1Louder

Not sure if Audio is the better spot - move if you feel it is.

I installed a bunch of RAAMmat today - thought I'd share the journey and results. I actually took before and after decibel readings just to really get an idea of the reduction (so it wasn't all in my head... )

I have an 06 TSX AT. I was after road-noise reduction primarily - any benefit to music was secondary to me. I elected to use RAAMmat instead of Dynamat for a couple reasons: I found some research that tested both and they came out very close to each other in terms of sound-deadening, and most important, RAAMmat was about half the cost.

Supplies: 1 roll RAAMmat BXT, 62.5 sq feet. Was $133.47 shipped to my door. I didn't use any rollers, etc. Just used my hands.

I'm not including any pics of the door install just because there are so many on the forum already - and it looks the same (bunch of silver...). I followed all the instructions you can find all over the forums - nothing really new to add. I just added the mat - no extra material. The one PIA was that white plastic - actually it was the black stuff they used to put it on. It was very soft and got everywhere, but it would not wipe off. It was almost like a cross section between grease and caulk (when it's wet).

I applied the mat to all four doors, both inside and out. I put under the rear deck (just applied from the bottom, and behind the rear seats. I have a pic for this - I just unzipped the back (there are two zippers on each seat). You have to untuck a small plastic strip on the bottom, and the whole back just folds back. I applied it double thick here, just because I could. Even after doing all that, I still have about 1/3 of the roll left.



OK, the results. I borrowed a decibel meter and took seven measurements along different roads at different speeds, then repeated the same route after the install. I had the radio and fans off (of course...). Here's the before and after (all numbers are in dB).

MPH / Road Type / Before / After
30 Newer 57-58 56-57
40 Rough 67-68 65-66
40 Rough 69-70 67-68
50 Rough 70-72 69-70
50 New 70-72 69-70
60 Smooth 67-68 65-66
70 Highway 72-75 69-70

All in all, I'd call it about a - 2-3 dB reduction in road noise.

Reference points so this means something:

Engine idling at 3k RPM registers 51 dB. I also found an FM frequency that just had white noise. I ran through 10 volume settings and with each increase, the noise increased about +3 dB (vol 8 - 18). So, I think the most practical way to hear what the reduction did for me is find an FM frequency with just static, set the volume to 15, then drop it to 14. That's about what it did. For the strength of the white noise I found, vol 15 = 68 dB, 14 = 65 (about what the road noise was equivalent to).

Overall Impressions: I'm "OK" with the results - I was really hoping for more considering the effort it took (install took about 6 hrs). It was a more noticeable difference at highway speeds, and the stereo sounds better - much more clarity, and the bass is tighter (I have stock speakers front and rear, and door speakers are Infinity 6012i). The doors feel twice as heavy (they're not, but they feel that way) and close with a solid "thunk".

I think I'm going to get some coating for the wheel wells next, see if that does more. Seems like the sound is really coming from the front wheel wells. I could put the mat on the interior, but no way am I up for tearing out the interior. I'd never get it put back right.

So, that was my Saturday....

jlukja

Dang, I would have thought it would make a bigger difference. I'm really curious about the wheel well coating. Let us know how that goes.

1Louder

^ for all the work is was, I did too. But the meter said what it said. I'm going to use QuietCar in the wheel wells - probably order it tomorrow - see if I can't get it applied by the end of the month. I'll measure again to see.

I've heard tires make the biggest difference, but until the original tires wear out, I'm stuck. Next set will be Bridgestone Pole Positions...

vthree

iTrader: (1)

i had some left over fat mat.. so i decided to do my tsx too.... check ur edging on the doors! i got so close to it. that it ooozed out the silicone adhesive crap.. and ruined my khakis for work =(... lol.... i still have some left over though.. and never thought about doing the back of the seats... do those ever really reproduce a rattle for u?

wong05tsx

iTrader: (6)

do you have pics of the rear deck? I found the most of my rattles coming from there.. but I'm lazy to take off the rear deck liner. How were you able to get under it?

1Louder

The seats never rattled, I was just after noise blocking (since that's the exposed side to the trunk, where I bet a lot of noise comes from). I'm not running any special 6x9's or a sub, so on the whole my car was rattle-free before I started.

1Louder

No pics, but basically I just crawled into the trunk and put as much material on the under-side of the deck as I could. Made good use of the small scraps left over from the door install. Basically if there was metal exposed I tried to cover it - stayed away from components or wires. I didn't have a rattle problem with the deck before - was just for noise reduction. Have no idea if it, or the seats, made any real difference.

