TV wall with sound absorbing benifits

TV wall with sound absorbing benifits

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Discussion

Stakeknife

Original Poster:

76 posts

123 months

Sunday 27th December 2020
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I'm looking to add some feature panelling to 3/4 of the tv wall, possibly 18mm oak veneered mdf, or since the room is on the first floor and may not get a full sheet up the staircase, 18mm mdf painted with grooves in (2ft wide strips).
I would have to fit verticle timbers to the wall and intend to fix the panels with slide on keku clips to hide fixings.
While sound transfer between the wall doesn't seem to be causing any issues that's known, I always wonder if anything can be heard so I usually sit with the remote in hand adjusting volume up down.eg during adverts or if there's any music scenes etc.

Does anyone know if increasing the timbers to say 3x2 and placing acoustic Rock wool inbetween with a 10mm gap behind would help in any way or would any benefit be so negible to not bother. There will be around a 450mm gap around the sides and top.
A full acoustic spec wall would be a bit over the top.

Thanks.


Promised Land

4,723 posts

209 months

Sunday 27th December 2020
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Why do you want to use faced mdf?

MFC (melamine faced chipboard) or faced Contiboard as it is also known would be better to work with, cut and trim the edges with a router and iron on edging for any seen edges but you’d build it so the edges are all behind the face panels.

You’d probably be better off constructing it out of CLS like a media wall, I’ve built a few for clients, with and without fires, a tip though is to make sure whatever you build you have a hdmi cable or two going from behind the tv bracket to the usual socket height on the floor.

People remember double sockets and co ax cables but forget the hdmi leads when first fixing them.


surveyor

17,817 posts

184 months

Sunday 27th December 2020
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Use hdmi faceplates though.

I have a lot of hate for the sparkle who did this.. same amount of cable up top...


Alucidnation

16,810 posts

170 months

Sunday 27th December 2020
quotequote all
surveyor said:
Use hdmi faceplates though.

I have a lot of hate for the sparkle who did this.. same amount of cable up top...

HDMI faceplates are inherently crap.

Plus, once you have the cabinet placed and tv on the wall, unless you want people to see it, you won’t.


Stakeknife

Original Poster:

76 posts

123 months

Monday 28th December 2020
quotequote all
Depends on the veneer I choose it could be mdf or chipboard internally. I can edge it with Abs edging for a decent finish.
Building the thing and allowing for access at a later date for cables etc is the easy thing, it's just regarding sound, sometimes you can make things worse eg. Say if the insulation slab touches the existing wall or start fixing stuff to the blockwork behind.

Paul Drawmer

4,878 posts

267 months

Monday 28th December 2020
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Looking at your picture, I would guess that the majority of sound through the wall would be structure transmission via the floor/wall with your floor standing speakers and is that a sub in the LH corner?

Insulating the wall would make little difference.

Andeh1

7,110 posts

206 months

Monday 28th December 2020
quotequote all
Alucidnation said:
surveyor said:
Use hdmi faceplates though.

I have a lot of hate for the sparkle who did this.. same amount of cable up top...

HDMI faceplates are inherently crap.

Plus, once you have the cabinet placed and tv on the wall, unless you want people to see it, you won’t.
I mostly disagree, HDMI faceplate are crap, but they offer flexibility & if you snag the HDMI lead moving the TV etc you at least have the option of replacing the link lead HDMI vs damaging a built in cable you are stuck with.

Either way, you shouldn't need built in HDMI with CAT6 avaliable!

Jediworrier

434 posts

188 months

Monday 28th December 2020
quotequote all
surveyor said:
Use hdmi faceplates though.

I have a lot of hate for the sparkle who did this.. same amount of cable up top...

I hope the sparks got a spirit level for Christmas.

surveyor

17,817 posts

184 months

Monday 28th December 2020
quotequote all
Jediworrier said:
surveyor said:
Use hdmi faceplates though.

I have a lot of hate for the sparkle who did this.. same amount of cable up top...

I hope the sparks got a spirit level for Christmas.
Trying not to.see that! It will in time be covered...

OldSkoolRS

6,749 posts

179 months

Monday 28th December 2020
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Couple of points:

Partly covering the adjoining wall will do nothing to limit the transmitting of noise to your neighbour. In terms of sound/echo absorption it can be effective, but not so much if it has a hard surface in front. I have an acoustically transparent projector screen behind my TV that has 40cm of Rockwool covering most of the back wall (no direct neighbours, so it's purely to reduce decay times). It greatly helped in terms of making the room less echoey, but zero improvement in terms of noise transmission, since that wasn't a concern I'm fine with that.

HDMI to CAT6 adaptors compress the signal. Maybe not in ways that will be obvious on a smaller TV, but I found this out recently and I'm now considering replacing my HDBT set up with a fibre HDMI cable instead. Prices have come down a lot since I first built the room, which was the main reason I went HDBT last time. I won't be using HDMI plates myself as this adds another connection and chance for further issues. I understand those doing it for shorter runs, but the ideal solution is to run the cables in a tube so that they can be pulled through if they need to be replaced. AIUI CAT6 won't work with the higher resolutions/frame rates anyway if that's a concern.

Might be worth trying to relocate your sub woofer nearer to the sofa rather than next to the adjoining wall: The closer it is to you, then the lower it can be set (you'll still hear the same level though). Every doubling of distance reduces dB level by 6dB (in theory, in practice it will be less in a confined space, but might still help). You can also use the 'late night' mode on your amp if it has one, to compress the volume levels down which might also help your enjoyment. I remember living in my last house having to sit with the remote in my hand incase of sudden loud scenes due to paper thin walls. frown

hyphen

26,262 posts

90 months

Monday 28th December 2020
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Andeh1 said:
I mostly disagree, HDMI faceplate are crap, but they offer flexibility & if you snag the HDMI lead moving the TV etc you at least have the option of replacing the link lead HDMI vs damaging a built in cable you are stuck with.

Either way, you shouldn't need built in HDMI with CAT6 avaliable!
From what Ive seen, the brushed face-plates seem to be a popular solution? So you can feed cables through.

Stakeknife

Original Poster:

76 posts

123 months

Monday 28th December 2020
quotequote all
Thanks for the replies. I think I may move the sub to the rear of the room. This set up was from a previous house so I'll get a cable that will reach there. The sub is set low and doesn't always switch on (I'm guessing it does when required). The speakers also have foam bungs in the back, which should also help.
I will be adding insulation to the floor also since it doesn't have any. Hopefully little adjustments will help a bit.