Audiophiles w/ Model 3's

[dfwatt]

What product would you recommend to use for sound deadening?

For sure there are lots of good options. The only empirical test that I have ever seen with a spectral analyzer showed that a lot of materials are very close. I think that result or at least a link to the test was posted on this section of the Forum many pages ago if I'm not mistaken.

I'm using the top rated product on Amazon, Noico 80. It's so easy to use and I think it's as effective as anything else at that thickness that I wouldn't think of switching to something else. Sticks like crazy. The aluminum is thin enough that you don't generally get cut fingers from working with it. Plus it's got a quilted top layer that's the aluminum foil essentially that allows you to see how completely you've pressed it down. The Quilted design disappears as the material gets more and more tightly compressed on whatever it's attached to. This makes it really easy to see where you need to work with your roller or other application tool . I use two rollers of different sizes and a large plastic spoon to get compression on the material. At this point I wouldn't use anything else. In my opinion it deserves its top rated status on Amazon.

 

[Skione65]

For sure there are lots of good options. The only empirical test that I have ever seen with a spectral analyzer showed that a lot of materials are very close. I think that result or at least a link to the test was posted on this section of the Forum many pages ago if I'm not mistaken.

I'm using the top rated product on Amazon, Noico 80. It's so easy to use and I think it's as effective as anything else at that thickness that I wouldn't think of switching to something else. Sticks like crazy. The aluminum is thin enough that you don't generally get cut fingers from working with it. Plus it's got a quilted top layer that's the aluminum foil essentially that allows you to see how completely you've pressed it down. The Quilted design disappears as the material gets more and more tightly compressed on whatever it's attached to. This makes it really easy to see where you need to work with your roller or other application tool . I use two rollers of different sizes and a large plastic spoon to get compression on the material. At this point I wouldn't use anything else. In my opinion it deserves its top rated status on Amazon.

@dfwatt,

What’s this stuff weigh? In for the sound deadening....however curious about the weight penalty on range.

Ski

 

[dfwatt]

@dfwatt,

What’s this stuff weigh? In for the sound deadening....however curious about the weight penalty on range.

Ski

Good question and that for sure was one of my concerns as well. It weighs almost exactly 0.7 pounds per square foot. So I figure I've added about 20 pounds to the total vehicle weight. Non significant in terms of impact on Range

 

[dfwatt]

@dfwatt,

What’s this stuff weigh? In for the sound deadening....however curious about the weight penalty on range.

Ski

And while we're on the subject of weight I've dropped some weight from lighter-weight wheels and will be installing lightweight rotors as well so I'll get back the 20 lb easily

 

[groovyd]

Couple warm days here are trying to tempt me into taking on this speaker upgrade project... Too bad for it I know better than falling for the ploy.

 

[groovyd]

I'm starting to get tempted to buy a serious 3D printer for designing and printing these door woofer brackets... someone please do this before me and sell me some before I turn my place into a machine shop

 

[avesraggiana]

Had a chance to do more testing, driving on highway we drive on everyday, at 70mph. Car is distinctly quieter, and stereo volume doesn't need to be turned up as high to get to volume that I typically listen to. Still some good targets for further noise reduction around the wheel wells. That's next.

Hi. When you speak about further noise reduction around the wheel wells, are you talking about applying the sound deadening material on the inside, within the passenger cabin and under the carpeting, or on the exterior, up on the inside of each wheel well liner?

 

[dfwatt]

Hi. When you speak about further noise reduction around the wheel wells, are you talking about applying the sound deadening material on the inside, within the passenger cabin and under the carpeting, or on the exterior, up on the inside of each wheel well liner?

Good question. Potentially both. Opportunities are modest in terms of the exterior - just undercoating or perhaps undercoating on both the sheet metal and the liner in the wheel well. The liner appears to be made out of some kind of thin fiberboard type material. I've gone so far as to put rubberized undercoating on that but it's unclear how effective that might be. At the very least it may help the liner survive the pounding and abrasion it takes from sandy roads which we have in abundance of here in Florida. The liner is rather thin and does not look to be exceptionally durable. But I could be under estimating it. And as for putting Dynamat type stuff on the inside of the wheel wells, stay tuned

 

[avesraggiana]

Good question. Potentially both. Opportunities are modest in terms of the exterior - just undercoating or perhaps undercoating on both the sheet metal and the liner in the wheel well. The liner appears to be made out of some kind of thin fiberboard type material. I've gone so far as to put rubberized undercoating on that but it's unclear how effective that might be. At the very least it may help the liner survive the pounding and abrasion it takes from sandy roads which we have in abundance of here in Florida. The liner is rather thin and does not look to be exceptionally durable. But I could be under estimating it. And as for putting Dynamat type stuff on the inside of the wheel wells, stay tuned

Very good. A few years ago, upon the recommendation of another member on the Honda Odyssey forum, I brought my 2016 Honda Odyssey minivan to an auto audio installer. I also brought with me something equivalent to the Noico 80 ml stuff. Anyway, they managed to go into each wheel well, pull of the wheel well liner, paste the Noico material on the inside surface of the wheel liner, and then reattach it. I was a little amazed that they could do that for me. I also had them apply some of the noise insulation sheets up in both front foot wells.

