graph of a supposedly normal wall is total BS.
Also, just look at the screws. Anyone ever see a drywall screw? Anyone? Beuller? What a joke. Thanks OP, but no thanks.
What is holding the drywall in place? Do you tighten it until the head is below the the surface, like a normal DW screw?
That means the panel has only one side of the drywall paper pinched with a springy thing on top of a tapered screw head through the drywall.
The head of the screw, even though it doesn't move, the dry wall actually does, from the design I see. IF the drywall isn't against the studs there is a huge loss in fire protection between studs, but also stud to domicile. I don't think it could meet fire code, to tell the truth..
The only thing i can add is that you could use those for a false wall in front of your existing wall filled with 6 inches of insulation to really deaden the sound a massive amount.
The drywall is already tightly screwed to the studs or joists. The drywall will vibrate based on the dampening effect of the studs or joists, the thickness of the drywall and the size of the open area of the drywall that is not secured against the joists / studs. Any loosening will just allow the drywall to vibrate even more since it will lose the dampening effect of the joist / stud.
Rather than trying to use the walls to damp reflections, why not try complex diffusers. Lots of different kinds. My favorites are artificial Ficus trees. 5 footers work well in my room. They are about $40 each purchased from the "At Home" store. I bought about 15 of them and they have killed the sonic problems in my room except for a slight bloom in a narrow band of the bass. Other A'goners have reported similar positive results.
Double 5/8" sheetrock with green glue sandwiched in the middle. Proven technology. Install it on offset studs or resilient channels with sound isolation clips and that's a good start.
"Quiet Rock" is a sound-deadening drywall that absolutely kills sound transmission. Expensive, but works incredibly in common-wall situations. Interestingly, the sound within the room changes as well - like being in an adobe building. Very little sound reflection.
I saw this press release and was thinking of posting it here. Philip I'm looking at Quietrock and similar alternatives for a room I mix music and play Vdrums in to stop complaints from neighbors. When I was redoing a kitchen I had the contractor use double walls and green glue in between but I doubt it was installed correctly. The quiet rock is a much better alternative since it isn't as much installation dependent.
I saw this many, many years ago and it looks inexpensive (comparatively) and not too difficult to put up. http://www.mother-of-tone.com/acoustic_panel.htm There's no need to order it from Germany as you can get spruce wood panels just about anywhere.
I had the fortune or misfortune of rebuilding my house over the last five years. I went through great lengths for acoustics! I have six inches of closed cell foam in the floors. Floors are cork. Closed cell insulation in all exterior walls. Open cell in the attic! Then rolled acoustic fiberglass in all the trusses from one end to the other. Insulated all interior walls with acoustic grade fiberglass! Solid core interior doors. All double pain low e glass. All equaled an extremely quiet house with excellent bass control. A bit extreme, but while I was at it, I figured that it was the time!😎
The screw start absorb at 250 Hz to 4000 Hz according to their measurements that they show from a specific part of a chart (what happens below 250 Hz?!).
Anyway what we know is that those rather high frequency is what are the easiest ones to treat. So some of the benefit is that we do not need that much high frequency treatment that physical is rather thin in comparison to what we need to use below 250 Hz..
The real benefits for us audiophiles is that those screws dampening BELLOW 250 Hz. That is those vibrations that go to the structure/studs underneath the dry wall and to other rooms/neighbors.
And below 250 Hz is where the bass traps need to be intrusive thick in our homes there where the real benefits would be nice to see.
For audiophiles i believe it is of a limited when/if ordernary 2"-4" panels can be used. With those ordernary panels you can adjust the placement and the amount of panels to get the level or reverberation that you like.
You do not want to overasorb and get a dead sounding room. That may be a risk that we end up with with those screws-springs. IF that happens what should you do then.. put up some panels that are hard as floor tiles so you get some reflections back into your listening space.. 🤔
But for comersial spaces they have a great advantage for spech and all the nasty sounds.
View link in new window while you read 1:The screw thread goes into the wood. 2:The bottom cup also countersinks itself into the surface of the wood 3:The spring section is within the drywall chalk section 4:And the last slightly wider head is suppose to hang on to the whole sheet weight?????? (to me, not for long it wont unless maybe there’s one at max every 2ft) and those things don’t look cheap. https://ibb.co/s2498dg
@emailists You are correct, the install was probably not done properly. In my slightly over 2700 cubic feet listening room, we used 71 large cartridges of green glue and 21 of sealant. For those who think quietrock is expensive, think again. Conventional double sheetrock/green glue construction verses quiet rock will end up costing you twice as much. But you get what you pay for. On top of that quietrock does not work well in ceiling applications. In my house of stereo, I can play NIN hesitation marks at 90 dbs and there is zero vibration outside the room. If you love bass and want to keep it inside, there is no compromise. You can see some of the construction process laid out in my house of stereo system.
