Best Fabric for Acoustic Panels: What to Use and What to Skip
To pick the best fabric for acoustic panels, ignore how acoustic a cloth looks and ask two things: does sound pass straight through it, and has it passed a fire test?
Get the first one wrong and the cloth sends the highs back into the room, which is what Guilford of Maine’s lab plot shows a latex-backed fabric doing.
Get it right and the fabric all but vanishes: a panel maker’s spec sheet puts the change in a core’s NRC under Guilford’s FR701 at 0.00 to 0.05.
This guide sets out what fabric makers actually test, from airflow to fire ratings and sag, and why one maker calls the popular breath test a myth.
Then it compares polyester, wool, burlap, cotton and speaker cloth, works out how much to buy per panel and ends with four fabrics worth ordering.
What Is the Best Fabric for Acoustic Panels?
That two-question test is close to the checklist a fabric maker gives designers. The best fabric for acoustic panels is acoustically transparent, rated Class A under ASTM E84’s unadhered method, and mostly polyester or another synthetic that shrugs off moisture so it won’t sag, which are the three criteria Carnegie lists (Carnegie).
Guilford of Maine’s FR701 is the textbook case: 100% recycled polyester, Class I or A under ASTM E84 and 66 inches of usable width, and in Guilford’s impedance-tube test it rates NRC .95 in front of an absorber that rates 1.00 alone (Guilford of Maine data sheet, ATS Acoustics’ copy). Acoustics First, a panel maker that lists it as its standard panel fabric, puts the net change in a panel core’s NRC under FR701 at 0.00 to 0.05.
If you’re making your own acoustic panels, the common choices compare like this on what their makers publish:
| Fabric | Sound through it | Fire rating | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guilford of Maine FR701 (polyester) | Core’s NRC changes 0.00 to 0.05 (Acoustics First) | ASTM E84 Class A | Sold by the yard, 66 in wide |
| Guilford of Maine Sona (polyester, made for ATS) | Weave open enough to pass sound (listing) | ASTM E84 Class A | 60 in wide |
| Camira wool (Blazer, Synergy 66) | High transparency, some absorption | Blazer Class A, Synergy 66 Class B | Check each fabric’s class |
| Jute burlap (ATS) | Open enough to pass the high frequencies (ATS) | Not fire rated | Shade varies by dye lot |
| Speaker grill cloth | Sold for speaker grills | None named in the listings checked | No test result |
| Backed or coated fabric | Latex-backed sample absorbs about half the sound at 2,000 Hz (Guilford) | Depends on the fabric | Look at the back |
The fabrics with numbers come from makers that test them, while the cheap options ask you to trust the weave. The rest of this guide is about telling those apart.
How Does Fabric Change a Panel’s Sound Absorption?
Those numbers make sense once you see where the absorbing happens. A good fabric barely changes a panel’s absorption, because the core does the work: Carnegie says it’s the panel’s substrate, not the fabric, that absorbs sound, and that a fabric tested on its own should rate NRC 0 to 0.25, the lower the better.
Your acoustic panel’s absorption happens in a core of fiberglass, rockwool or PET felt, and Owens Corning rates its 2 inch 703 board at NRC 1.00 bare, laid against a solid backing under ASTM C423. The fabric’s job, in Carnegie’s words, is to look great and allow sound to pass through to that core, so fabric and panel together should test at about NRC 0.90 to 1.05.
Guilford’s own plot shows what goes wrong otherwise. FR701 stays close to the bare absorber from 250 to 2,000 Hz, while a latex-backed fabric and a 100% polyethylene fabric start near 0.85 and sink to about half by 2,000 Hz.
Camira’s lab work shows the same split. At low frequencies its fabrics add a little absorption to the foam behind them, but at higher frequencies transparency matters more, and the most transparent fabrics track the bare foam (Camira).
So the core sets the level, and the wrong fabric mostly takes away from the top end. If the core is still undecided, our guide to the best acoustic panel material compares fiberglass, rockwool, PET and foam.
Get Studio Tips Weekly
Join 5,000+ creators getting acoustic treatment advice every week.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.What Makes a Fabric Acoustically Transparent?
That transparency comes down to air. Camira defines it as how easily a material lets air, and therefore sound, pass through, and names the weave structure as one of the main factors: an open weave such as its Carlow rates very high.
Camira says acoustically transparent fabrics are engineered with a structure that minimally reflects or absorbs sound waves, and lists cinemas, theaters and auditoriums among the places they’re used.
Kvadrat, whose Soft Cells panels stretch textile over an absorber, found that within the normal range of fabrics, airflow resistance was by far the most decisive property of the front textile for the panel’s absorption. It measures each textile on a 300 by 300 mm piece before modeling the panel.
The standard lab test for that property is ASTM C522, which covers airflow resistance in porous materials including facings, fabrics and screens. Intertek, which runs it, notes that no building code requires it, so it mostly serves research and development.
