We recommend covering at least 15-20% of a room’s walls in sound absorbing acoustic paneling. That’s the industry standard formula to achieve adequate sound absorption in most noise-prone indoor spaces. I’d be happy to help calculate the quantity of recommended panels for your situation, I’ll just need the length, width, and ceiling height of the room and we’ll go from there.

Voices coming through walls in office
Noisy neighbors
Snoring neighbors
Barking dogs
Loud music from neighbors
Loud TV from neighbors
Thin apartment walls
Noisy air conditioning unit outside window
Train noise outside
Garage band, don’t want to annoy neighbors
Bass vibrations
Regarding sound from loud neighbors in an apartment acoustic wall panels will absorb some sound, but they won’t block it completely. It would likely take a lot of coverage to make a difference. Acoustic wall panels are designed mainly to reduce sound (echo, noise, reverb) within a room, while reducing sound traveling through walls to a lesser degree. It’s a tough problem to tackle and sorry to say, the only sure-fire solution is thicker walls or quieter neighbors.

The acoustic panels with 2″ core are rated NRC 1.0 (noise reduction coefficient), while the 1″ core panels are rated NRC .85. What this means in general is the 2″ panels absorb around 15% more of the spectrum of sound frequencies including more of the lower range (bass).

You can achieve a high degree of sound reduction, with a large amount of thick acoustic panels on the wall in the room with the noise source. That said acoustic wall panels are designed mainly to reduce sound (echo, noise, reverb) within a room by absorbing the sound waves bouncing in the room, while reducing sound traveling through walls to a lesser degree. Acoustic panels alone technically are not adequate to truly “soundproof” rooms. To truly soundproof a room, you need a large amount of thick panels, thicker concrete walls, or an acoustically isolated room. Again, however, you can dampen the sound transmission greatly with a large amount of panels on the wall in the room with the noise source.