Engineering gave us margarine. marketing got people to eat it when animals would not. Engineering gave us synthetic tech fibers that cost half the price of natural fiber cotton, marketing convinced people to pay more money for a product that was cheaper to make and does the same thing. Get the idea here.
I say Quietrock. I built my 2-channel room with Quietrock 545 - more than an inch thick, with embedded sheet steel.
Not cheap - but cost-effective. The quality of the silence is remarkable - actually, most people DO remark on it as soon as they enter. As a bonus, the company is very good to deal with.
It's important to distinguish sound in the listening room from sound transmitted outside it. It's easy to reduce sound transmission by allowing the drywall to flex or otherwise move. BUT that turns the walls into passive woofers moving out of phase with the speakers, and that's not good.
Quietrock solves both problems. Not cheap - but cost-effective.
Built 3 custom homes, all on a self-proposed budget. This one has 3 exterior walls, ( all exterior walls in the home are 2 X 6 ). Exterior is brick, air gap, 1" styroboard foil both sides, 2X6 ( 5.5" rockwool insulation ), 2 layers (1/2" each ) of " Soundstop fiberboard, screwed in 2 separate layers, then finished with 5/8" sheetrock. 8 foot movable record shelves adorn 2/3 of the side walls. Soundlab 945 Majestics, SALLIE rear attenuators, Movable listening furniture, live plants......all-analogue.
Hello, I don’t think this is a good idea. Drywall already has this kind of property. They already have the green glue and it just works a little. Take on the reflection points with room treatments and then work on the bass. That is the most important.
I hate to respond so far down a thread but this one is too silly to ignore.
Screws don't absorb sound energy. Screws don't impart the ability for an underlying material to absorb sound energy. All screws can do is anchor an underlying material and inhibit vibration; in this example to the wood framing supporting the drywall. Wood framing doesn't absorb sound energy (much) either but can make an effective diffuser IF you use enough wood and if you don't have drywall in the way.
A room must ABSOLUTELY BE COMPLETELY DEAD in order to NOT distort the recorded signal. ANY room contribution to the sound is a distortion.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No thanks, MUST absolutely be WHAT?
You ever been in a room like that? Maybe a speaker test or two, but to listen in a room like that.. Forget it.. You’re WAY off fella.. Horrible at best.. DEAD really does describe that type of sound.. It SUCKS...
NO room is a much better idea that THAT room.. Just sayin' :-)
@bpoletti wrote: A room must ABSOLUTELY BE COMPLETELY DEAD in order to NOT distort the recorded signal. ANY room contribution to the sound is a distortion.
Anything other than a DEAD room will distort the sound. Absorbers, diffusers and the like need to be strategically placed in the room to deaden it.
Yes, you are right: "ABSOLUTELY BE COMPLETELY DEAD in order to NOT distort" That is a ANECHOIC CHAMBER you are describing. Nobody wants to listen to music there.
"Absorbers, diffusers and the like need to be strategically placed in the room to deaden it." You will NOT achieve any anechoic chamber in anyway, even if you place the best ones and as strategic as you can in a room you will get distortion anyway. If not you not are building a anechoic chamber in your room and that is your goal. Then it is another story.
I use DEAD and LIVELY wording to describe the SOUND as dead or dry with lower amount of higher frequencies that are absorbed than the bass and lower mids are not. Lively it is the opposite think of it as a empty echoing room there allot of the sound are bouncing around for a long time. We humans prefer something in the middle. (A room with furnitures)
Stop a second and think on it if you close your eyes and step in to a big church. Your ears will tell your brain you have just stepped into a big room/space when it has long reverberation times. Keep your eyes closed and step into a ordernary room. Your ears will tell your brain that it is a smaller space. In other words your ears tells your brain the size of the space you are in (how far away the walls/boundaries are). And the eyes are also doing the same when looking. So two senses acting together and confirming their input to the brain all the time when we're awake.
Now go into a anechoic chamber.. it will be a strange and new/weird experience for your brain. Your eyes tell your brain the size of the room but your ears tells the brain that this is a really BIG space that are enormous. When the ears are not getting any reflected sound back to them. Then that what is the brain compute the info from the ears.. data missmatch = confusing. (Plus other things but that is beside the point.)
That is only ONE point why you dont want to listen to music in a anechoic chamber just to defeat distortion. Distortion in room is not something you want to be NULL/0. Remember we ALWAYS have distortion/reflections from the walls when just talking to someone in a room. That IS the normal for our brain.
