"lbbs" wrote in message
...
I am not sure where I want to reflect or absorb sound, but what I am
trying
to do is, not let the noise from the room above our ceiling get in the our
room.
I don't care as much about sound leaving my room (we are generally quite).

I have the soft light tiles installed in my room right now, would
replacing
them
with the heavy hard type improve my situation?


When I say that you can absorb or reflect sound, I don't mean that you can
either reflect sound coming into your room from outside, OR absorb
sound coming from any noise you make in your room: I mean absorption
and reflection are the only two possible ways of stopping noise getting
into your room, and depending on what tiles you use, they will either work
mainly by reflecting sound or a combination of reflection and absorption.

You won't care which method they use, only that they make your room
quieter, but it's impossible for anyone here to tell ( even if they are
knowledgeable on the subject ) whether your hard or flexible tiles work
better without more info. What are they made of? What thickness/mass.
Who makes them? Do they have a website or technical info? What do they
claim for their product?

Go to the Google search engine at www.google.com and type in a search
string like:-

soundproofing suspended acoustic tiles

or add some more search terms, whatever, and plough through the many
websites that will carry info on sound absorption. It will take you some
hours probably - how badly do you want to get decent sound insulation?

Failing that, the lazy option is to get the most massive tiles you can lay
your hands on and use them, flexible or rigid, as long as you don't create
a hazard. Allow no airgaps around the tiles, or around the edge either.
To be honest, if you don't understand the problem properly then you may
well not achieve very good results. For instance, it may be better to use
acoustic isolators ( resilent mounts ) to suspend your ceiling hangingwires
from, else they may transmit sound - I dunno, you'll have to do the
research. Here is a snippet from one US website I looked at:-

". Acoustical Ceiling Tiles, their name seems to indicate they are
acoustical when in fact they are poor acoustical products when used
incorrectly. For example: Many commercial offices are constructed with
metal stud and gypsum drywall partitions which go up to and end at the
bottom of the ceiling grid. Two layers of drywall on 3-5/8" stud has a
Sound Transmission Coefficient (STC) of around 38. Most ceiling tiles have
an STC much less than 38 because they are made from a dense, lightweight,
fiberous material and are generally not thicker than 5/8" of an inch. These
tiles are designed to absorb a portion of the room noise and to stop a
portion of the noise from traveling through the tile. They were never
designed to replace a drywall ceiling, wall or partition. If you have an
acoustical ceiling as the only barrier between your conference room or
office and the adjoining room or office, you will have a noise problem.
Demising walls (constructed from top of floor to bottom of floor above) are
always the best choice when noise is a concern. To increase the performance
of a suspended ceiling, we suggest the addition of a layer of drywall cut to
the ceiling tile sizes. The drywall can be laid on top of the ceiling
tiles in the grid to stop noise. You must check the grid suspension system
design to insure that it will hold the added weight of drywall. Inspect
existing grids thoroughly before making any modifications. Many older grids
use thin hanger wires, have insufficient anchor points, etc.. All design
and construction deficiencies should be corrected."

Andy.