$30 vs $500 Sound Panels - Is There Any Difference?
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- Опубліковано 5 чер 2024
- How much of a difference does hanging acoustic treatment actually make to your sound? In this video, we test out Elgato's new Wave Panels and compare them to some $30 and $500 options to see what difference they actually make.
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⏩ Timestamps:
0:00 Why audio matters for your stream
1:52 Sound absorption vs sound insulation
2:16 Price
3:01 Mounting options
4:11 Materials and design
5:42 Testing method
6:58 Tests
8:04 Results
11:21 Bonus audio tips for livestreamers
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What are your thoughts on Elgato's new wave panels? Worth it? Overpriced? Nice looking? Ugly? Let me know 👇
DISCORD GANG!!! 🤟🤟 @GamingCareers
the jump from 6-12 was noticeable and if u have a bigger room defo worth the investment into 12
I didnt really see a difference with Elgato panels, but the GIK I liked and would spend the extra money for them vs amazon/elgato. Great video man!
@gaming Careers, how do you make your face cam look so soft? my A5100 is awesome but too detailed showing every nook and cranny on my skin :(. I'm using 2 Elgato Keylights, one high above to the left and another to the right, now facing into the wall. Have tried for days but never get that soft look
I found the Elgato panels in most cases barely made any difference. I would rank them GIK, cheap panels, and then the elgato as they were BARELY better than having nothing at all. Definitely not worth it, at least from this test.
Great video - my takeaway was that 95% or more of the battle is just having a solid mic close to your mouth
and this is why people waste hundreds on treatment and come away unsatisfied. I good dynamic microphone will help prevent sound from bouncing around. Doesn't mean treatment doesn't help, but when you have a mic with a noisy preamp like the one on your camera hunting for any noise.... any noise is what it's going to find
Also - not surprisingly 12 cheap acoustic panels sparsely spread out on the wall doesn't make much of a difference but also doesn't make much difference between 12 cheap acoustic panels and 12 expensive acoustic panels. My experience is that if you cover nearly an entire wall you will get a minor improvement that may or may not be worth it to you. I would never pay $500 for sound treatment panels in my current situation but I would build them for $25 a pop using some cheap lumber, cheap material and some towels.
Yeah, absolutely, even more so if you go with a dynamic microphone. Microphone placement and technique can get you a long long way!
@@piratetech3722 True that! Get a sm58 and a quiet interface and that's 90% of the battle in a small room. Extremely unidirectional. And, it sounds pretty good! People always getting super sensitive condensers because they hear that they are better. In a perfect world, yeah. But you'd be in a studio also. You can hear every fan, every car, every reflection, every mouth click in a tiny room. Behringer interfaces have low noise floors, quiet preamps. Bam, you almost maximize your sound quality in a shit room with a $250 budget. You're better off just going simple in a shitty room and then putting the rest of your energy into making music. Those mini vocal booths aren't too bad either. They will cut out a bit of reflection, and not too expensive. No setup...
@@piratetech3722 a microphone doesn't prevent sound from bouncing around.
And the winner is...a good dynamic mic:)
You are rigt! I don't hear any difference at all between a bear wall and a fancy 500 euros panel, which is weird because how dp you justify such a waste of money.
@Sash Campbell yeah but these guys just want for livestreams and such.
You wouldn't buy cheap amazon pads and stuff like that if you're mixing. You would invest a bit more. And the dude here bought 6 panels and he's using them incorrectly, having put 2 or 3 panels right in front of him. If he wanted to mix he would have to place them in a different way
@@pedrosilvamusician To some extent, yeah. But we do have to keep in mind most streamers have some filter plugins for their audio such as "audio compression" which can turn up the volume of the room noise.
