Which one is better?
I did some searching on the forum and found that dynamat apparently only reduces panal vibration. And that apparently paxmate has little or no effect ..
The brownthing (can't remember its name) sounded interesting but I can't find a store that will sell it to me without bankrupting me by ludicrously hight shipping costs.

I've found dynamat to be useful for direct damping, such as wrapping HDD's in. But for overall noise absorbing it's pretty useless.

And it smells awful.

The 2 materials you refer to have completely different functions: paxmate for airboarne sound absorbtion and dynamat for minimizing panel vibration. The latter has little use in a low airflow (low vibe) case; the former can be judged partly by weight -- if it's heavier, it generally works a bit better.

For more into... http://forums.silentpcreview.com//viewtopic.php?t=2651

Of all the stuff meant specifically for computer cases the ones by Muffled Computing and AcoustiProducts seem best. Will know more clearly in a week. Testing in the lab.

I was just at Menards last weekend. Found a lot of heavy rubber matting that would make good sound deadeners. Only has to be 1/16" to 1/8" thick. Thicker would be OK but will add weight to the case. If thicker, then it does not need to be from edge to edge (ie 6 " strip s/b OK for 10" area). Use rubber cement to attach.


look for post by Renod in this forum for more advice.
http://forums.silentpcreview.com//viewt ... highlight=

I bought the Damping sheet. Great stuff!
I bought this stuff before my trip to Menards.

I also bought 2lb 1 7/8" foam (like they used to pack in harddrives) in transit. This is to ABSORB sounds. Still waiting for it to arrive.
http://www.foamorder.com/products.cgi?c ... m=acoustic

I am also planing on building a muffler like muffledcomputing.com, using 9.99 drawer from Kmart and aforementioned foam. Its halfway finished, then I need to glue/rubber cement the foam inside and hang with velcro.
The inner drawer (cut to 3" deep) and will face right and be stapled to outside drawer (left at 7" deep) which faces left.
The outside drawer is cut so the lip will hang onto top and one side of the case. I have high hopes.

Thanks a bunch to Renod!
Bob

I have tried both of these products and I found niether very effective. They are both meant for different things....if you have a lot of vibrational noise, dynamat will help you...paxmate is geared towards high frequency noises...such as little fans, and it kills a little high pitched hard drive noise. But otherwise, it just shaves a little bit off of your overall noise.

is it better to use dynamat and these sound dampening items on the noise-making items themselves? like for example, instead of lining the dynamat or paxmate on the panels and parts of your case that might make noise, it might be better just to focus those materials on the fans, hard drives, and cd-rom's in your case? is this the best way to reduce noise? TIA!

s@ndb@g -- sound dampening materials ON the components will overheat them.

FWIW...You can buy stuff virtually identical to Dynamat at a large hardware store. This is roofing material stuff and comes in rolls about 8" wide. Buying one roll....about 25 feet, will do several computers at about 1/5 the cost of Dynamat.

The stuff is sold under many brand names....It is sticky tar-like on one side, and plain aluminum backed. Works very well to cut down vibrations.

I heard Dynamat is very smelly. If you are going to get Akasa Paxmate, it's at SVC.com for 10.99. I think that's the lowest price.

I should have thought about it earlier but why not use both?
Dynamet is great at killing the vibration (low freq)
Paxmate is great at killing the high freq noise
The order would be dynamet first than paxmate (dynamet will have aluminum which would not be hard to install paxmate on top of it).
Should have thought about it earlier -_-;

the dynamat i bought was an absolute mess, stuck like tar. I lined the inside of the shell of the case & it didn't do a darned thing. its way too expensive for what it does

I've applied dynamat to the lining of a case, and it doesn't stop sound worth a damned. I've read some of the posts in here and some people use foam to dampen the airborne sound emitted by the components.

And MikeC, I didn't mean to apply the Dynamat directly to the components to insulate each item, I meant applying pieces of dynamat for example, on the corners of fans where they meet the case, to prevent vibration or sound. I think the best way to use those kinds of materials is to apply them wisely, rather than thru a full-blown application.
_s@nd

Dynamat isn't meant to stop the airborne sound transmission, but to stop panels vibrating in sympathy with something else -- like the vibes from a car engine or a hard drive, that kind of thing. The thing is, if you already have applied decouple mounting techniques to the noise makers inside your PC, there should be very little vibrations anywa, so these panel dampeners don't do much.

With regard using dynamat as spot insulators, that is not a function theyr were designed for. While it might help a bit, it doesn't absorb or insulate quite the way elastomer grommets do, for example. Too dense and heavy. And while covering, say, 50% of a side panel with Dynamat in a high vibration case will definitely have a noise-reduction effect, I doubt it will be as effective as covering 90%. And 10-20% will have no effect at all.

Other than high-vibration cases, what uses can dynamat be applied for?

And is paxmate effective? It appears to take up a lot of room and could be more of a detriment in terms of increasing case temperature.
_s@nd

Paxmate is awesome at dampening high frequency (ie, HDD whine). It is easy to apply as well. As for vibrational, they do reduce some but not significantly. I would still recommend it to people though.

Your profile says your in Belgium. I remember seeing a few web pages from Scandanavian companies that made products equal to Dynamat and Brown Bread. Hit up google. Shipping would not kill you.