- Minimizing echo and flutter in a space is essential for mixing and recording.
- Here are 7 great options for DIY acoustic treatment!
To do any kind of reliable type of audio work with studio monitors, you need a treated environment that minimizes acoustic reflections.
Luckily, there are many DIY options on the market that can make a big difference to the sound of your studio. Acoustic foam panel companies have blossomed to accommodate the increasing demand for the home recording studio crowd as well.
In this article, we’re going to help you pick the best foam panels for your studio!
(Make sure you also read 4 Tips To Improve Room Acoustics With Zero Budget for some ingenious studio hacks!)
What Are The Best Acoustic Foam Panels?
Our choice for the best acoustic foam panels is the Pro Studio Acoustic Wedge Foam. These panels offer fantastic value, as you can effectively treat your entire studio with them without spending a fortune.
For those who are short on cash, the Foamily Egg Crate Acoustic Panels offer good quality for a lower price given their convenient presentation. For those that need the absolute best in acoustic treatment, our premium choice is the Auralex Studiofoam Wedges.
Here are our candidates for the best acoustic foam panels:
- Pro Studio Acoustic Wedge Foam (Our Pick)
- Foamily Egg Crate Acoustic Panels (Best Value)
- Auralex Studiofoam Wedges (Premium Choice)
- Audimute AcoustiColor Acoustic Tiles
- SoundAssured Acoustic Studio Foam
- Jber Pyramid Acoustic Foam Panels
- Mybecca Acoustic Panels
1. Pro Studio Acoustic Wedge Foam
The Pro Studio Acoustic Wedge Foam offers fantastic value for money. These thick panels will help you control your acoustic environment quite effectively.
On top of that, they look great and are available in two colors to add a bit of flair to your space. Their price is also quite appealing, and combined with their features, makes these our pick for the best acoustic foam panels on this list.
Pro Studio Acoustics 12"x12"x2" acoustic wedge foam tiles are the perfect solution for acoustically treating home studios, listening rooms, recording studios, control rooms, home theaters, and more. They provide professional results for anyone looking to more accurately control the sound environment of a room.
Features
- Ships uncompressed and ready to install
- For recording studios, control rooms, home studios, home theaters, and more
- For reducing echoes in small to medium-sized rooms.
- 2-inch thick premium acoustic wedge foam, NRC of 0.65
- 12 pack covers 12 square feet
Review
The Pro Studios Acoustics Wedge Foam comes in a 12-pack with six panels in blue and six panels in black so you can also put your designer hat on and mix and match. These panels are two-inches thick, providing strong soundproofing that will suit most situations.
A great advantage of the Pro Studio Acoustics Wedge Foam is its price. You can easily get as many as you need without breaking the bank.
The recommended design of these sound absorption tiles is to use them in an alternating pattern of color and alignment. This creates an attractive checkerboard pattern with strong sound absorption.
These panels are great at reducing standing sound waves and flutter echoes in home studios.
An important detail about these panels is that they come uncompressed in a box, so there is no need for warping or waiting days for them to expand after being vacuum sealed.
Additionally, these panels feature a thick design so the foam can handle all types of noises. These panels can be used for either covering a full wall or for spot treatments to tame problem areas in your home studio.
2. Foamily Egg Crate Acoustic Panels
The Foamily Egg Crate features large panels to treat the hard surfaces of your home studio. They are our best value-for-money option given their quality and price.
These acoustic panels are easy to install and offer a more conservative look and approach to treating your room. They are great for a variety of applications, from studio to home entertainment systems and more.
Foamily Egg Crate Acoustic Panels provide an ultra-clean look and superb sound absorption, as well as being great for spot treating sound on walls in your studio or office.
Features
- Great for spot treating sound on walls
- For hard surfaces on recording studios, control rooms, offices
- High-quality NRC
- Ideal for smaller rooms
- Made in the U.S.
Review
With the Foamily Egg Crate Acoustic Panels, you can choose the colors and sizes that you need to make these panels fit in your studio. These are large panels for sound absorption, measuring 24 inches x 48 inches and are 2.5 inches thick.
You can choose one of the three color options from charcoal, burgundy, and red. As you can probably guess from the name, these panels feature an egg-crate design as opposed to a pyramid style. This all boils down to your personal preference and what suits your studio better.
The Foamily Egg Crate pack does a good job of absorbing sounds and noises to help you hear and record clearly, removing most unwanted reverb, echo, and flutter.