@Pedro Silva why? The panels are supposed to face in front, any other direction and sound frequency loses
If you have good acoustics in the room you can speak a bit farther from the mic which is convenient for comfort. So even having a good mic, acoustics will help for that 😁
Man! I wanted to take a moment to appreciate all the UA-camrs that takes so much time into making these videos for us to help us with our passion while you show us your passions
I think you just sold me on the GIK panels, huge difference. I've also used the cheap Amazon panels in the past and they do help but as a fellow full-time creator my new apartment needs a more pro treatment. The GIK mounting is also more minimal versus other pro options. Also pairing with the Shure SM7B as well. Awesome job!
I've built my panels myself with a wood frame and combination of stone wool and foam panels 4 inches thick all in all. For sound absorption, the thicker the better.
do they also help with insulation with the wool? i live with a lot of roommates and am trying to keep noise out of my room
@@dae8894 Not really. They only prevent the sound inside from bouncing all over the walls.
If you want to insulate the sound from outside, you need to completely cover all the surfaces of the room.
@@manugarcia3578 damn okay thank for the help
Huh. I was actually looking for some ideals for my new setup too. Gonna look into these. Good job man
Thank you for the vid. Was wondering about this after seeing the announcement. Glad first vid I saw was yours.
the GIK sounds by far the best... even at the low quallity microphone you really hear a difference there. But not only the affect is the most strength, but it also sounds the most natural to me
Now this is how to create evergreen content! Nice work! You’ve also inspired the background lighting for my studio.
Excellent video, just moved into a new house and it echoes crazy good in there. Definitely going to need to work on our setups and get some proper treatment done for both stations
The testing cracked me up a bit. Amazing video, going to look into this for the future
The sound insulation vs the sound absorbtion information was golden, thanks a lot!
Very awesome demo here. Just a side note, what we have to keep in mind though is that we are comparing $24 setup vs a $200 setup and possibly a $500 plus setup. You should do a video to even the odds meaning spend the same amount on each sound treatment and then see what the results are.
Great video! RE: mounting, I have the cheap amazon option as a low key streamer, I do intend to upgrade, but the way I mounted them was almost exactly the same. I used gorilla selotape, 2 tiny bits per panel and then mounted all the panels to a large piece of cardboard, then command strips. Works really well!
Great choice, I can't describe quite how painful of an experience it was removing them when I directly stuck them to my wall in my old studio!
Just placed an order for these. Going to use in my next stream! Thanks!
Did you buy the Elgato? I was thinking of picking up 12, vs using panels.
12:08 "that looks like an upside down heart"
Riiiight. I'll just pretend that shape didn't make me think of a big butt. XD
BUTT!!
There's a couple of DIY channels (might be DIY perks) that shows you how to make your own to suit your budget. The Elgato options look like a really good option though.
I used poster command strips right on the foam panels from amazon and they have held up well so far (3ish months so far) as well
Excellent comparison! I have made Rockwood panels myself, and I wondered how they compare to cheap foam and more expensive foam panels. What I noticed was those midrange foam panels deadened the sound a lot but none of the bass, so they made it sound like you were in a large deadened room. The gik panels were more natural sounding and sounded like you were in empty space, I may buy some for my next HT build.
aren't mineral wools dangerous to be in your bedroom though?
This video taught me so much bro thank you‼️
I work as a system admin for a high end media company amongst other things we have a studio that hosts professional studio work (Hollywood film, TV shows and voice work. I guess they do a layered sound dampening process in which the entire outer wall of the studio are dampened with the cheap panels bought in bulk, around the inner walls there are strategically placed "average" priced panels. Then they have sound dampening walls that are hand crafted to disperse noise as needed on a per shot basis. My point is there is no absolute winner of the three, they all have a purpose and when placed correctly do the intended job. Great Video. If you guys want to see the Studio in question its Spokane Productions.
Very well done. As a professional broadcaster all I can say is you get out of it what you put into it much like everything else when it comes to sound absorption.
This video is amazing, bro gave me more than I needed
love the vids and prodcast
I've actually been building my own panels last week. I'm just waiting for the fabric to cover them. They cost me a total of 120€ for 8 panels of 100 by 60 cm (about 39 by 23,5 inch) which isn't that bad. Spent about 9 hours building the frames, But I'm lazy by design and I don't have any powertools to assist me so I used a handsaw to cut all my pieces to size. Hopefully applying the fabric won't take this long :)
I just want to talk to my friends on xbox without my parents hearing😭
thanks for making this video!
