Hanging the Chameleon Bass Traps

Corner mounting

For reasons that only the shipping company can truly comprehend, the panels and the mounting hardware came in separate shipments (for the most part - I did get a couple of hooks and odds and ends) so I had to wait… or did I? Well, I had huge boxes filled with panels all over the house and the wife was giving me the, "You better do something about this and quick, mister," look so I decided to start unpacking them. It wasn't like I had to hang them right? Well, once I got everything but the ceiling panels unpacked (those are white I didn't really want grubby little kid hands mucking them up before I hung them) I started thinking. The corner panels shouldn't be too hard to mount right?

Off I went to the Ready Acoustics website to look at a couple of videos. They have a bunch of suggestions on how to hang their panels using their mounting equipment or your own stuff. A lot of it suggested things that I didn't have readily available (like bungee cords) so I started to improvise. I had the hooks, a drill, but no way to really connect the panels to the hook. Not only that, but the panels are just a hair over 4 feet tall and my wall is just a hair under 8 feet tall so my initial thought that I could just "shove" them in there and let friction hold them in place wasn't going to work (not that I didn't try). Want to know how strong the Chameleon frames are? The ceiling of my room bowed up without so much as a shiver down the spine of the frame. Strong? Oh yeah.

So what to do? Well, way back in the day when I was running wires in the attic (well, Jimmy ran the wires but I offered a lot of moral support) I bought a bunch of cable ties. Of course, they only come in packages of 100 and I needed like 10 so I had a few extras. The kids play with them but mostly they just take up shelf space. Like my father, his father, and all the other Andry men, I keep them around because "you never know" when you'll need them (I'm sure you've said something similar many, many times). In a stroke of non-WAF brilliance, I linked them up like a chain making sure to keep the loops large. I put the panel in place and pulled the link chain as taunt as I could and slipped it over the hook. Once I released the panel, it of course sagged forward a bit. The next step (and this is the brilliant part) is I reached back there and tightened up one link after another until the panel was in the proper placement. I let the panel settle for about a day and then I went behind it again and tightened it up one more time. After a week, I tighten them again. Now, if I ever want to get the panel down I'll have to cut the ties but since I still have like 75 of them left I should be OK.

This worked fine for the "leaning" corner panels that were supported by a bottom panel but Scott from Ready Acoustics came by and suggested that I use a bungee stretched between the keyhole mounts for the free hanging panel as the straps aren't designed to hold that sort of weight on their own. Switching out the ties for a bungee took 3 guys about 30 minutes to do as the panel was inconveniently placed above my desk and very close to the ceiling. In order to get the panel to stay in the proper place we needed the bungee to be very tight but getting the bungee around the hook took a lot of leverage. Eventually we got it with a minimum of damage to my wall. The bungee was in many ways superior to my makeshift approach (another in a long line of reasons why not receiving the hanging hardware for this review was a huge issue) especially in placement. The bungee would hold the panel in place even if I moved it up or down. Once or twice it slid out of place but for the most part, once I positioned it, it stayed put.

The non-WAF part of this equation was with the "leaning" panels. From around the corner, you can see the cable ties. With the flush mounted corner panels, this wasn't a problem. My solution? More panels! Since this is my office and it isn't like WAF is a huge factor in here (obviously) I just made sure that the wall mounted panel covered up as much as that sight line as possible. Honestly, I don't think bungies or any other cord would have looked much better.

Ceiling Mounting

When planning out this room (I LOVE the planning stage, everything comes out so perfectly!) I decided to make sure I hung the ceiling panels early in the process. They'd be the hardest and could potentially have a major impact on the placement of the higher wall mounted panels. The initial plan was to mount six panels on the ceiling. I knew that the critical placement would be the panel between the light and the AC vent. There is little room there and that panel would seriously affect the other placements.

My first thought was how to hang the panels without risking serious injury or equipment damage. While I'm generally OK with using drywall anchors and have used them successfully in the past, I just knew I was going to stress over having 15 pounds of panel relying on a bit of plastic and a couple of hooks so I decided to go the route of finding and using only studs. The problem with this method is that it limits the locations you can place the panels. As such, I was only able to mount four of the panels rather than the six I had originally hoped (so my room is only mostly an anechoic chamber).

Ready Acoustics has some really nifty hanging wire that looks really nice… but I didn't get it or any of the other mounting hardware because of the stupid shipping company. So I decided that I'd run out to Lowe's and pick up some chain. The chain I got is rated to hold something like 90 pounds so I wasn't all that worried about it breaking. I also picked up so S-links to use to connect the chain to the frames. Because I LOVE to make multiple trips to Lowe's, I realized that the wire cutters were not going to make the grade so I prepared to head back… until I realized I could take two sets of pliers and just twist a link to death. I measured off a length that was a little larger than the width of the panel and cut a bunch of chains to match. Really, I found out later that this was a mistake. Since it is chain, you can't get it tight enough so that it doesn't hang down a little and when you add in the distance the hook is from the ceiling you pretty much want that chain to be as snug as possible.

