Is Roxul Safe and sound a good alternative to 703?

[Halexx]

Hello,

So i am in the process of building my own basstraps.
I found this product in Home Depot Canada: Roxul Safe and Sound
ROXUL® The Better Insulation | Products | Safe'n'Sound

According to the specs on this site:
http://www.bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm

it is lighter and seem to have nice sound specification:

Roxul
3" (75mm) 2.5 pcf (40 kg/m3)
125Hz 0.52 250 Hz 0.96 500Hz 1.18 1Khz 1.07 2Khz 1.05 4Khz 1.05 NRC 1.05

Corning 703
3" (76mm) on wall 3.0 pcf (48 kg/m3)
125Hz 0.53 250Hz 1.19 500Hz 1.21 1KHz 1.08 2Khz 1.01 4Khz 1.04 NRC 1.10


Did, anyone tried them for bass traps, or have any advice about it?
Thanks!

[PlugHead]

Yes.

It's pretty much the equivalent to 703, and is quite cheap cost-wise. I did my bass traps/diffusors with it.

regards,

[avare]

It is actually better for bass traps than 703.

It is one of the public secrets in my part of the world for sound absorption. The last time I checked prices in detail, 3" 703 was $3.00/ft^2 and Safe n Sound was $0.28/ft^2.

Great stuff doing research before buying.


Are you in Canada? I was writing on another forum with a person from Texas and he could not find Safe n Sound there.

Soft yet absorbent,
Andre

[Halexx]

Thanks all for answering.

I live in Montréal, so bying already made basstrap is probably not cost effective because of the shiping fee from the states.

Also, most of the links to buy stuff for making bass trap are in the US too,so i have to make more research.


So, about the Roxul material, did you find it easy to work with?

Is it soft, hard?


The pannel are 24 1/4 by 48, can i still make a 24 by 48 frame and compact the wool?

Thanks again

[Chris Kress]

I am getting ready to do a few more rooms.. I didn't see options for USA. I wonder how difficult it would be to import to USA?

[Halexx]

Chriss,

you may find info about finding Roxul in USA here:

ROXUL® The Better Insulation - Where to buy

Good luck!

[avare]

The material is soft. It requires support if you are stacking it.

Many companies make equivalent material. Ask in your area for "2.5lb^2 mineral wool" or close to it.

If I missed questions before my last post I apologize.

Andre

[Krimson]

If you want the hard stuff of Roxul, then you want to get the Rockboard 60 or 40.

[Halexx]

On the canadian website of Home Depot, they only carry the 'Safe and sound' stuff as isolation product. Easy availlability is a big concern for me.

The other stuff(exept Flexibatt, that seem not interesting) from Roxul is considerate 'commercial' or 'industrial', so i may have to find a pro shop that is willing to sell me on pack at a time...

Is constructing basstraps from soft pannel much harder? What are the drawback?

[Krimson]

I would imagine that they would be as they would be extremely flimsy. I just ordered 40 pcs. at 2" of rockboard60 from a place in Hamilton. It's only costing me something like $335 for all of it. I'm hoping it should do for my small control room.

[Matthew Murray]

Safe and Sound is fine for it's sonic properties but it's an awful mess. So soft, breaks apart. We hated it.

In our recent studio build, we opted for Roxul rockboard 60, it's killer stuff, has better ratings than safe n' sound, and is pleasantly rigid.

Just call around to all of the various building material shops in your town, we couldn't get it at home depot but it was easy enough to find.

[Halexx]

Hi, just to keep you updated and for future reference if someone is doing research from my snowy corner of the world...

I have just call:

Isolation Dispro :: Distributeur de matériaux d'isolation ; Revêtement, isolant, etc.

in Montréal.

They are willing to sell me 'Roxul RockBoard 60', 3'' thick,by pack of 5. It would cost me around 4 times the cost of softer 'Sound and safe' in Home depot for the same quantity.


Haven't still decide if the better specs and facility to work with is worth the upgrade in price, but since i am not making a lot of those...

I also know that sometimes, people on the phone can make mistake about price/availibility ;)

Stay tuned!!!

[lang_dave]

Hi Halexx -

The two products you're comparing (rockboard / safe 'n' sound) are completely different. Safe 'n' sound is just plain old insulation. Rockboard is very dense semi rigid insulation board. For what it's worth, I think you'd be wasting your time with the safe 'n' sound instead of rockboard. If you're going to build something, might as well make it good.

ymmv,
dave

[Rainman]

I've used Roxul "Safe n Sound" in my studio. I have to agree with Matthew in saying it's a bit messy however in small jobs it's OK. If I had a studio the size of Matthews I'd go with what he used (have you checked out their thread) for sure as I couldn't see myself putting up that amount of absorption with Safe n Sound. I would have had to special order from my Home Depot as well.

If you do go with S n S, do yourself a favour and purchase an electric carving knife also, it cuts through the stuff like a hot knife in butter. Other than beer, it's the best 7 bucks I've spent in years.