I've been in the works of building my own foam panels using some scrap would we have and using them at the frames. Than getting solid acoustic foam pannels to act as the bottom of the full panel and sides, than using pyramid soft foam squares as the top of the panels. In total costing me about 150 for the foam and other supplies such as adhesive. But I like the DIY project since I get them the exact size I want.
i got the cheap Amazon panels to get me through to when i move to a bigger place.
Im gonna redo my studio audio setup when i move out but i know stepping up the Sound panels is gonna be a big +
GIK Acoustics are simply unmatched. Amazing brand. Their impressions series diffuser/absorber panels are dope and actually look really cool. They make a hugeee difference in my room.
Great Video! (I love how high quality your production value is and you generally “rock” in front of the camera / are pretty comfortable there). Having said that, I feel like (and I don’t yet know because I haven’t pulled the trigger on ANY panels - but very interested in the Amazon or equivalent price wise), the Amazon ones could do an OK job IF you weren’t just covering a small piece of the wall - bit instead had covered the whole room. I guess ultimately I am looking on input as to how those do in a recording booth setup (so it may be unfair of me to criticize you for that as that is not the setup that you are going for).
All in all great video - I just feel like (and like I said don’t yet have the personal experience) that the Amazon or similarly cheaper ones could probably fair OK or pretty well in a “recording booth” build/ environment.
Having said that - still great video :)
Great video, thanks!
With the "cheaper foam" option, if you were to lay it on cardboard anyway, could you put a layer of foam down first like warbla and then glue/attach the pyramid foam on top?
I noticed no difference except with GIK panels but not verry affordable when solutions exist like using a towel acoustic pannel costing less than100$ to make a whole wall ...
Nice tests tho
As mixing engineer, GIK Acoutics are best option by far ( a long far), but I think foam just should work ok with streamers that want to remove the "harshness" of high frequencies. Most important thing is depth of the foam. 1cm of depth is like nothing really. You can listen to an improvement but getting all the walls covered, which I think is highly inefficient (and ugly imo lol)
aren't mineral wools dangerous to be in your bedroom though?
@@lamborghinicentenario2497 Yes I think they are if they like "raw", but as GIK acoustics builds them I think its completely safe. A lot of big studios have mineral wool isolation and dont think there's any problem
Creators, listen up! Consider using sound blankets rather than any type of foam. Always found them to remove far more echo and you can mount them to rails like curtains. I don't think there's any reason to buy foam at this price, which is harder to install/remove and not as good (from my experience) when you can get more effective sound blankets for a fraction of the price 👍
They are 100% better for the price but not better quality imo
While yes, price to performance is big and sound blankets are much better value wise, aesthetics and space is a big factor. Sound blankets simply don't look as good, but more importantly, hanging them on stands takes up a lot of space. A lot of smaller content creators don't have much space to work with so every inch matters. You also don't wanna just hang sound blankets directly against the wall because you lose performance that way so that's not really an option either. and as BM mentioned, they're not necessarily better quality. There's a reason professional recording studios and broadcast stations opt for actual acoustic panels over blankets. If price is all you care about, then sure, but if those other things I just mentioned matter to you, then sound panels are a much better option.
Yeah try to mount them on your ceiling smarty ass
@@luk7n You can, I already did lmao
you can make your own, melamine foam is also pretty good i had the pleasure to test vicoustic products they made different but price wise not cheap
The way that man put those sticky strips on the El Gato frames in the example...I can't 😂😅 3:56
i just build myself a little tone cabin by buying some wood, putting it together and just putting it on my desk. the wood cost me like 100$ (80cm height, 1,7meters wide 80cm deep) + rockwool + cloth to prevent the rockwool getting into my lung. the rockwool is the same you use to build a house. usually rockwool gets used to build cinemas for example. it's a cheap and very noise dampening solution.
the only downside i would say is the weight since i used wood. the construction weights about 50kgs. for my next build i would use some form of plastic that can hold the rockwool.