Jottle

One thing I never understood for the doors is do you put the dynamat over the plastic rain guard? Or do you put the dynamat underneath it? Or do you just remove the plastic white rain guard altogether?

1Louder

Everything I saw on the forum says remove, and that's what I did. You could not put it over - it's attached to the door with some very sticky silicone (or something like it, but it has the consistency of tooth paste). It comes off very easy - not something you'd want to put the heavy mat over.

1Louder

QuietCar on order - if I installed this weekend, it would take a week to cure and get the full sound deadening effect. Probably a couple weeks before I can post another measurement.

xenonhid

I'm very interested myself in this project.

miner

I did the Dynamat Extreme on all four doors and di notice little improvement in road noise reduction, but a huge improvement in stero dbs. As mentioned, most noise is from the tires.

jiggaman

i would also suggest using the ensolite product that raamaudio sells in addition to raamat. ensolite will do a better job of absorbing sounds.

1Louder

I may do that - if I can summon the courage to take off my doors - for a third time.... I did put the OEM sound absorbing material back in (that black foam) over the RAAMmat. Didn't look very substantial however...

I may see how the QuiteCar works out first.

jlukja

I put Cascade Vmax on the front doors when I did my speaker swap. The road noise dampling was negligible at best. I'm resigned to live with it until the OEM tires need replacement but if you get good results with the wheel wells then I may revisit the issue.

1Louder

I'm hopeful, however I've heard time and time again the tires make the biggest difference...

1Louder

I put on the QuietCar today. I won't be able to measure the difference until next week (it takes a week to fully set up). I'll get a first impression posted tomorrow.

Here's the details. My plan was to coat the wheel wells, and to also get as much under the car as I could. Cleaning was the first stop - this was a bit more difficult than I thought. The instructions recommended using 409 and a powerwash, so that's what I did (with the wheels on). I let it dry over night.

I don't have a lift or anything special, so I just jacked up the front and took the wheel off. It needed a second cleaning, so I just used more 409 and a wet rag, dried with a cloth. It never came fully clean, but close. I also cleaned the underside - the 1' strip running on the outside of the car (see second pic). With the front jacked up, there was enough room on the rear to clean again without having to remove the wheel.

I put the material on every exposed surface, but not the moving parts or the suspension parts. I wound up putting on 4 coats in the wells, and 3 under the car. As it turns out, 1 gallon did all that perfectly with none left over (and I was putting it on generously).

The whole job took 6 hours, because it has to set up after each coat. This is very temperature dependend. It was in the 50's today and one coat would take about 2 hrs to set up. So I grabbed a hair dryer and ran it in the wells as I moved on. This shortened the setup to about 30 min, so I could go from section to section and back again steadily. Here's the pics (it goes on grey, dries black):





More later!

xenonhid

Very Cool! Keep us updated as I plan on doing this as well.

It looks like cleaning and the prep work takes the longest.

litesout

Yes, this greatly interests me as well. Although, with it being in the 90s here every day, the hair dryer won't be necessary. I'll just bring out a few cold beverages instead. Just out of curiousity, how much did the gallon cost with shipping?

1Louder

Cleaning the car took a bit of time, but applying 4 coats in six locations was the time consuming part. The product was actually easy to work with. It's just like thick paint, and (thankfully) cleans up with water. Looking back, I think I would have used this on the insides of the doors (inside meaning the outer skin of the door) and then put the mat over the outside. However, that would take a long time.

1Louder

It costs just under $60/gal. S&H was about $7/gal. I ordered 2 gallons - total bill was $134.

1Louder

I drove today and used two of my measurement point roads in the original post. I'm only using my ear, and it's hard to tell if I'm biased, but I'm encouraged by what I hear (more to the point, what I don't hear). It's not profound, but I do think it's noticeable and much more what I was hoping for. The product does require a week to reach it full sound-deadening stage, so I plan to re-run the sound measurements next Sunday - will post the data.

Question: if this really pans out I'd like to to the hood and trunk, but don't know how to remove the liners and get those black clips out without breaking them. Anyone done this and have a suggestion?

xenonhid

Wow, imagine the results though! That would be awesome but very time consuming. I guess its a possibility if you can "side line" the TSX for a while to complete this.

1Louder

^^I think you'd have to resolve yourself to doing one door at at time. It took me about 1.5 hrs / door just for the mats. Add to that at least 2 hrs to put on 3 coats of QuietCar. So probably 2 doors in an afternoon....

1Louder

Well, I did one more application this weekend before taking it out for measurements. I had plenty of mat and QuietCar left over so I did the trunk. I put QuietCar on the wheel wells because it was easier to paint, and put the mat down around the spare tire (doubled it up too).