I really can't say it made all THAT much difference qualitatively. I think what I really needed to do was apply sound insulation in all four doors as well as the floor pan, but that would have been a lot more work and a lot more money.

In the end, I traded in the minivan for our Model X100D, which it turns out, is really no quieter than my old minivan at highway speeds.

Thanks for your reply. I'll stay tuned for sure.

 

[logan]

What product would you recommend to use for sound deadening?

SoundSkins Pro + Rings along with Blackhole is an excellent combination.

____

And to anyone shopping around for speakers/subs, I highly recommend Audiofrog. Amazing sounding components and subs, and the service is top notch. Easy contact with the CEO and they're active on the largest car AV forums.

 

[dfwatt]

Very good. A few years ago, upon the recommendation of another member on the Honda Odyssey forum, I brought my 2016 Honda Odyssey minivan to an auto audio installer. I also brought with me something equivalent to the Noico 80 ml stuff. Anyway, they managed to go into each wheel well, pull of the wheel well liner, paste the Noico material on the inside surface of the wheel liner, and then reattach it. I was a little amazed that they could do that for me. I also had them apply some of the noise insulation sheets up in both front foot wells.

I really can't say it made all THAT much difference qualitatively. I think what I really needed to do was apply sound insulation in all four doors as well as the floor pan, but that would have been a lot more work and a lot more money.

In the end, I traded in the minivan for our Model X100D, which it turns out, is really no quieter than my old minivan at highway speeds.

Thanks for your reply. I'll stay tuned for sure.

For sure, it's much more work and labor costs than material costs. I've bought probably something like $75 worth of Noico 80, but easily 15+ hours across two cars.

One of the things to keep in mind is that many years ago, most car manufacturers figured it out (that quieter cars get more repeat business), and they all started putting more and more both sound insulating and vibration-deadening materials (different classes of material to reduce NVH - noise, vibration and harshness) in their cars, esp. in the big 'premium' sedans. Like 100+ lbs. Although the Model 3 has the huge advantage of an ultra low noise and vibration powertrain (meaning that all things being equal, it needs less noise and vibration reduction), there are still indications that Tesla put both noise insulation and dampening materials throughout the M3. So, bottom line is that there are declining margins for all this, probably depending on how much time energy and money the automaker already put into NHV control. For example, the inner door liner on the Model 3 appears to be made from a fairly non-resonant plastic, and attached to the metal envelope of the door with some kind of dampening foam, and there are stripes of fabric with dampening material on the inner sub-trunk. This of course doesn't mean there isn't more one can do, esp. for those of us who are committed tweakophiles

Of all the stuff that I've done, the wind noise reduction from rpmTesla and the door dynamatting were the two things that appear to have had the biggest discernible effects.

 

[dfwatt]

Heading down the home stretch with the dynamatting at least on one of the two cars. I took apart the frunk and the whole front assembly which was amazingly easy. Managed to do some significant dynamating around the shock towers and wheel wells. However I'm pretty convinced I'm at the point of diminishing returns on this unless I can get access to the front floorboard and the inner wheel wells there. Some clear Impressions from my disassembly:

1) quality of materials throughout including the air conditioning, steering pump and Front Drive Unit seems very high.
2) Tesla did an incredible job of making this thing easy to take apart and repair. Kudos on that point especially
3) front systems are fairly well protected from Salt Water road spray but not completely. I'm definitely going to get in there with some CRC and seal up the aluminum because eventually it's going to corrode

 

[avesraggiana]

Heading down the home stretch with the dynamatting at least on one of the two cars. I took apart the frunk and the whole front assembly which was amazingly easy. Managed to do some significant dynamating around the shock towers and wheel wells. However I'm pretty convinced I'm at the point of diminishing returns on this unless I can get access to the front floorboard and the inner wheel wells there. Some clear Impressions from my disassembly:

1) quality of materials throughout including the air conditioning, steering pump and Front Drive Unit seems very high.
2) Tesla did an incredible job of making this thing easy to take apart and repair. Kudos on that point especially
3) front systems are fairly well protected from Salt Water road spray but not completely. I'm definitely going to get in there with some CRC and seal up the aluminum because eventually it's going to corrodeView attachment 377678

I didn't think there would be even that much hardware hiding in the frunk.

So, your next step now is to apply Dynamat on the front floorboard and inner wheel wells from "this side" of the frunk? In other words, outside the passenger cabin?

 

[groovyd]

wouldn't it have been awesome if Tesla just had the whole car already dynamatted or really well quiet.

 

[Magnets!]