Clear nano tape is pretty good to stick the panels to painted walls without damaging them.
My new office I intend to use as my studio hv 3 big windows and is close to the road... I don't know to handle the windows to reduce the noise from coming in and make the room sound great. This was a great video.
I just put up insulated curtains over the windows that wrap around my workstation and added a folded blanket on my desk underneath where the mic hangs from the boom. World of difference.
Great video. Cheers.
which DSLR are you using to record this video? Which lens? seems very good quality video.
Hi, Out of interest, what's the distance from the back of your desk to the wall? And does that distance make a difference?
In front of me is 2.5m gap and behind me is 2m.
To my left is 1m and to my right is 4.5m.
Really nice video!
I'm moving to a studio I'm building and I was planing to FULL a whole wall with those things.
Not anymore I guess o.O
Thanks for info :3
When I heard about the Wave Panels I thought $99 was kinda expensive and I was SERIOUSLY thinking of the Amazon way, but Glad I went with the Wave Panel as I have a Small Bed Room so I bought the 2-pack of the elgato wave panel and I'll be looking to get the 4 more of the expansion Packs and mount them too my Wall next to my other Panels.
@Neon Thunderbird yes. You can 3M tape them or wall screw them in
Great content, do you have a video that helps with background noise that goes to the mic? I have a yeti mic and it seems it picks up every sound
Excellent, thanks!!!!!!
The difference in mid range to high frequency absorption is the Absorption Coefficient Curve. Not all foams are the same, not all panels are the same..
For voice and music applications, it's best to have a nice smooth slope from 125hz to about 1000hz.. The most natural sounding tend to be the products with a smooth slope that closely matches human hearing curves.
I have dealt with typical acoustic panels using fiberglass, Sonex, Auralex, ASC, Acoustic Fields and out of all of the products I've dealt with, by far, the most natural sounding were the Acoustic Fields. I think they nailed the absorption coefficient curves. You can buy the foam panels and put them directly on the surfaces in your room< OR build your own frames (preferable) and cover them with whatever fabric, OR you can buy them in a variety of thicknesses with pre-built frames covered and uncovered with fabric. I prefer covering with fabric as that will protect the foam from UV exposure, plus they look nicer..
I'm not a fan of other panels because they just don't have a good absorption coefficient curve and they tend to either over absorb or under absorb In the most critical 125hz to 500hz range.
This information is rarely talked about by most of the acoustic panel mfg.'s.. Some companies don't even show absorption coefficient curves and most consumers have no idea what to look for, so they end up going by price and how they look rather than choosing the product with the best absorption coefficient curves.
Good night, could you talk more about those lights behind you? I loved these 2 different colors
I actually ended up going with a different option (although your acoustic panels are what I was looking at long term). I ended up hanging a noise reducing/black-out curtain on the wall I'm facing, and then put up decorative shower curtains (ironic right?) on the wall behind him.
Good choice! It's all about making improvements with what you can access. Those thick black-out curtains are great tools for both audio and making your lighting more consistent.
Would you recommend putting some panels behind you or the main concern the reverberation off the wall in front?
Consider which way your microphone is facing.
A cardioid microphone rejects sound from the back, so if the microphone is facing forward, the side and back walls are more important.
If your microphone is facing you from an angle, you might want to experiment a bit. The angle of the microphone can be important though.
Hey, May I know What is the type of fabric you are using for the rockwool acoustic panel?
To me, the room sounds great already even without any treatment.
Okay so. For the double sided adhesive. You need to put scotch tape on the wall and scotch tape on where they go on the pad. Usually the foam isn't have enough to rip things down but if it is, Just use some clear tape instead of scotch. Or you could just use more scotch, and put on like 6-8 tabs of placements. So yeah three pieces of tape if you don't want to ruin your wall. Mines already, not then best. or any good.