Fabric makers publish an absorption test instead. Carnegie describes measuring a 2 inch panel and then the same panel under the fabric (ASTM C423), Camira tests fabric over 4 inch foam (ISO 10534-2), and Guilford puts fabric in front of an absorber in an impedance tube.
NRC is the average absorption at 250, 500, 1,000 and 2,000 Hz, rounded to the nearest 0.05, according to Intertek’s ASTM C423 page. A 0.00 to 0.05 change is the smallest step the rating can show.
Does the Breath Test Work on Acoustic Fabric?
Those lab tests are what the popular breath test tries to stand in for, and it can’t prove transparency on its own. Carnegie lists the “blow through test” as a myth: a preliminary check with no scientific backing that can mislead, when best practice is a fabric third-party tested under ASTM C423 and NRC rated.
Whisper Walls, which builds stretched-fabric wall panels, still calls it the most common way to test. If air passes quickly through a sample, it says, sound will pass through it too.
Used as a screen rather than a verdict, the test does one job well. A cloth you can’t breathe through at all, such as a backed or coated one, can be ruled out on the spot.
A fabric that passes still needs a number behind it. Ask the seller for its C423 result over a panel, or its NRC on its own, and compare any shop cloth with a scrap of fabric sold for panels.
Which Fire Rating Should Acoustic Panel Fabric Have?
Once the sound question is settled, the fire rating decides where the panel can hang. Look for Class A, or Class 1, under ASTM E84 by the unadhered method, which Carnegie names as the test for panel fabric and says contract spaces require.
ASTM E84 rates exposed surfaces such as walls and ceilings: a 24 inch by 24 foot sample runs through a tunnel for 10 minutes, and the test reports a Flame Spread Index and a Smoke Developed Index. In the classes used for interior finishes, Class A means a flame spread of 0 to 25 and smoke up to 450, and Class B a flame spread of 26 to 75 (Intertek).
Brentano, a contract textile maker, explains that the unadhered method clamps the fabric to the substrate rather than gluing it, and Carnegie says it’s the test for fabric on a panel that isn’t glued down. The mounting changes results: in Camira’s table, Racer rates Class B glued down but Class A unadhered, and two of its transparent fabrics, Sonus and Synergy 66, rate Class B either way.
NFPA 701 is a different test. Rose Brand, a theatrical fabric supplier, describes it as a vertical swatch test for drapery and other temporary decorative fabrics, and says a fabric fastened to a permanent wall becomes a building material judged by the tunnel test instead (Rose Brand).
So a drapery fabric’s NFPA 701 tag doesn’t settle the panel question. FR701 and Sona carry E84 Class A ratings, ATS says its burlap isn’t fire rated, and the speaker cloth listings checked for this guide name no rating.
Is Polyester Better Than Wool, Burlap, Cotton or Speaker Cloth?
Those fire-rated picks are both polyester, and for most panels polyester is the better choice. Carnegie wants a high share of polyester or another moisture-shy synthetic to prevent sagging, and warns against high percentages of natural fibers, rayon or nylon.
Whisper Walls explains the sag: cotton, wool and linen can stretch out in high humidity, while polyester and acrylic stay tight after stretching.
Wool isn’t ruled out when it’s made for the job. Camira’s wool fabrics, Blazer and Synergy 66, test with high transparency and some absorption of their own, and Blazer rates Class A glued or unadhered.
Burlap is the budget pick with a catch. ATS covers its own panels in 100% jute burlap whose weave is “open enough to let the high frequencies pass through,” but says it isn’t fire rated, varies in thickness and texture along the roll and shifts shade between dye lots.
ATS also says to keep that burlap out of direct sun so it doesn’t fade. If a fire rating matters, or burlap’s rustic aesthetics don’t suit the room, the recording studio panel guide covers ready-made panels instead.
Cotton depends entirely on the weave. Big Duck Canvas lists lightweight cottons among its fabrics for acoustic panels without publishing a test, and Carnegie’s warning about natural fibers still applies.
A primed or printed canvas is a different case, since its coating seals the weave. That’s why canvas acoustic panels that work print the picture on open acoustic fabric instead.
Speaker grill cloth is made for the same job of letting sound through. Camira says highly transparent fabrics are used for loudspeaker coverings, several hi-fi makers use its Carlow that way, and Acoustics First lists FR701 as suitable for speaker grill cloth too.
The speaker cloth listings checked here show neither a test result nor a fire rating. That makes them a choice for home acoustic treatment in rooms where no fire rating is required.
Which Fabrics Should You Avoid on Acoustic Panels?
That leaves the fabrics that fail the sound question outright. Avoid anything with a backing or coating: Whisper Walls says backed fabrics, lined on one side with acrylic or paper for wall use, stop most sound and don’t stretch well, and Guilford’s latex-backed sample absorbed only about half the sound at 2,000 Hz.
Whisper Walls adds non-porous leather, vinyl and acrylic-faced fabrics to that list, since they reflect much of the sound that hits them. Turn any sample over before the breath test, because a rubbery or papery back settles the question.