Heading down the home stretch with the dynamatting at least on one of the two cars. I took apart the frunk and the whole front assembly which was amazingly easy. Managed to do some significant dynamating around the shock towers and wheel wells. However I'm pretty convinced I'm at the point of diminishing returns on this unless I can get access to the front floorboard and the inner wheel wells there. Some clear Impressions from my disassembly:

1) quality of materials throughout including the air conditioning, steering pump and Front Drive Unit seems very high.
2) Tesla did an incredible job of making this thing easy to take apart and repair. Kudos on that point especially
3) front systems are fairly well protected from Salt Water road spray but not completely. I'm definitely going to get in there with some CRC and seal up the aluminum because eventually it's going to corrodeView attachment 377678

Nice job on the shock towers....yours is the first I've seen dynamatted. Did you do any sound testing on it? Regarding a comment about the Model 3 coming fairly well insulated, I'm not so sure...the rear trunk area is pretty much bare metal under the wafer thin carpet. I saw a youtube of a model X disassembly and it had a thick layer of what looked like seat foam under the trunk carpet.

 

[avesraggiana]

Nice job on the shock towers....yours is the first I've seen dynamatted. Did you do any sound testing on it? Regarding a comment about the Model 3 coming fairly well insulated, I'm not so sure...the rear trunk area is pretty much bare metal under the wafer thin carpet. I saw a youtube of a model X disassembly and it had a thick layer of what looked like seat foam under the trunk carpet.

Oh, that's good to hear! I'll have to search for that youtube video since I'd always wondered about the amount of sound insulation that had been installed back there.

We have both a Model S and a Model X. Changing the OEM tyres on our Model S, at a premature 20,000 miles, to Pirelli Cinturatos made A LOT of difference in ambient noise level. At this point I'm not seriously considering dynamat-ing our Model S.

The Model X on the other hand, seems noisier, even though the decibel readings in both cars using a highly inaccurate iPhone app are essentially identical. My cousin's 2016 Volvo XC90 is tomb-quiet in comparison to our X100D. I'd love to know what Volvo did to make their XC90 ride so quietly.

Our Model X rides on the smaller of the two available rim sizes (20") which I grant you makes it ride more quietly than the X100D Performance that we test drove. That demonstrator rode on 22" rims. Much noisier and rougher in ride.

As I said in an earlier comment, I'm seriously considering having sound insulation added to all four doors of our Model X. Besides hoping to reduce road noise levels, I'm also thinking it might make the bass resonance go away. I can definitely hear that "rattle and boom" coming from the doors when I crank up the volume on our audio.

 

[PRLM3]

got my eye on this page at the moment... hoping wishing waiting

https://www.badesignworks.com/model-3

Whoa, me too! ...

 

[dfwatt]

Nice job on the shock towers....yours is the first I've seen dynamatted. Did you do any sound testing on it? Regarding a comment about the Model 3 coming fairly well insulated, I'm not so sure...the rear trunk area is pretty much bare metal under the wafer thin carpet. I saw a youtube of a model X disassembly and it had a thick layer of what looked like seat foam under the trunk carpet.

Yes the trunk in the model 3 and some minimal dampening strips applied to it. I didn't take those off I simply Dynamatted over them and you can see in the Dynamat Contour the areas of the dampening strips

I've done one car trunk area. It was a b****

 

[dfwatt]

I didn't think there would be even that much hardware hiding in the frunk.

So, your next step now is to apply Dynamat on the front floorboard and inner wheel wells from "this side" of the frunk? In other words, outside the passenger cabin?

I didn't think there would be even that much hardware hiding in the frunk.

So, your next step now is to apply Dynamat on the front floorboard and inner wheel wells from "this side" of the frunk? In other words, outside the passenger cabin?

No I'm talking about from inside the passenger cabin. This would involve taking out the seats and the carpet. Definitely a big job. I've taken out the back seat but there's really not much that can be done in terms of dynamat because most of it is battery and charging assembly and I'm not going to put stuff on that

 

[dfwatt]

Oh, that's good to hear! I'll have to search for that youtube video since I'd always wondered about the amount of sound insulation that had been installed back there.

We have both a Model S and a Model X. Changing the OEM tyres on our Model S, at a premature 20,000 miles, to Pirelli Cinturatos made A LOT of difference in ambient noise level. At this point I'm not seriously considering dynamat-ing our Model S.

The Model X on the other hand, seems noisier, even though the decibel readings in both cars using a highly inaccurate iPhone app are essentially identical. My cousin's 2016 Volvo XC90 is tomb-quiet in comparison to our X100D. I'd love to know what Volvo did to make their XC90 ride so quietly.

Our Model X rides on the smaller of the two available rim sizes (20") which I grant you makes it ride more quietly than the X100D Performance that we test drove. That demonstrator rode on 22" rims. Much noisier and rougher in ride.

As I said in an earlier comment, I'm seriously considering having sound insulation added to all four doors of our Model X. Besides hoping to reduce road noise levels, I'm also thinking it might make the bass resonance go away. I can definitely hear that "rattle and boom" coming from the doors when I crank up the volume on our audio.

You can see in the pictures that I posted where the trunk liner actually is pulled up to expose the dynamating that I've done the trunk liner material itself appears to contain a significant amount of what I am presuming is some form of closed-cell foam insulation. Still probably better to have both the traditional foam insulation and dynamating but I think they paid attention to reducing resonant noise from the trunk. Did they do enough? Probably not. But it's not like they did nothing