There are three main ways to stop sound from coming through the walls and into your room. You can absorb it (using soft materials that soak up incoming vibrations), dampen it by creating an acoustically “dead” wall that doesn’t vibrate readily or block it by decoupling the structure from the inside of your room.

In most cases, you can only do one or two of these things: Blocking & Isolation

Sound isolation is the process of separating (decoupling) assembly materials to prevent the transfer of structure borne vibrations from room to room. There are several ways to accomplish this goal, such as using resilient isolation clips, staggered stud construction and even double stud framing. All of these techniques work to decouple the stud or wood framing from the drywall and reduce the transmission of structural noise.

Sound isolation is important because airborne and structure-borne vibrations transfer easily between rooms. They can travel right through most common building materials, such as a wood frame and drywall or metal framing. The problem is that the transmission of these vibrations occurs when the stud or joists in a structure vibrate and transmit those vibrations into adjacent spaces. The best time to achieve high sound isolation is during new construction but many acoustics experts can improve existing walls without tearing off the drywall by utilizing sound insulation products such as resilient clips and furring channel. The unique thermoplastic rubber section of Resilmount sound isolation clips, for example, isolates the stud from the drywall and breaks up the transmission path significantly.