Does Mass Loaded Vinyl Work – Review – 2.5dB Noise Reduction

Mass Loaded Vinyl is a soft pliable yet dense sheet material that can be easily cut and used to cover items, doors, walls, ceilings, just about anything. It’s fairly cheap to buy, readily available and easy to work with, you just need a Stanley knife or good kitchen scissors, hammer and some tacks or small nails.

How to Reduce Noise from your ASIC and GPU Miners

I decided it was time, well the wife decided, it was time to reduce the noise of the miners coming from The Mine (AKA the loft crawl space)

I researched a few ideas like egg boxes on the walls, standard packing sponge foam, Acoustitile 55 Pro Absorption Foam the stuff used in sound recording studios. I came across a company called The Sound Deadening Shop based in the UK that specialised in sound proofing. I messaged them and got a quick response from a chap called Colin that was informative and to the point:

Hi Daniel

Thanks for your enquiry.

Mass Loaded Vinyl is a highly dense material that forms a barrier to unwanted noise. I can confirm that this material is the best choice for reducing low frequency noise intrusion.

Regards

Colin

As most of the sound was coming from the hatch to the crawl space, I figured I would give this a go first and bought a roll of their Mass Loaded Vinyl to go on the back of the door. The door is made of thin plywood with air cavity. Typical interior UK door

First to establish a baseline and record the sound level with the door open and closed. The sound meter never moved position throughout the test. We can see Noise level from 8x Bitmain L3+ Miners is quite high.

Does Mass Loaded Vinyl absorb sound?

Now we see with the door closed it drops to 48.3 dB

I attached the Mass Loaded Vinyl to the back of the door using small tacks. I did this from inside the loft space so I could fit the Mass Loaded Vinyl snug right up to the edges, leaving as little air gap as possible. I should have used the correct acoustic glue but I was a bit sceptical what the results would be and didn’t want anything too permanent, so I used small tacks. Maybe with the glue the noise will reduce further?  comment below if you have tried the glue

How Much Does Mass Loaded Vinyl Reduce Noise/Sound?

I was a bit sceptical this would even work but looks like we have a result. 20mins work, a reduction of 2.5dB and my wife is a little happier! that’s got to be worth £25 in anyone’s book.