So my earlier comment were that in big spaces like restaurants, malls and so on there is a lot of higher frequencies produced that would be absorbed to a extent when using this special spring screws according to the graph. IF that works then maybe they do not need to invest in sound absorbers hanging down from the ceiling as often seen in those spaces were my though that is one use case for those..💖
@optimizerWhen room interact with recorded sound, the recorded sound is distorted. Period.
The BEST listening is in a dead room. Your statement that rooms should not be deadened is promoting that distortion. Period. It interferes with imaging, can upset the soundstage and changes musical instrument harmonics. Period.
Distortion in room is ABSOLUTELY something you want to be NULL. We must minimize distortion / reflections from the walls. Those quite simply interfere with the reproduction of the recorded signal. There will be reflected sound on that recording. We cannot add to that distortion by using a live rom.
There is nothing to say in rebuttal. If the goal is undistorted music exactly how it was recorded, then a dead listening room (or headphones that do exactly the same thing as a dead room) is the only way to go. Anything else is distorted.
DEAD ROOMS do not have to look like an anechoic chamber. They can be nicely decorated and pleasant.
When room interact with recorded sound, the recorded sound is distorted. Period.
The BEST listening is in a dead room. Your statement that rooms should not be deadened is promoting that distortion. Period. It interferes with imaging, can upset the soundstage and changes musical instrument harmonics. Period.
Distortion in room is ABSOLUTELY something you want to be NULL. We must minimize distortion / reflections from the walls. Those quite simply interfere with the reproduction of the recorded signal. There will be reflected sound on that recording. We cannot add to that distortion by using a live rom.
There is nothing to say in rebuttal. If the goal is undistorted music exactly how it was recorded, then a dead listening room (or headphones that do exactly the same thing as a dead room) is the only way to go. Anything else is distorted.
DEAD ROOMS do not have to look like an anechoic chamber. They can be nicely decorated and pleasant.
When room interact with recorded sound, the recorded sound is distorted. Period.
Yes that what i also said but I tried to say it more simple: when someone talk to you in a room then you have reflection or like you say distortion. That is the norm and what we are used to when it is normal. So yes no need for periods.😉
The BEST listening is in a dead room. Your statement that rooms should not be deadened is promoting that distortion. Period. It interferes with imaging, can upset the soundstage and changes musical instrument harmonics. Period
Distortion in room is ABSOLUTELY something you want to be NULL. We must minimize distortion / reflections from the walls. Those quite simply interfere with the reproduction of the recorded signal. There will be reflected sound on that recording. We cannot add to that distortion by using a live rom.
There is nothing to say in rebuttal. If the goal is undistorted music exactly how it was recorded, then a dead listening room (or headphones that do exactly the same thing as a dead room) is the only way to go. Anything else is distorted.
DEAD ROOMS do not have to look like an anechoic chamber. They can be nicely decorated and pleasant.
. I am not English speaking and it is not my first language. But here is the confusion. What you call a dead room and want to be NULL. That is ONLY obtained in a an anechoic chamber. EVERYTHING else is NOT as you write a dead room. It is like you write:
We must minimize distortion / reflections from the walls.
It is like you write MINIMIZE and in other words something is still left (usually >20% is still bouncing around in the room variation by frequencies)
So that what YOU call dead room I call it more or less lively. And my bar is much higher for what is a dead room is a anechoic chamber nothing else is a completely dead room.
What you call dead room I call that it is just a TREATED ROOM. It is FAR from a dead room in my opinion and also if we measure. So it is easily proved.
So I hope the issue is that we just use different vocabulary nothing else. 🤔🥳🎶🎶💖
Mho...I don't think any inspector worth his creds would sign off on those sprung screws in new construction...😒 Flame spread could be one call; unsecured attachment another... The spring looks to be the same diameter as the 'exposed finished face collar' which would allow the panels to loosen over time. Surprising any trade with something they're not familiar with tends to get the worker(s) pulled and change orders made. And the 'mud & tape' crew would hate everything about it. The seam tape mud would tend to crack when finish sanding them... ...not to mention having to potentially mud the entire wall to cover all the exposed heads of the screws, which can add to their time/bid figures going into the round file and profit out the window. Then the painters come in to coat the room....and attempt to make the install look proper. If any of the previous hits their ears, they'll spray the space and call it a day.
Better: a wall constructed to 'unlock' exterior from interior, with wider footings and upper plates employing offset studs of a narrower width. Doubles the studs, but works not only for sounds, but for your R values as well...fill the void with rock wool and close up per Typical.
In a reno, spend $ on room treatments...better bang/buck ratio.
Unless you're already an architect with access to a acoustician...then, we're talking commercial, and none of the above will apply.
Just be firmly seated when the bids come in.... ;)
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