Fitting R'Acoustic 20 acoustic insulation to a ceiling

An absorber only works if the sound reaches it

That is the condition most often forgotten. Placing an absorber above a solid fabric amounts to shutting it away: the sound reflects off the fabric and never meets the material. The facing therefore has to let sound through.

The micro-perforated fabric

That is the usual answer in a stretch ceiling. The perforations are invisible at eye level and let the waves through to the plenum, where the absorber does its work. The fabric then becomes an acoustic filter rather than a mirror.

Twenty millimetres, what that treats

A thickness of that order acts mainly on mid and high frequencies, those of speech. It reduces reverberation and improves intelligibility, which matches the real need of an office, a classroom or an open living space.

What twenty millimetres does not treat

Low frequencies, which call for much greater thickness or different devices. A music room or a sports hall is not treated the same way, and it is better to say so than to discover it after fitting.

Footsteps from the floor above

They are not a matter of absorption but of transmission through the structure. An absorber at ceiling level changes almost nothing there, and the answer lies in the floor above, which is another job.

The advantage of the plenum

The material sits in a volume already created, taking no wall area and not reducing the room. That is what sets this approach apart from applied acoustic panels, which take the space the ceiling does not.

The 10 mm version is presented on its page, and the full range on the Ceilingo insulation page.