Rainman

[PlugHead]

It depends - if he's just building bass traps, either in a hung bag, or filling corners, get a few bags of safe'n sound and you're basically done. One bag is about $35 - bloody cheap.

If you're building/hanging traps tho, I agree: go with the semi-rigid for ease, but otherwise - why spend 4 X as much to pack corners?!?

[fooman]

Good to know... I can find this stuff at Home Depot easily.
Thanks for this thread.

[jackrabbit]

for those of you who have worked with safe n sound: any reservations with putting it above drop ceiling tiles?

[Halexx]

Thanks everyone for takinf time to help me.

I hope it can help others too.

for lang dave,

when i look at the specs, both material seems similar at sound absortion, altough the Rockboard better in bass region.

Roxul Sound and safe
3" (75mm) 2.5 pcf (40 kg/m3)
125Hz 0.52 250 Hz 0.96 500Hz 1.18 1Khz 1.07 2Khz 1.05 4Khz 1.05 NRC 1.05

Roxul Rockboard 60
3" (75mm) 4.4 pcf (70 kg/m3)
125Hz 0.65 250 Hz 0.94 500Hz 1.13 1Khz 1.07 2Khz 1.06 4Khz 1.04 NRC 1.10

Is there something else to check to compare them, or some way to read those results?

[fooman]

I put some I had left over in my drop ceiling.
It falls apart easily... wear a long sleeve shirt and some safety glasses. Probably a good idea to wear a nose mask as well. I haven;t done a ton of work with insulation, but putting that crap up there was a crap job. I am putting off finishing my ceiling off to be honest because it's a lot of work and I'm not sure it will pay off at all.

[Krimson]

Trust me, get the rockboard60. I was quoted a price of 1.06 per sq. ft of the 2" stuff in Hamilton Ontario. Less aggravation when you don't have to worry about it falling apart.

[Halexx]

Ok,

so i went to Home Depot today to see by myself the Safe and Sound stuff.

While it is not as fluffy as some pink stuff that was near it, a bag was a little opened and i could touch it(with a pen!) and it was really soft but consistent.

My project is to put the fiberwool inside a 4*6 foot wood box, open from the back, and with a unattached screen on the front(the fabric is stuck between the wool and the frame, so that the outside wood is apparent(that's the look i want).

For those who worked with the Safe and Sound stuff, will it be rigid enough to stay inside the box by the pressure itself, or would i have to put some 'bones' to it?

[Halexx]

For record,

i finally chose the Roxul Rockboard 60 as i am inexperienced in making broadband absorbers, so i prefered to pay more to have an easier(more rigid) material to work with.

The Rockboard is now at home, i made a first pannel and it is effectively easy to work with, rigid while soft enough so it can deal with the less than perfect box i made.

About the Safe and sound, i am convincing a friend to make that experiment to treat his drum pratice place in his non-finished basement:

Soft and Sound, 8 * 4 foot by 2 pannel : $40
4 plastic grill 4 foot by 2 used for lightening,10$ each:$40
Weed stop: $10
Cheap material: $20

The idea is to make a sandwich with the plastic grill(use as backbone) with 2*3inch wool, to recover them with Weed stop for security, and finally let his wife(who is a sewer) make pocket for the traps.

He could then put on a nice looking like pillows(possibly highly effective if i believe the specs) 6inch, 4 foot by 2 trap in each corner of his practice booth, without too much work,for a little more then 100$!!!

[Halexx]

Hello everyone,

here are some picture of the pannels i made with the Rockboard 60 stuff.

I am planning to add corner traps made with the costwise Safe and Sound in the next weeks, pics should follow too.

[Glenn Kuras]

[iangomes]

I just bought 2 small panels made with roxul sns. They are 4 inch wide panels but the actual roxul insulation is only about 2.5". They were super cheap but seem to be well made. I was thinking of buying two more and using the 4 on my front wall (total would be 40"x40"). Is it worth it to buy the two more or should I just buy a 4 or 6" rigid panel instead?
Thanks!

[Halexx]

First,The Safe and Sound is 3'' inch deep, unless it is compress.

To compare the pannels you want to, you need to know what the harder pannel are made of, and check the specs. SnS specs are similar to OC703, so the rigid ones cannot be made of a material much better, but the quality of the construction of the pannels may differ.

By the way, why don't you do them yourself? SnS is easy to get in HomeDepot in Canada.

I made some realy inexpensive pannels with them, i should take the time to upload pictures in this thread...

Finaly, the traps i put picture before this post in the thread could have benn made with SnS, cause while they are softer than the Rockboard, when you put the first layer of fabric(i used gardenning fabric found in Rona, HomeDepot may have them)to keep the fiber inside the traps, it solidify them and, in my opinion, make them usable for many kind of traps.

Good luck!

[iangomes]

Thank you, that was actually very helpful. I would make my own but these wones are so well made and a reasonable price. And now that i got 2 cheap, i'm going to get two more, to make a nice pretty square.
Thanks again