NICE BRO🔥
Does it make any difference if you stick the panels behind your monitor? Doesn't the sound bounce off the screen before it hits the wall?
Great video as always! I gotta tell you tho...that mouse on your desk without a mousepad gives me so much anxiety 😫
PREM was such an amazing movie. Thank you!
I'm sorry whatt??
Apology accepted
Would you rather have the better ones that are twice as much.... Or twice as many of the Elgato ones? How would that sound comparison end up if you stacked to double the thickness of the elgatos?
Could I suggest that you do a voicemeeter basic setup/advanced?! :)
Can you please write or link to those wall strips you recommended to protect the wall?
I dont know if anyone will see this, but I planned on buying panels because I dont want the noise to leave my room or to at least not be as loud. What would you recommend for that?
Mate, I'm not even looking to be a gamer or have a career in gaming, but found this video when looking at sound panels.
I wanted to just say that the audio quality on this is incredible! The sound profile is absolute perfection. Perfect balance of EQ and range.
I'm going to keep this video open so I can A/B as a reference for how I want my vocals to sound.
I see you've got a handful of videos up on EQ settings, but some are quite dated. Would you say they're all still relevant or have you levelled up your audio game significantly in the last year or two but not shared your secret recipe?
Top marks!
edit: back from sleuthing your other vids - there's a marked difference in audio within the last 6-9 months. Is it the sound panels? It's as though the sound is completely devoid of any sound bouncing off walls. But also the EQ range is very precise? Any ideas what changed please?
Same looking for advice on sound panels for my room to ply guitar loud
Genuine question. Would the panels work better if they were on the wall your mic is facing? I would assume there aren't going to do much for a cartioid pattern mic if they are behind it. The mic would be picking up reflection off the wall behind you the most I would think.
In case someone else is curious it's preferable to have panels on all walls & ceiling with the addition of a carpet but it's fair to just place them behind the mic (towards the place you're facing) and to your sides. When you project your voice outwards these will be the areas your voice makes contact with first before bouncing all over the place. Allowing them to absorb those sound-waves from the start means they'll be weaker and less able to bounce around the rest of the room even if those areas aren't treated.
Also even tho condenser mics in carioid mode are meant to only pick things up from one direction it does not mean they're invulnerable to sound behind them (such as mouse clicks and typing sounds). It just sets a preferred sensitivity towards the front. This means that echo reflecting from in front of you and hitting the back of the mic will still be picked up and can still have an effect on the clarity of your voice.
regardless of price and performance, they look *pretty* sick
Can I ask what light source your using for the RGB background ?
Foam only covers high frequencies. And you need at least 2" of it. The GIK acoustics panels are fiberglass and cover a much wider frequency of sounds, especially the thicker ones. They are expensive, but worth it if you don't want to put the time / energy into making your own Fiberglass/Rockwool panels. You can DIY the panels, but you need tools time and patience to build the panels, especially if you want to put the insulation into nice frames.
1” foam can cover high frequencies too if you have enough
It's not about "having" enough as much as the density and thickness of the material. "Having enough" is about surface area coverage. 1" will do very high frequencies. 2" will be slightly lower. It'll make the room sound deader, but it doesn't mean it will absorb enough frequencies for a clean recording. Small square rooms can have a null frequency of 125 Hz, and the human voice can go as low as 80Hz. But keep in mind -- it's not just about the vocal range, fans, and other noise making things.
What mic did you use to record this video?
What's a night and day difference, is having a good mic, with proper EQ. I have a noise gate, compressor, and noise limiter as well. I found sound panels in my bedroom for voice over to make too subtle of a difference to bother investing $ into it. Even on your test with your mic and no sound panels, you sound better than most people on UA-cam.
The fact that the Elgato panels are light is a sign that they will only target higher frequencies. Acoustic treatment needs to be thick and heavy in order for it to effectively deaden sound in all frequencies. Bass frequencies are the most difficult to handle and require bass traps but excessive boominess isn’t that easy to hear if you watch streams or videos on a phone with very little bass reproduction in the speakers. You’re absolutely right about then thin panels on Amazon, they’re rubbish.