Right Side:


Left Side:


As for the results, I ran the same route today. Here's what came out. I'll use color codes because I can't seem to get this to format right.

MPH / Road Type / Before / After Doors / After Doors + Wheel Wells + Trunk
30 Newer 57-58 56-57 53-55
40 Rough 67-68 65-66 63-65
40 Rough 69-70 67-68 67-68
50 Rough 70-72 69-70 68-70
50 New 70-72 69-70 64-66
60 Smooth 67-68 65-66 63-64
70 Highway 72-75 69-70 69-70

So again, a small difference. Seems like the best I got was -5 dB out of both efforts. Disappointing considering how much effort it all took, but it's better than nothing. There is a bit of error margin involved here too, as I was looking at the readouts and trying to get a feel for the average. There were spikes and dips around those ranges.

On the plus side, on anything but the "noisy" roads are whisper quiet and even with that small reduction, it is more pleasant. And, the stereo sounds fantastic. That much is noticeable. Maybe it's a reduction in the frequency of the road noise interfering with the music.

I guess if you really wanted to make a difference, doing the interior is the way to go. I'd hate to think about going through that kind of effort and only get another -5 dB though. I guess tires are the next stop - but that will have to wait. When I do, I'll ressurect this again and get more measurements.

feuss2

iTrader: (1)

This is quite awesome work, and thank you for taking pics and measurements!

chhimp

That's so much work for 5 db reduction. What is the weight of the added noise reduction? Has the MPG decreased? Excellent write up, thought.

1Louder

Thanks - I was disappointed too at the amount of work vs. result, but it was worth a shot. Road noise is my only real complaint about my car and since I'd like to own it a long time, was worth taking a shot. I'd probably still do it again because even at 5 or 6 dB, that's about two radio volume clicks worth. I'm hopeful that tires will drop it that much again. On the weight, I'd estimate there's about 25 lbs of product on the car now between the mats and QuietCar. MPG seems untouched (MID says 32.1 MPG this AM after about 200 miles on the tank) - which is typical. I will say this: the doors feel much more solid (and close with more of a clunk), and the bass response on my stereo is noticeably better. I'm running stock tweeters and 6x9's, and upgraded door speakers (Infinity 6012i). What's different now is that I can hear the 6x9's much better. I suspect with all the sound-deadening in the rear (between the trunk and the wheel wells), that the 6x9's have less competition. When I looked at the analyzer, the frequency of road noise is very low - <1K Hz. So if I cut that back in the rear, the 6x9's are not competing as much for that same frequency range and I'm getting much better balance out of the stereo.

LukeaTron

Interesting that you mention the frequency of the road noise. I would suspect that a material of this nature would be best at absorbing high frequency sounds since they are the easiest to dissipate. There may be some additional attenuation of low frequency sounds because the material absorbs some of the high frequency vibrations that reverberate through the chassis and create lower harmonic frequencies. That is, the material would be good at dampening low frequency nosies that are being "generated" by the car's body but not so good at absorbing low frequencies are coming in from outside the car.

Stating the absolute reduction in SPL across the entire spectrum of your meter is probably short changing the results. If you were to isolate various frequencies I'm sure you'd see a much more substantial drop in the higher frequencies. Due to the way our ears and brains work, a big jump in high frequency (>6000 Hz, around where vocal sounds top out) will be perceived as a much smaller difference than the same change in a lower frequency. This of course would require some expensive audio equipment and the ability to travel back in time to retake the measurements.

For a simpler comparison, toss your wife or some other female in the car who was familiar with the "before" sound. Women's hearing is centered on a higher frequency than men (close to the frequency of a baby's cry) so they can hear highs with more detail than us estrogenically challenged types. I'll bet she'll say there is more significant improvement. Or maybe she'll say it was a waste of time and start harping on you to stop wasting your money on the car and start helping out around the house more. I suppose it depends a lot on who you do the testing with.

1Louder

to that last paragraph.

My wife has been a good sport - it's the closest thing I have to a hobby so in her mind at least I'm around the house. There was a moment when I had the trunk liner removed (which looks bad to the outside observer) and she's standing in the garage, arms crossed, and looks at me, "Are you sure you know what you're doing to your $30,000 car?".

Anyway, thanks for the observations. I was hoping someone smarter than I in the world of sound and audio could shed some light. It was a difficult thing to measure - as the data shows the change varried greatly between one road to the next. I'm wondering if other factors out there influenced the results (temperature, etc.).