However, these panels aren’t exactly strict soundproofing material. The volume of the sound will not change significantly but the quality of the sound will improve, and all of this for a great price.
3. Auralex Studiofoam Wedges
Auralex has been one of the most respected names in acoustic treatment solutions for years, and their Studiofoam Wedges are our premium option for this list.
These 2 inch thick panels are a great option for treating small to medium-sized rooms. These panels can be used alone or together with bass traps to provide efficient sound absorption, while also dealing with standing waves and flutter echoes.
When used on their own, or in conjunction with bass traps, diffusers, and other treatments, Auralex Studiofoam Wedge panels provide efficient sound absorption, take care of standing waves and flutter echoes, as well as giving your room a professional touch.
Features
- 12 per box, each box can cover up to 48 ft
- NRC rating of .75 to .80
- 2″ Studiofoam, 2′ x 2′ panels
- Color: Charcoal
- Relatively simple DIY installation
Review
The Auralex Studiofoam Wedges sound panels are a great solution for treating your home studio and feature a stellar NRC rating of .75 to .80.
These panels deliver fantastic performance when it comes to eliminating reverberation and offer great value thanks to their quality, price, and the number of panels that come with each pack.
Each pack contains twenty-four 12-by-12-inch panels that can be installed on a variety of surfaces. The 24-pack is sufficient to cover 24 square feet of surface space. For those that need a little less, there’s also an 18-pack option.
One of the greatest advantages of these panels is their reduced size. If you have a tight space or need treatment in some very specific and reduced places, then the small size of these panels makes them a great option.
You can install them on basically any surface and they are also fire-resistant. These Auralex panels are available in charcoal gray only, so if having a colorful studio is important to you, you might want to look elsewhere…
4. Audimute AcoustiColor Acoustic Tiles
If the gray color of the Auralex Studiofoam Wedges is a dealbreaker for you, then you can rest easy knowing Audimute have you covered. The Audimute AcoustiColor Acoustic Tiles provide a rainbow of options so that you can have a fun-looking studio without sacrificing good acoustic treatment.
Audimute’s AcoustiColor Acoustic Panels are a cost-effective, customizable sound absorption solution. Coated in one of the many color options available from Sherwin-Williams, these panels will look great in your space and will improve the sound quality.
Features
- Combines acoustic treatment with extensive design options
- 12 pack – 2′ x 2′ panels for 48 sq ft
- 95 NRC sound absorption panels
- Designed for purer sound in large spaces
- Eco-friendly, made of recycled material, and shipped in bulk
Review
With the Audimute AcoustiColor Acoustic Tiles, you have a plethora of aesthetic options while preserving sound quality. You can get these acoustic tiles in a variety of colors, so you can either choose some to suit your existing space or create a whole new vibe instead.
Each panel is 1.5 inches thick but still able to effectively minimize echo and reverberation in your studio. They come in a variety of sizes, ranging from 1-by-1 inch to 3-by-3 inches.
Additionally, to ensure you get acoustic panels that best meet your needs, there’s also the option of getting custom shapes, images, sizes, finishing, and framing for your order.
These Audimute panels come with an impressive NRC rating of 0.95 and are ideal for large rooms. The installation is also simple and DIY. For installing, you can either use an industrial-strength spray adhesive or select the option to add easy hang adhesive to the back of your 12 pack.
The easy hang adhesive tape definitely makes everything much less stressful. All you have to do is remove the backing on the pre-affixed tape and place the panel onto your wall. It’s that simple!
The Audimute Acoustic Tiles are a fantastic option for treating your room acoustically and offer you top-quality, fire-resistant panels with tons of variety for the most demanding tastes in decor as well as easy installation.
5. SoundAssured Acoustic Studio Foam
SoundAssured is a company that offers a variety of options for treating your room acoustically and was started with the ethos of providing musicians with great and affordable options for their home studios.
SoundAssured prides itself on customer service and offers variety when it comes to acoustic treatment, ranging from the size and thickness of the panels to their various color options.
SoundAssured acoustic foam is great for sound deadening at home or in a professional studio. These handy foam panels can be placed side by side for an aesthetically pleasing feel that will surely make your room look and sound great
Features
- Four-pack presentation, with over a dozen attractive colors to choose from.
- 12×12 inches and two inches thickness.
