Does your space become too noisy and suffer from sound echo and reverberation problems? With the increasing use of glass and open plan design, this is a common problem facing many offices, meeting rooms, public buildings, hotels, restaurants, retail and homes.
It's caused by the wall and ceiling surfaces reflecting the sound and bouncing it back into the room to cause unwanted echo and reverberation. The situation can become worse as people compensate by raising their voices to be heard. Speaking on the phone and conference calls can be difficult with these sound problems.
When the acoustics of a room are well-balanced, the room's atmosphere is pleasant and creates a more tranquil "softened" setting. This is in turn increases people's ability to grasp information and to work efficiently.
Our sound absorbing acoustic wall panels offer excellent acoustic performance via a cost effective and easy to install solution. We rent two types of acoustic wall panels to offices and businesses: Acoustic Art Panels and Acoustic Fabric Panels.
Our sound-absorbing acoustic art panels offer excellent acoustic performance cleverly disguised as a contemporary piece of art.
Search and choose from our library of contemporary images featuring a wide variety of fresh artwork styles, including nature art, abstract art, architectural art, landscapes, figurative art and quirky illustrations. You can also browse our acoustic image collections here.
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Your chosen artwork image is then printed onto the fabric, using a unique printing technology called dye sublimation. It is then hand stretched over our robust wooden frames.
For a plain fabric finish to your acoustic panel, choose a colour from our stylish acoustic fabric ranges. We offer 3 different fabric ranges providing over 80 fabric colours to choose from.
The Lucia fabric range is manufactured in the UK from 100% recycled polyester, thereby giving a reduced environmental footprint. Lucia is a closer, finer crepe weave fabric offering a non-lustrous smooth finish for the acoustic wall panels.
Offering more of a textured feel, the Cara fabric range is a plain weave panel fabric available in a wide selection of colourways.
Impeccably simple, the Sumi and Kyoto fabric range capture the essence of timeless, minimalist design. They take their inspiration from Japan and together they form a delicate pairing, understated and refined – perfect for the “less is more” world we’re emerging into.
To download the digital colour swatch chart, click here. You can also contact us to request actual fabric samples to be posted to your office (remember digital fabric scans are not 100% colour accurate and can vary a little between different devices/screens).
Each acoustic wall panel is handmade at our workshop and is comprised of 3 main parts: a wooden frame; the inner acoustic foam; and the acoustically transparent fabric.
1) The wooden frame is made from 38mm deep gallery standard stretcher bars to form the four sides, with a solid hardboard sheet fixed to the rear. The wooden frame protects the acoustic foam edges and provides an effective method of hanging the panel on your wall. Frame fixings are screwed into the back of the wooden frame to allow you to securely hang the panel using normal wall picture hanging fixings
2) The inner acoustic foam is a high quality 30mm deep acoustic foam which is cut to size and carefully set within the wooden frame.
3) i) With acoustic art panels, your chosen image is printed digitally onto a high quality acoustically transparent fabric. The image is continued around the edges to produce a clean, sharp and contemporary look.
3) ii) With acoustic fabric panels, your chosen acoustically transparent fabric is cut to size and hand-stretched over the chunky wooden frame.
For both types of our acoustic wall panels, the fabric is stapled to the rear of the wooden frame, to provide a long lasting quality finish.
How do we compare?
Many acoustic panels supplied by other companies are made without a wooden frame by just gluing the fabric directly to the acoustic foam. Whilst this is certainly a quicker and cheaper method, if has many disadvantages
-The finished face of the panel can have a rippled effect (caused by the glue underneath). We hand stretch the fabric over the wooden gallery stretcher bars to give you a clean front face
-The glue can fail with time, causing the fabric edges to become loose. We staple the fabric to the rear, to provide a longer lasting product
-The edges of the panel can be damaged / dented with time. Our wooden frame protects the inner foam and provides a rigid panel
-With no wooden frame to screw fixings into, you typically need to use spray adhesive to fix the acoustic panels to your wall. Using spray adhesive can be fiddly, messy and inflexible if you need to move the panels in the future. Our acoustic panels with wooden frames can be securely hung just like a normal picture and easily taken down in the future.
The acoustic wall panels are made from a highly absorbent semi-rigid core with a high quality acoustically transparent fabric face.
With acoustic art panels, a unique printing technology (called dye sublimation) is used to print the fabric face with your chosen design. With acoustic fabric panels, the fabric material is acoustically transparent.
For both types of acoustic wall panels, sound waves pass through the fabric face (instead of bouncing off it) and are then absorbed by the inner panel core. This reduces the sound echo and reverberation, making the space less noisy and easier to communicate within.