For my professional voice over I have myself surrounded in thick acoustic (not moving) blankets but I still need to put panels in the corners to deal with bass buildup. Getting good audio is so much harder than getting good video.
Thickness counts but heaviness/density less so, and light and thick is better then thin/heavy for low frequencies.
I made wooden frames with hookes and filled it with cheap thick cotton mattress, covered them with cloth and then hung them. Costed $9.45 per panel (I made a total of 30) and does a far better job than foams.
the tests are super, pro panel gives a better absorbtion and - as far as i'm not wrong with calculation -the cost per square meter is in favour of GIK not Elgato. thanks
My solution, get some thick blackout curtains if your desk is next to a window 50 bucks max. Then spend maybe 200 on a mic+phantom power and you should be fine because of audio compression when you stream or upload to youtube.
Glad I watched this
Can you put a poster or tapestry in front of the panels or would that just defeat the purpose?
Save up or build your own. There are plenty of videos on building Rockwool/Corning 703/705 panels. MOVE the mic around if you‘re getting resonances. The best possible source signal is easier to manage. Then learn to use audio vst plugins such as Gates, Compressors and EQs. EQs in particular can help fix some light problems in the room, but good acoustic treatment is always preferred. An hour build time per panel if it all goes well I‘d say. One small tip from a dialogue recording engineer is to have two rolling 2-meter playbook walls in this shape around you: / \ Put the thickest absorbing material you can find on the sides facing you. Cover them if you must(glass wool Corning 703 for example). Instantly decent. I had to improvise such a setup on a show I mixed and recorded voice over lines for. Elgato‘s stuff, dense rockwool in a plywood frame or anything equivalent of at least 5 cm(2 inches) should be the bare minimum.
Playbook? Plywood?
The link of Wave panels is not right. Is not in sell for now?
This channel just makes me feel like I can do it, you know? Much helpful tips, such inspire.
Which RGB lights are you using for your background?
THANKS!!!!!!!
Definitely not a gamer, but your video has such excellent information for room treatment, thank you.
Anyone knows how this style of recording is done or what terms I could use to search for it? 12:49
Should have done an example of both the Elgato and GIK acoustic panels at the same time. ;)
If you don’t have a budget I think soundproof insulation would be the best, because these sound panels don’t really make much of a difference unless you put lots of them in the room
Gik Acoustic - MADE IN ITALY - Proud to be Italian!
Would it be worth it to install sound panels in every bit of your room, or is it just a waste of money and no good difference will be heard after like 12 panels?
Greaat help!
Panels with rockwool , fibreglass etc can't be beat. There is an absolutely massive night and day difference in person when using them (and a big difference in the video also). Categorically massive difference. Place them at first reflection points and if possible a few above the listening position on the ceiling. It's more expensive but massively helps with audio decay times and thus mixing and even just enjoying music more. Anybody that says there is no difference either doesn't have speakers or a mic or ears.
@Aro Oh man, I need to get my ears checked then. I barely noticed a difference in ANY of his tests.
can these be used to stop outside noise from coming into the room?
so i got cold large walls, laminat flooring and a large glass window front
i feel like im sitting in a goddamn church
So wats best, I’m just trying to stop sound coming thru walls. My wall is thin and I can hear sound coming thru the next room. Nd so can they
What’s the name of the color of your gik panels?
To be honest, I listened on Neumann NDH 30 headphones and I couldn’t hear much of a difference between the treatments. Obviously the untreated room sounded awful, but all the treatments sounded very similar. The low frequencies were a little more distinctively different with the large panels, but not enough to justify the price difference.
There’s no way I’d spend that much on one panel. I make my own from and I’ve use several different things to fill them with from Rockwool to multiple layers of carpet padding to mattress toppers. And it works just fine as long as you use enough. Nobody would ever know.
Basically if you have a sm7b do you really need panels?
"I'll probably put my streaming rig in the middle of the living room here"