Soundproofing

Having a quiet car interior not only improves the overall listening experience, but is less fatiguing.

There are two stages to soundproofing:

1) Reducing Vibrations and Resonance

The best home audio speaker cabinets are thick and acoustically “dead”, so that the only sounds coming out of them are the ones you are intended to hear. In a car, most of the sound comes out of your car doors. Car doors make for terrible speaker cabinets, because they are a thin sheet-metal, naturally resonant structure.

So naturally, we at Systems Unlimited take great pleasure in turning car doors into acoustically dead speaker “cabinets”: The first step is to dampen vibration by adding mass to the panels. We use a elastomeric butyl material that bonds to the metal skin effectively eliminating vibration. This layer does not need to be continuous.

2) Soundproofing

The second layer is a continuous sheet of closed-cell acoustic foam. This can be one of the excellent standard products that are widely available. We’ve chosen to use a product originally used to sound dampen nuclear submarines.

A really nice side-benefit of soundproofing your doors is that they will sound and feel like a Bentley when they close. If so happens your car IS a Bentley, don’t turn away: we can also greatly improve the soundproofing of luxury automobiles, up to and including the latest Bentleys.

Noise comes in through the floor, from the wheel-wells and firewall, and through the roof. A complete soundproofing job will transform the whole experience of being inside your car, leaving you to enjoy your music in perfect peace and quiet.

Some of our soundproofing projects.