Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeX
Here's what Hunter Douglas says about Cell Shades:
Because of their honeycomb design, cellular shades can insulate your windows not only from heat and cold but also from outside noise. Improve your room’s acoustics while reducing the intensity of outside sound with Duette®Honeycomb Shades. Known for their great insulating properties, these noise-reducing shades absorb up to 70% of sound energy, creating a quieter, more tranquil room.
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This is a bit apples and oranges. The purpose of room treatment isn't sound-proofing. Room treatment is to address the sounds created in the room (guitars, drums, keyboards, vocals, etc.).
Hunter Douglas wants to sell their product and the language they're employing here might be a tad misleading. I'm specifically curious about the phrase "up to 70%." They provide an efficacy ceiling but no floor. "Up to 70%" would include everything below 70% all the way down to zero. I've no doubt that you're hearing a difference in your home. Just about anytime we add something with a lot of surface area to a room, we're going to hear a difference. If I have an empty room and do the clap test before and after adding a sofa or carpet, I'm going to hear a difference. That doesn't mean the room is now going to be suitable for recording.
I don't personally know anyone who has sound-proofed a room so I haven't seen it first hand, but I've read enough books and articles about room treatment to understand the basic principles and to know that it is an expensive endeavor (which is why studios rarely go that route). I'm very skeptical of claims that 70% soundproofing can be achieved by hanging those shades. I'm sure it offers some degree of muffling but 70% seems unlikely, and that's probably why the company isn't providing a minimal efficacy expectation number. The way the description is worded, even a reduction of outside noise as low as 1% would shield the company from charges of false claims (I think it's probably better than that in all cases but unlikely to be anywhere near 70%).
But coming back to the OP's question, he's asking if those shades would be effective room treatment to make his room suitable for recording. While outside noise can be a bane, that's not the noise we're trying to tame when we treat a room with bass traps, panels, and diffusors.