Note if you attempted to print images onto fabric using a normal digital printing process this would not absorb sound (as the print process reduces the fabric's acoustic transparency by effectively adding a layer of ink on top of the fabric which reflects the sound waves). Using the special dye sublimation printing technology maintains the acoustic transparency of the fabric.
The acoustic performance of the acoustic wall panels can absorb up to about 90% of the sound hitting it varying by different sound frequencies. To put this in context, a typical bare wall has just a 3-5% absorption rate (carpet 20-30%, stone 5-10%, double glazing 2-3%).
For the more technically minded, the acoustic wall panels will meet Class C absorption with a Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) of 0.75. The table below sets out the absorption coefficients for different sound frequencies.
f/Hz | ||||||
125 | 250 | 500 | 1k | 2k | 4k | NRC* |
0.10 | 0.40 | 0.80 | 0.90 | 0.90 | 0.90 | 0.75 |
The acoustic wall panels resemble a piece of art and they simply hang on the wall using traditional picture hanging hooks and pins. Each panel comes complete with 2 x picture frame hooks fitted onto the back of the acoustic frame.
There is no definitive answer to how many panels you need, as every space will have different requirements and variables to consider, including the floor space, height of ceilings and amount of “reflective” material in the space (such as glass, tiled floors etc)
Acoustic wall panels not only provide an absorbent surface, they also provide an aesthetic solution. So it’s also about striking a balance between the visual look of the room (based on the available wall hanging space and not overcrowding the space with pictures) versus the required level of sound improvement (the higher the panel coverage area the better the sound improvement). To simplify matters, we recommend:
Slight Sound Improvement: A minimum panel coverage area of at least 10% of the floor area to achieve a slight sound improvement.
Good Sound Improvement: Aim for a panel coverage of at 20-30% of the floor area to achieve a good and noticeable reduction in acoustics.
Excellent Sound Improvement: For an excellent sound improvement, or where spaces have a severe sound problem, consider a coverage area of 30-45% of the floor area.
The above is a guide, based on a typical room of ceiling height of up to about 3m, with the space comprising mainly of sound reflecting materials (e.g. hard floors, smooth walls, glass surfaces, ceilings with poor acoustic properties, a few pieces of furniture).
Additionally, a room can be ‘tuned’ by adding more acoustic wall panels as necessary.
Example: Small meeting room 5m by 3m = 15m2 floor area.For a good sound improvement, we suggest at least 20% coverage area, which is equivalent to 3m2 (20% x 15m2). To achieve about 3m2 coverage, you could install 3 acoustic wall panels each sized 1mx1m (=3m2 coverage).
Step 1: Measure your floor space (width x length = m2)
Step 2: Consider the wall space you have available for hanging acoustic artwork. Both types of acoustic wall panels are available to rent in 3 large sizes:
-Square 100x100cm
-Landscape: 120cm (W) by 80cm (H)
-Portrait: 80cm (W) by 120cm (T).
Step 3: Consider the type of sound improvement required (slight / good / excellent)
Step 4: Tally up the number/sizes of panels required vs the wall space available
Step 5: Choose images - consider whether the images are square / portrait or landscape orientation (and how this matches with the available wall space)
Our standard weekly rental prices are shown in the table below, varying by:
- how often you want to rotate the acoustic wall panels - every 6, 12 or 24 months.
- which type of acoustic wall panel, Price Category One is for renting Acoustic Fabric Panels and Category TWO is for renting Acoustic Art Panels.
Both types of acoustic wall panels are available to rent in 3 large sizes:
-Square 100x100cm
-Landscape: 120cm (W) by 80cm (H)
-Portrait: 80cm (W) by 120cm (T).
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Type of Acoustic Wall Panel
|
Rotating new acoustic wall panels every
|
||
|
6 months
|
12 months
|
24 months
|
|
|
Category ONE - Acoustic Fabric Panels
(large panels 100x100cm/120x80cm/80by120cm) |
£3.10
per week |
£1.90
per week |
£1.50
per week |
|
Category TWO - Acoustic Art Panels
(large panels 100x100cm/120x80cm/80by120cm) |
£4.20
per week |
£2.60
per week |
£2.00
per week |
If you'd like a no-obligation quote for renting acoustic wall panels for your office, or more information, please contact us using the form and tell us some details about your project (e.g. location, type of space, approximate dimensions of floor space, estimate of quantity and size of acoustic panels, when needed by etc)
Our lead-time for supply of our acoustic wall panels is typically 3-4 weeks. Or please contact us if you are in a rush, and we will try our best to help.
Volume discounts are available for larger scale jobs (30+ acoustic panels)
Please also contact us to request free fabric samples to be posted to your office (remember digital fabric scans are not 100% colour accurate and can vary a little between different devices/screens).