Jottle

I hope you aren't saying that women have better higher frequency hearing because they need it to be better able to hear babies crying. That would be closer to a guess than a causal certainty. Is there a journal article you cold point me to on this? I haven't heard of this link between baby crying and women's better hearing at these frequencies. It seems to just be hormonal differences...which are very hard to specifically link to something as complex as child rearing. Skeptical over here
This is all I could find:

"Sex Differences in the Auditory System"
Journal article by Dennis McFadden; Developmental Neuropsychology, Vol. 14, 1998

ThirdLane

I noticed that you are using sound dampner. In my experience, sound dampeners doesn't really make your car quieter but does a good job of isolating noise and vibration. Best thing to use make your car quieter and stop road noise from entering the cabin is something like TacMat from Dynamat it does a better job of insulating the cabin from road noise and heat, sort of like home insulation. Sound dampeners are primarily used to dampen sound waves from the inside to keep panels from vibrating and distorting listening experience and TacMat is used for actual noise cancelation. When you couple sound dampener with Tac Mat, you will be able to achieve maximum sound control. Tac Mat is considered sound deadener/reducer and while RaamMat is considered more of a sound dampener. You can use strips of RaamMat on your car as opposed to covering the whole panel and use something like Tac Mat to cover the panel to make it quiet. Using strips of RaamMat will net you the same results as using it to cover entire panels. Trick is to covering up suspect panels, that you think might vibrate. Even using carpet insulation from home use will net you great results in reducing road noise in the cabin. I had a 95 Honda Accord and that thing had tons of road noise intruding into the cabin, especially after I lowered it and put on 18in rims and tires. So I used a pack of Dynamat Extremeliner on the doors and the trunk to keep my panels from vibrating, and I used strips of it as opposed to covering entire panels. And I bought 3 pack of Tac Mat to cover the door panels and I went to Lowe's to buy like 40sq ft of foam carpet insulation to use on the floor beneath the carpet. And those 3 things made a huge difference in sound levels in my car. I didn't have a decibel meter but it made a big difference. My exhaust noise and intake noise wouldn't intrude into the cabin and I had a sound system and before that if I had my system turned up, you would be able to hear and feel the bass outside of my car but after it was as if I had a stock system. With leftover carpet foam insulation, I used 3M spray on glue and applied it right on top of Tac Mat on the doors. I used to take trips to ATL alot and I used to be fatigued after the trip but after the mod, I wouldn't be so fatigued anymore. That alone let me know that the mods worked. Plus I loved it when my GF first got in my car afterwards, she said "Damn your car is actually quiet". If someone honked the horn at me, it used to sound so muffled. Try it apply Tac Mat over the doors and listen for the difference. Plus firewall is the major culprite in transmitting road/engine noise along with the wheel wells. A buddy of mine spent like $2000 getting his car sound deadened. He did Dynamat and Tac Mat in the doors, roof, trunk, , floor, firewall(took off the dash to do it), spray on sound dampener in the wheel wells, and under the hood. And his car was dead silent almost Lexus like.

jlukja

FWIW, I think the low frequency characteristics of road noise are precisely the problem with my 04 TSX (OEM tires). With the stereo turned down to a comfortable level the road noise competes and drowns out the lower frequency of the music leaving me only with mid and high frequencies. If I turn up the volume then I can better distinguish between the music and the road noise but then its a little too loud for my tastes.

LukeaTron

It was in a textbook I had for a Human Information Processing class I took. It's a widely know fact that the optimal hearing range in women is both shifted higher and wider in general than in men. As it happens, their hearing is centered around the frequency of a pre-pubescent childs voice. There was a study published last year that mainstream media cherry picked the hell out of that showed women not to be bothered all that much by a constant tone at that same frequency. Men on the other hand were much more irritated by the sound. Older men (I forget where they put the line, 30, 40?) were even more bothered by it.

It's hard to say the reason their hearing is concentrated on that range is because of the child's cry (and you'll note that I didn't). It could just be lucky coincidence but then that's the underlying principle of all of evolution, isn't it? It's good to be skeptical though. Especially on teh internets.

nj2pa2nc

compared to the 05 honda civic ex-se I previously owned, my 06 6MT tsx is extremely quiet. It still has the original OEM tires with almost 54,000 miles.

1Louder

This is exactly what I tried to fix - I could not articulate that was the problem before I started, but instinctively that's what bothered me.

1Louder

VERY interesting. So apparantly I have a vibration-free car, not a sound proofed one. But the QuiteCar was advertised to reduce noise, not vibration (and I don't know what else one would put under the car or in the wheel wells). But I can see that about the RAAMmat. Maybe as one last desperate attempt, I'll try some true sound deadening material in the doors. But that will be it. Then, its new tires.