An acoustic cloud is a device used to absorb unwanted noise and help you figure out how to reduce echo in a room that would otherwise experience lots of reverberating noise. They’re called “clouds” because these square, rectangular, or custom designed panels hang from the ceiling.

Though we admit we think acoustic clouds are a pretty cool addition to every office design, their suspension does serve a practical purpose. When acoustic cloud panels are properly installed, all six of their surfaces are exposed (top, bottom, plus all the edges). This creates a larger surface area of sound-absorption in the room, so you get more noise reduction with fewer acoustic panels.

So, why might you consider hanging acoustic clouds? Let’s think for a second about a conference room with a phone in the middle of its table. The conference table has 6 to 8 chairs around it for your typical small-ish meeting. When people around the table speak, sound reflects off the table’s hard surface and up to the ceiling. Without sound absorption, those low frequency or high frequency sounds are coming right back down to rejoin the conversation or hit the phone’s speaker. It’s hard enough to pay attention in a long meeting without poor sound quality forcing you to focus twice as hard to follow along! Acoustic clouds are ideal for this situation. They hang above the hard table, so you don’t have two hard surfaces bouncing people’s voices back and forth between them.

Other medium-to-large spaces where acoustic clouds are ideal include

• Conference rooms
• Gymnasium
• Open plan offices
• Restaurants
• Places of worship
• Industrial plants
• Home media rooms
• Home studios

Most acoustic clouds are either fabric wrapped panels, layers of acoustic foam, or metal panels filled with fiberglass. Fabric wrapped panels are the most common — and often the choice because of aesthetics. Our Acoustic Pro Ceiling Cloud is wrapped in designer selected fabrics to ensure they are a beautiful addition to any space. With two thickness options (1” and 2”) and a Class A fire rating, they are an effective and durable addition to any space.

Acoustic foam is sometimes used in acoustic clouds, and there are some attractive options out there. The best options are often made with melamine foam, because it’s one of the few foams that is Class A fire rated. The primary downside to foam is that you often need to buy more square footage, because it takes about 2x the foam to get to the sound absorption properties of an acoustic panel.

Metal clouds are another option. Metal ceiling clouds are typically designed to with a metal casing that is basically a housing for soundproof foam. The perforated metal allows sound waves inside where it is then absorbed. Metal clouds are the least common of the 3 options due to expense, but can make sense depending on the aesthetics you want in your space.

What’s important to remember when incorporating acoustic clouds or acoustic fabric panels into your room design is to not overdo it. Research shows that sound absorbers (clouds) begin to block each other and effectively waste material when their surface area accounts for more than half of the empty ceiling’s surface area.

Let’s say your ceiling is 200 square feet. If you continuously install acoustic ceiling clouds, your room’s acoustics will improve until you add 100 square feet of clouds. After that, diminishing returns have really kicked in and results will be negligible. As a general rule, doubling the amount of sound absorption in a room will reduce the sound level by 3 decibels each time, with a practical cap of about 10 decibels.

A good rule of thumb for any small-to-medium sized room is what we call the Rule of 40%. It’s a simple formula. Square Footage of the Room X 40% = Square Footage of Panels needed. That’s the sweet spot where you’ll notice significantly improved sound clarity and echo reduction without wasting material. Use the square footage calculator on our fabric wrapped panels page to figure out exactly how much material you’ll need. For large rooms or irregular rooms, you’ll need to contact us for a custom quote.

For everyone looking to improve the acoustics in their office, restaurant, other commercial space, or home, we recommend checking out our premium line of ceiling cloud options.

ACOUSTIC CEILING BAFFLES

Acoustic ceiling baffles, as previously mentioned, are the vertically hanging brother of acoustic clouds. Similarly, they work best by having multiple faces exposed to sound waves so as to absorb nearly twice as much as a traditional direct attached sound panel. They’re common for treating church and gymnasium acoustics.

Check out our line of acoustic ceiling baffle options to see acoustic cloud’s brother.

By now you’ve got an idea for what acoustic pro ceiling clouds can bring to a space, but if you still have questions on how many you need, or how to approach hanging acoustic panels, feel free to reach out. Contact us anytime and our experts can help you find the right materials to elevate the sound in your space.