R-30 Rolls

[daveybasso]

I have a friend who wants to do some bass management in his home studio and he said he got the idea from a forum to go out and buy these "rolls of R-30 pink stuff" that apperently come in rolls and are completely wrapped in plastic and stack those from floor to ceiling in all 4 corners of his room

here is what he plans to use: EcoTouch R-30 Unfaced 9 in. x 15 in. x 25 ft. Continuous Roll Insulation-RU70 at The Home Depot

my question is A: would this even be effective for bass trapping ( the rolls are 24 inches thick and 24 inches tall each. and B: wont the fact that they are wrapped in plastic hinder the bass frequencies from flowing into the pink stuff?

any knowledge on this would be greatly appreciated =)

[daveybasso]

Originally Posted by daveybasso

I have a friend who wants to do some bass management in his home studio and he said he got the idea from a forum to go out and buy these "rolls of R-30 pink stuff" that apperently come in rolls and are completely wrapped in plastic and stack those from floor to ceiling in all 4 corners of his room

here is what he plans to use: EcoTouch R-30 Unfaced 9 in. x 15 in. x 25 ft. Continuous Roll Insulation-RU70 at The Home Depot

my question is A: would this even be effective for bass trapping ( the rolls are 24 inches thick and 24 inches tall each. and B: wont the fact that they are wrapped in plastic hinder the bass frequencies from flowing into the pink stuff?

any knowledge on this would be greatly appreciated =)

anyone know?

[aackthpt]

It's often suggested on these forums to buy insulation and just leave it in the bag. It has been demonstrated in at least one case that it works. However the demonstration I saw of it was with a rockwool product (some searching on GS would probably find the thread), and I don't think it was compressed that much - at least, not more than 3x. Also, it only had printed thin plastic on the outside of it. I needed to build some LF absorbers recently and purchased three rolls of unfaced fluffy (the exact product to which you linked), put them in place, and didn't think they did anything. And I think it was because those rolls are extremely compressed and have both paper and thick plastic over them. I suspect that the standard advice to leave the insulation in its packages works better with the square-ish bags of insulation where it looks to me like the 'glass (or rockwool, or whatever fluffy home insulation product) is not as compressed. I'd think it would also work much better where there is only one membrane.

In my case I returned two of the three rolls I had purchased, bought some lumber to build boxes, stretched old sheets over them and filled them with lengths of the 'glass compressed as little as required to assure me they would stay fully filled. These devices definitely create an audible difference, but I haven't yet done measurements to verify (just finished them yesterday, actually).

I didn't really need to reflect HF with where I was putting them so it's just a box of insulation with fabric on the outside of it. If you need to (or want to) reflect HF, buy a roll of faced (R-13 faced roll is $10 at the D) to put on the face of the device. I did this on a couple I built and I think it's doing what it's supposed to (or close enough).

So, great idea if you are going to build 12" or greater devices out of it. If you really need to do it the easy way though, follow my guidelines above for choosing a package of insulation and it will probably work. But test the room before and after - and if it doesn't do anything, take it back and do something else!

Wishing you good luck,
John