Soundproofing vs sound treatment

Are acoustic panels good for soundproofing?

Not the best choice. Acoustic panels are designed for sound treatment. What is the difference, you ask? Read the next question 😉

What is the difference between soundproofing and sound treatment?

While soundproofing prevents sound from entering or leaving a space, sound treatment improves the sound inside a given space.

What is better, to soundproof or sound treat a space?

Depends on your needs. Soundproofing will allow you to blast your stereo in your living room and not bother your neighbors, while sound treatment will make your stereo sound perfect.

Making panels

How easy to make are they? Can anyone make them?

Yes. Nearly all the people who have tried making a panel for the first time make a pretty good one. And they make a great one on their second try.

Is it safe to make them in my home?

Yes. You have to follow our recommendations, and you can make your own panels in your home. Check out safety tips in each tutorial.

Is it a good idea to start making panels in my home regularly for commercial purposes?

Yes, but you need to be careful storing the absorbing material. Rockwool is not a material you want to be working within your living room every day since it will end up everywhere.

Selling panels

What is the best price to sell a panel?

We recommend offering them at a fair price. However, you decide how much your work is worth.

Can I sell HertzLovers panels with my own channels?

Of course!! And we would love to hear from all makers benefiting from open knowledge.

Do I need to pay a fee to Hertzlovers?

Not a dime. Welcome to open source.

How does HertzLovers make money?

We don’t. But that’s fine, don’t worry. We do this because we want. Welcome to open source.

Diffusers

Is Polystyrene a good material for diffusion purposes?

Polystyrene is an effective reflective material. It does not have high absorption coefficients and is an excellent choice to diffuse sound and make diffusers.

The absorption coefficient of polystyrene is between 0.3-0.45. If you want extra reflection, you can paint it with water-based sprays. Click to view the graph.

Does Polystyrene work as well as wood for diffusive purposes?

They are not exactly the same. But for this purpose, they both work fine. None of them has high absorption coefficients. The benefits of polystyrene are that it is cheap, easy to manufacture, and lightweight.

Is it better to measure before making a diffuser? Will it work better if it is designed for specific frequencies?

You can measure, design, and make different diffusers for specific frequencies. However, when designed well, wide frequency range diffusers are as efficient and more flexible. We recommend the Ultrafusor because it uses the best-known geometry for frequencies between 565Hz and 6000Hz approximately.

Remember that shape and depth determine the performance and it’s always better to use calculated geometries instead of random diffusing shapes.

How much does a hot wire machine cost?

Approximately 100€. If you need to make ten diffusers, it would cost you 10€ extra per panel. If we add to this 5€ of material, each panel would cost a total of 15€ per panel. Not bad 😎

Open source

What is open source?

Any intellectual knowledge is publicly accessible so people can modify, remake and benefit from it.

Why open source?

The best solutions always arise when communities work together. The most efficient way to maximize this is to share knowledge.

Share the wheel, not reinvent it

Working together makes all efforts add up and maximizes innovation.

Communities

Open-source communities work together because we all benefit from everyone’s efforts.

HertzLovers

Who is behind of HertzLovers?

HertzLovers is a project of Alejandro Fábregas and Luis Herranz.

What’s HertzLovers’ story?

Here is a summary of how and why we created this project:

Where did HertzLovers happen?

We did the initial research in Medialab, a digital culture center in Madrid, Spain. We also did some workshops there, and treated a room:

But HertzLovers has been happening all over the world since then by many people.