Owens Corning 703 Semi Rigid Fiberglass Board Sound Absorbing Thermal Acoustic Insulation, 2 Inch Thickness (6 Pack)

These panels do an excellent job of absorbing unwanted echoes, yielding a clear, concise sound.I bought these to tame noise at the top of my stairwell (3 level townhouse with a stairwell visible from all 3 floors), tame noise from my furnace room, and to experiment in my home theater room. I held one panel up for my wife at the top of the stairwell and asked her to clap her hands. She couldn't believe the difference in sound, and agreed they would be helpful (project approved!). It made it easier to understand what the other was saying.However, proceed with caution: These panels are made of fiberglass. Uncovered fiberglass is extremely messy. There is a warning label in the box explaining the protective gear that should be worn: gloves, respirator, eye protection. You don't want tiny little glass splinters in your hands that you cannot see but can definitely feel. You should not be considering these unless you are comfortable with 'do-it-yourself.'Compared to the covered panels, I'm having second thoughts about going the economical, DIY approach. I calculate I can make these myself for about $42 per 2'x4' panel, a savings of $23 per panel. Factoring in the mess, time, and hassle, I'm thinking the pre-covered panels may be the better way to go. YMMV.I have foam eggshell panels also. I held both up in the same spot in the stairwell and performed the same tests on both. To my untrained ear, the foam panels absorbed higher frequencies, but didn't work as well on lower frequencies. The fiberglass panels absorbed more sound, and absorbed sound over a wider frequency range (mid and low as well as high). These fiberglass panels significantly outperformed the foam eggshell panels. My bias was to the foam eggshell, since they would be easier to deal with.Whether you go with covered panels or with these bare/DIY panels, I recommend both, and either will yield an improvement.Final note. If you are a man living with a woman, or a man who plans to one day live with a woman: No woman will ever allow these to be installed anywhere in her home if you plan to continue living together, and no woman you would like to live with will ever be impressed by sound absorbing wall panels hanging in the living room. Look at the user submitted photos and tell me how sound absorbing wall panels fit in to the Ethan Allen decor.

I purchased these to make acoustic panels for my listening/recording room. The fiberglass boards arrived in perfect shape and were actually very clean and easy to work with. I covered my panels with Onyx Black Guilford of Maine fire rated fabric and they look simply stunning. But more importantly, they perform amazing! If you place these strategically to eliminate early reflection points, you will be surprised at the results you can attain. Everything just sounds so much cleaner and the ringing and flutter has been greatly if not completely reduced. Topped with the black fabric, the panels look amazing and blend in to my room very well. Turns out you can have both aesthetics and performance!Regarding the performance of the fiberglass, keep in mind that 703 has a Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) of close to 1 starting from around 300Hz and up. These boards will work perfect upwards of about 250Hz. However, bass trapping is another story.. While you could layer these up, if you want bass trapping, Owens 705 does a much better job. You can look up the figures online, but here are a few numbers just to get a feel for what 703 is capable of in comparison to 705 and the typical studio foam. (ledgernote.com)703: 0.17 @ 125Hz | 0.86 @ 250Hz | 1.14 @ 500Hz705: 0.60 @ 125Hz | 0.50 @ 250Hz | 0.63 @ 500HzFoam: 0.11 @ 125Hz | 0.30 @ 250Hz | 0.91 @ 500HzA side note on the DIY aspect. Due to the rather high shipping cost of the fiberglass boards ($45) plus the price of rest of the materials, the price of these panels jumped pretty high. By the time you buy all of your wood, fabric, staple gun, mounting accessories, etc., you might be surprised how much the materials alone cost. That's also considering you have or know someone that has a chop saw, table saw, compressor, nail gun, etc to make the frames. Luckily I did, and in the end the panels ended up costing me around $43 a piece. But keep in mind that's almost a full day of labor to make 6 panels. Also, the fabric I used to cover the panels was rather expensive at around $14 a yard. So depending on the materials you choose and the availability of woodworking tools, it may or may not be more economical to purchase panels at around $60 a piece. Anyway, that is just my two cents on my little DIY experience that I thought I'd share to help you in your future acoustic solution.

Works great for studio

Fan-fricking-tastic for absorption and bass trap creation.This is what I did for corner bass traps going up the height of the wall on each corner of my listening room.I vertically cut these 2" in half.Vertically cut a 1" panel at 17"I put the widest 1" panel down, using spray adhesive, i put 1 of the 12"x48"x2" panels in the middle, then the remaining 7" (from the 1" panel" on top of that, giving a corner trap 4" of absorption total.Once those panels are glued together, I put a 2"x48"x1 3/4" wood plank on top and glue that there and wrap it in fabric. Stapling the fabric holds it all together extremely well.Hang in the corners. 2 covers an 8" tall wall.For hanging in the corners i used eye hooks on the wall, D hooks on the bass trap and a zip tie to hang it.Make sure to get it tight up in the corner. This may be obvious to everyone but me but I learned to put the eye hook higher than my dhook on the bass trap that way it pulls the bass trap up for a tight top corner.