- Fire-retardant with a rating of ASTM E 84.
- Easy to install
- Wedge style for greater sound absorption
Review
The SoundAssured Acoustic Studio Foam panels offer an easy way to calculate how many packages you need to cover your home recording studio walls. You can figure this out by measuring the square footage of the wall space and then dividing it by four since each package covers four square feet.
These panels offer great room treatment are very easy to install. In case you need to fit them in a smaller or an odd-shaped area, you can trim them as needed with regular scissors. Installation can be permanent by using adhesive tape or spray (sold separately) or you can use push pins or Velcro to hang them temporarily.
The Sound Assured Acoustic Studio Foam panels come in one-inch, two-inch, three-inch, and four-inch-thick versions for different applications. The thinner tiles are recommended for high-frequency absorption while the thicker tiles work better for low-end frequency absorption.
6. Jber Pyramid Acoustic Foam Panels
The Jber Pyramid Acoustic Foam Panels are a great acoustic treatment choice for practice rooms, home theaters, and offices. As the name suggests, they feature a classic “pyramid” design for enhanced sound absorption.
As well as being an effective sound deadener for standing waves and flutter echoes, these panels also reduce slap-back and room ring when used in medium-sized areas like isolation booths, recording booths, control rooms, and sound studios.
Features
- Two-inch thick foam panels and with pyramid-cone shape.
- 24-pack in three colors of charcoal, blue, and red.
- 12 inches square.
- Modest soundproofing to reduce outside noises.
- Shipped compressed
Review
With the Jber Pyramid Acoustic Foam Panels, you can choose between six-pack and 24-pack options based on the size of your room. These panels reduce echoes and background noises effectively and are designed for home studios and other home or office applications.
Additionally, installation is easy and you can also adapt them by cutting and shaping the panels without affecting their noise reduction.
The Jber Pyramid Acoustic Foam Panels were designed especially to help reduce reverb, flutter echo, and unwanted reflections in home studios. You can use them to cover a wall entirely or for specific spot sound treatment of trouble areas. These panels come one-third compressed.
7. Mybecca Acoustic Panels
Mybecca is a company that offers a variety of products, from acoustic treatment solutions to carpets and pillows. Despite not being strictly rooted in acoustic products, Mybecca’s Acoustic Panels are one of the best choices for acoustically treating your studio.
An affordable choice for soundproofing a room of any size, Mybecca's Wedges offer a level of rigidity and consistent firmness that delivers long-term durability, even in busy recording studios.
Features
- 12×12 inches
- Cost-efficient as they come in large quantities
- One pack can cover 48 square feet
- Wedge-style acoustic panels
- Use spray glue to install
Review
The Mybecca Acoustic Panels feature a wedge-style that can be arranged in a checkerboard pattern that alternates the alignment of the wedges.
These acoustic panels are 12 inches square and come in a pack of 48 panels, making them very cost-efficient. Of course, the flip side of that is that if you have a small room or just a few spots to treat, then 48 panels is too much.
Therefore these panels are more appropriate for larger rooms and recording studios. The Mybecca panels do a great job of eliminating standing waves, reducing undesired sound reflection, and helping to keep outside noise out of your room or studio.
In general, these panels reduce between 80-90% of typical background noises and sounds. Additionally, these acoustic panels are compliant with all flammability standards.
One thing to consider is how you will install these panels. A great option is to mount these acoustic tiles on cardboard and then hang the cardboard on the wall, in such a way that it does not cause any wall damage. This is especially important if you rent your place. Overall, they are a solid option for acoustically treating your studio.
Reality Check
It is close to useless to have nice studio gear if your room is not acoustically treated. I know that foam panels are not as sexy as that vintage compressor or synthesizer, however, acoustic treatment is an essential touch that you can’t ignore.
It is vital to tame unwanted resonances, bass buildups and more, in order to be able to accurately and consistently judge your audio.
Your room needs to sound neutral so you can make sensible mixing decisions that translate to other rooms and systems. Luckily, the list above has seven of the best option on the market and I’m confident that at least one of them will work for you.
One word of caution: take the time to understand how to acoustically treat your room before you start the process. Each room and situation is unique but they do share many common acoustic principles.
In case you’re new to this, the best way to go about it is to get some help from a knowledgeable person, maybe a friend with a studio. But before you do that, make sure you read our guide to acoustic foam panel placement to get a head start!