John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello John and everyone else,
I was wandering what you would suggest as the best/lightest material to make diffusors out of. Reading the Everest's Handbook of Acoustics, I most often come across MDF used for it. Now, this mounted on the ceilings would be bloody heavy wouldn't it? Considering that some of the MDF boards in there look 1/2" or even more thick. What would be a good lighter material, or is the wood the way to go?

thanks

Yeah, this is a tough one. There really aren't any inexpensive alternatives as far as I can tell.

You can buy structural extruded plastic panels like the picture below. They're light weight, square unit cells work out nicely for cutting diffusor sequences, and they can look great. Imagine a partitionless diffusor made from clear Lexan! But, of course, they're quite expensive and it would cost a small fortune to build diffusors out of these.

Thomas