What is the difference between insulation & absorption ?
There is often confusion between sound insulation and sound absorption. Sound insulation is required in order to eliminate the sound path from a source to a receiver such as between apartments in a building, or to reduce unwanted external noise inside a concert hall. Heavy materials like concrete tend to be the best materials for sound insulation – doubling the mass per unit area of a wall will improve its insulation by about 6dB. It is possible to achieve good insulation with much less mass by instead using a double leaf partition (two separated independent walls). Sound absorption occurs when some or all of the incident sound energy is either converted into heat or passes through the absorber. For this reason good sound absorbers do not of themselves make good sound insulators. Although insulation and absorption are different concepts, there are many instances where the use of sound absorbers will improve insulation. However absorption should not be the primary means of achieving goo
There is often confusion between sound insulation and sound absorption. Sound insulation prevents sound from traveling from one place to another, such as between apartments in a building, or to reduce unwanted external noise inside a concert hall. Heavy materials like concrete are the most effective materials for sound insulation – doubling the mass per unit area of a wall will improve its insulation by about 6dB. It is possible to achieve good insulation over most of the audio frequency range with much less mass by instead using a double leaf partition (two separated independent walls). Sound is absorbed when it encounters a material which will convert some or all of it into heat, or which allows it to pass through not to return. For this reason good sound absorbers do not of themselves make good sound insulators. Sound insulators rarely absorb sound. Sound absorbers contribute little to sound insulation. They are treated separately in sound control design.