Fabrics heavy in natural fibers, rayon or nylon are the second group to skip, for the sagging Carnegie warns about, unless they’re made and tested for panels like Camira’s wool. Anything sold only for its look, with no transparency claim and no fire rating, goes on the maybe pile until it passes both checks.
How Much Fabric Do You Need per Panel?
Once you’ve picked a fabric, the order comes down to width. Plan on about one yard of 60 inch fabric for each 2 by 4 foot panel 2 inches deep, or one 59 by 36 inch precut piece, which SoundAssured says makes one 2 by 4 foot panel or two 2 by 2 foot panels.
Here’s the arithmetic behind that yard. A 24 by 48 inch panel 2 inches deep needs its face and sides covered, 28 by 52 inches, and leaving 3 inches on each edge to staple to the back makes a 34 by 58 inch piece.
Run the panel’s long side across the roll and that piece fits within one 36 inch yard of Guilford’s 60 inch Sona or 66 inch FR701, which ATS sells as a 66 by 36 inch yard. ATS’s burlap is 56 inches wide, too narrow for 58, so each panel takes 58 inches along the roll, about 1.6 yards.
Deeper frames add twice their depth to both measurements, so check panel thickness before you order. Guilford warns that colors vary between dye lots, so buy the whole room’s fabric in one order.
If you already have your panel frame built, wrap one panel first and check the fit. The folding and stapling steps are in our guide to how to wrap acoustic panels.
Where Can You Buy Acoustic Panel Fabric?
Those yardage numbers make the shopping simple. Camira sells its fabrics on its own website, ATS Acoustics sells Guilford’s FR701 by the yard, and Amazon carries a fire-rated Guilford line plus cloths sold for DIY panels and speaker grills.
Each pick below had at least 4.0 stars from 50 or more reviews on Amazon and was in stock on 14 October 2026, and prices aren’t shown because they change often.
For a Fire-Rated Fabric by the Yard
For rooms that need a rating, Guilford of Maine Sona Acoustical Fabric is the line Guilford makes for ATS, which ATS’s own site pitches as a lower-cost alternative to FR701. It ships unfolded on a roll, cut to the yardage you order.
Guilford of Maine Sona Acoustical Fabric
For a Single DIY Panel
For one frame at a time, SoundAssured Acoustical Fabric comes in precut pieces sized for one standard panel.
SoundAssured Acoustical Fabric
For Speaker Cloth on a Budget
For a bigger piece, the 96 x 54 inch speaker grill cloth is one sheet of black mesh. By the arithmetic above it covers one 2 by 4 foot panel plus one 2 by 2 foot panel, not several large ones.
96 x 54 inch speaker grill cloth
To try a first frame, the 1 yard speaker grill cloth is the same kind of black cloth by the yard.
1 yard speaker grill cloth
The Bottom Line
So the best fabric is the one with numbers behind it: transparent by a lab test, Class A under ASTM E84’s unadhered method, and polyester-heavy so it stays tight. For an office, a school or any room that needs a rating, that means FR701 or Sona, while burlap and speaker cloth are the budget route with no test and no fire rating.
Once the panels are covered, placing panels strategically matters as much as the cloth. The panel count guide sizes the job, and the hanging guide covers the hardware.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does expensive acoustic fabric absorb more sound?
No, and it shouldn’t. Carnegie says the panel’s core does the absorbing and that a fabric tested on its own should rate NRC 0 to 0.25, the lower the better. What a premium fabric buys is evidence: FR701 carries an ASTM E84 Class A rating, a published lab result (a 0.00 to 0.05 change in a core’s NRC, per Acoustics First) and a 5 year limited warranty. A cheap cloth may perform as well, but without a published result a sample and the breath test are all you can go on.
Can you paint fabric on acoustic panels?
Not on a standard fabric panel. NetWell, which makes fabric-wrapped panels, says its standard cloth-wrapped panels can’t be painted by the client, and that panels meant for paint use a custom white textile. Paint closes the weave much as a backing does, so re-cover the panel instead. Our answer to can you paint fabric-wrapped panels lists the panel types that do take paint.
Is there a fabric that soundproofs a room?
No. Panel fabric is chosen to let sound through, and Camira says even its fabrics with some absorbency shouldn’t be called absorbent in their own right. Blocking noise between rooms is soundproofing, a different job from the echo control that panels do. Searches for the best fabric for soundproofing usually turn up panel fabric; if you need to keep noise out, see what the lab numbers say in do soundproof curtains work.
Does the color of acoustic fabric matter?
Not for the sound, going by the makers’ data: Guilford publishes one set of figures for every color of FR701, and Acoustics First offers it in more than 50 colors with the same acoustic rating. Color matters over time instead. Guilford rates FR701’s lightfastness at grade 4 or better after 40 hours (AATCC 16) and warns that colors vary between dye lots, and ATS says to keep its burlap out of direct sun. Guilford’s W-S cleaning code allows water-based cleaners, foam or water-free solvents, with vacuuming or light brushing to keep dust off, and Burton Acoustix’s guide to cleaning acoustic panels covers the rest.
