Specifier's guide
Most acoustic panels are made from a fibrous felt. The absorption comes from the fiber structure, so the honest question is not which material is loudest on paper, but what else the material brings with it.
This guide sets out the five criteria specifiers weigh, then compares the three fibers you are most likely to be offered.
Written by the team behind ādara® keratin felt. We make one of the three, and we have tried to be plain about what that means.
Criteria
Fibrous materials absorb by turning sound energy into heat through friction. Thickness, density and the air gap behind the panel drive performance more than fiber choice.
Commercial interiors are specified to a reaction-to-fire class. Protein fibers such as wool and keratin are inherently flame resistant; petrochemical fibers usually rely on treatment.
Panels are seen and touched every day. Surface, depth of colour and how the material ages are part of the specification, not decoration.
Ask what the fiber is, where it grew or was collected, and whether it competes with land, food or animal husbandry.
A panel is only circular if it can be taken apart. Mixed-fiber and heavily bonded constructions are hard to separate and usually end up incinerated.
Comparison
The traditional benchmark for acoustic felt. Warm, dense and well understood by specifiers. Supply, price and blending with synthetics vary widely between suppliers.
The most widely available option and easy to source in many colours. It keeps plastic in circulation, but it is still a fossil polymer and its recycling depends on clean, separable panels.
A newer option. It needs no farmland, irrigation or animal husbandry, because the raw material is already generated continuously and thrown away today.
How to choose
Decide how much absorption the room needs and at which frequencies, then set thickness, density and mounting depth. Only after that does the fiber choice become a question of fire class, feel, origin and end of life.
Ask every supplier for the reaction-to-fire class of the finished construction, the full fiber composition including binders, and whether the panel can be taken apart again. Those three answers separate a considered specification from a marketing claim.
If you want to understand why keratin behaves the way it does, we have written about the science of keratin and about regeneration.
Questions
Yes, for mid and high frequencies. Fibrous felt converts sound energy into heat through friction inside the fiber structure. Thickness, density and how far the panel sits from the wall matter more than the fiber type.
Specification data, colours and constructions for ādara® Felt, or a sample set sent to your studio.