Automotive Mobile Audio Video

One of the hidden treasures of the car audio industry is sound dampening material. Not very many people know that such things exist, but they do and they may greatly improve the quality of your audio system. Various companies like Dynamat, Scosche, and Hushmat have available for you various sizes for different applications. You could either do your entire car or just spots that you know make a lot of noise such as door panels or the inside of your trunk.

How does it work?
Distortion and other unwanted noise occur when you simply drive on the road or when you are listening to loud music. It is cause by whatever surface you're driving on and that vibration is transferred through the mechanical movement of your tires, wheels, and suspension/strut system. When you are listening to loud music, your speaker or subwoofer causes certain part to vibrate in ways they would not normally move, causing rattles of many parts in your vehicle. In addition, your engine also contributes more noise and vibration; and the combination of all this noise gets collected inside your car and hampers the sound quality from being delivered at an optimal level.

Think of sound dampening mats as smaller-scale Tempur-Pedic mattresses for your car. You may have seen the commercial where disturbance on one side of the mattress will not disturb the other person on the opposite side. Dynamat uses the viscoelasticity property of the padding material to diffuse sound energy so that outside noise will not enter the vehicle or when applied on door panels for example, the vibration is greatly reduced or would not be heard from the interior. Sound is also kept within your vehicle and in so doing, keeping a much accurate sound inside rather than allowing it to escape.

The Improvement
As you could probably imagine, applying the mat would improve the sonic purity that your system produces. So imagine listening to music as loud as you want, without any rattles, distortion, or other outside noise. It will allow you to hear your music easier too so you won't have to always max out the volume.

Companies like Hushmat and Dynamat have reported outside noise reduction of up to 10 dB per complete application. Some vehicles could even have up to 20 dB noise reduction if properly matted and when using proper material. And because sound is also kept from escaping so easily out of your vehicle, you will find that your bass will also increase to about 3 dB in SPL.

If you want to improve the sound quality of your system in a cost-effective way, this is definitely a great way to do so. You could probably find plenty of affordable package deals out there like padding for two speakers for around 20 bucks or 360 square feet of padding material for around 40 bucks.