Do not pull the resonance panel tight

Fit it snug, not tight. The panel's front face has to be free to move. The screws have a threadless shank so that it can. Over-tighten them and the panel stops working, and nothing about the wall will look wrong.

Why it matters

The Resonance Control Panel is not an absorber that happens to be thin. It is a membrane: a rigid front face on a soft backing, and the movement of that face is the entire mechanism. Low-frequency energy presses on the face, the face moves, the backing absorbs the movement. Clamp the face and there is nothing left to absorb.

That is why the screws are specified with a threadless shank. A full thread grips the face and pulls it in; the smooth shank locates the panel without gripping it.

This is the only install error in the range you cannot see. The reflection panel fitted without adhesive shows up in the numbers the design assumed. The reverberation panel fitted in a cold room falls off the wall. An over-tightened resonance panel sits square, flush and finished, and does nothing, in a room where it is the panel carrying the low-frequency result.

How to fit it

1. Use the supplied screw specification. The threadless shank is not a substitute for anything else: it is what allows the face to move.
2. Drive each screw until the panel is located and stable against the corner. Stop there.
3. Do not draw the panel down. If the face is deflected, or the fixing is pulling the panel into the wall, it is too tight. Back it off.
4. Check across all four fixings: even and light beats even and firm.

If a room measures short at low frequency

Before assuming the design or the panel count, check the fixings. An over-tightened set is the cheapest explanation and the easiest to correct: back the screws off and re-measure.

What to read next

Where the panel has to go, which is the other half of getting this one right. Then the Resonance Control Panel.