After I hung the first panel, it became abundantly clear that I was going to have a problem. While I had the room to run two panels end to end, the front of the office (near the desk) didn't have the width (because the first panel couldn't be centered in the room) and the back of the office had the "leaning" corner panels which decreased the length too much. So, I basically just shoved up as many as I could in as aesthetically pleasing a way as possible. Finding the first stud was a bit of a chore (I had to use the "deep scan" setting on the finder) but once I did, it was easy enough to measure over 24 inches to the next on. I drilled pilot holes for each of the screws and set them in by hand, tightening them with a screwdriver set through the eye of the hook for leverage when necessary.

As I said before, the chain needs to be tight as it will sag naturally. But when your studs are 24 inches apart, you'll need a bit more extension than I originally thought (the keyhole slots are inset 5 inches from the end). What I ended up doing was to add a bit of chain with an S-hook to the middle of each chain and ran that to the hook. This had two advantages, first I KNEW that the panel was hanging true because the extension was in the middle of each of the chains. That way I didn't just have the chain strung over the hook and have to try to even up both sides. Also, I had the additional bonus of being able to adjust the height of the panel by choosing which of the links I used. This became important later on as I hung more panels. Even when I hung one panel on the length of the stud (meaning I could connect the hooks wherever I wanted) I used the extension for all the above reasons. Lastly, because these panels were white, I actually hung them with the plastic still on them (keeps my grubby hands off them) and I cut the plastic off after they were hung. Scott from Ready Acoustics looked over this mounting scheme and gave it his seal of approval. He particularly liked using the extension to center the panel though using the drywall anchors that I never received or plant hangers would have been a good way to hang them as well..

Wall Mounting

Thanks to the wonders of our modern shipping companies, the first shipment of wall mounts never arrived. Not wanting to wait, I decided that I'd try to rig something up myself (a common theme in this "redneck" review). My first idea was to try to use a length of picture hanging wire through the keyhole openings in the panel frames - that was a disaster. The wire snapped the minute I tried to pick the panel up. Maybe if I had doubled up the wire it would have worked. Not to mention that the wire oxidized immediately and got all over my hands and the bag (not a good thing). Luckily before I got too crazy, the wall mounts came.

So, off I went to the Ready Acoustics website to view the tutorial - and really it seems pretty straightforward. The wall mounts are basically a clear plastic tray that the panel sits on. The mount holds the panel about 2-2.5 inches off the wall. There is a little plastic piece that stabilizes the back of the mount that you need to attach separately (and it tends to fall off when you set it down so make sure it is still attached before you screw anything into anything). I decided that I'd work from the bottom up mostly because I care more about covering the power outlets than getting too close to the ceiling. I checked and double checked my measurements and choose 17 inches off the ground to the bottom of the panel. Enough room for access to the outlet and plenty of room for the top panel.

At first I tried to use the drywall anchors that were provided (the only mounting hardware that came with the wall mounts) but had little luck. I'm sure they would work fine for others but I kept stripping the heads off the plastic anchor inserts or pushing them though the drywall as I inserted the screw. Personally, I think I have a problem with the drywall in this room. So I just gave up and broke out my trusty stud finder and attached all of the panels into studs. Personally, this gives me a little more piece of mind in that I KNOW those panels are there to stay. Once I attached the wall mounts, I drilled a pilot hole for a wall hook and attached the top bag handle (as instructed by the tutorial). While the tutorial was designed for hanging the bags, the Chameleon trap is being supported by the wall mount so the strap isn't taking the full weight of the panel. Again, Scott thought this was an acceptable mounting solution. When deciding to use studs rather than wall anchors, I did sort of screw up my ability to hang the panels evenly spaced across the length of the wall. While if I was just hanging a handful of panels this might not be that much of an issue, when you're trying to shove 19 panels into a 10x11x8 foot room, you can easy see the difference so choose wisely. One of the big issues was that I mounted one of the ceiling panels in the middle of the room but I couldn't hang the wall mounted one in the same place… well I COULD have but I didn't notice that they weren't lining up until it was WAY too late. Oh, well, it's my office right?

For the most part, this worked very well for me. The wall mounts worked exactly as advertised and I had little problems attaching them to the wall. The only real problem I had was getting the top of the bag to hang equidistance off the wall with the bottom. The solution is to lower the hook slightly from even with the handle or to get a REALLY TIGHT bungee cord across the two keyholes. Regardless, I suggest you hang your first panel in a place where you can drill a number of holes without irritating your wife too much. Trial and error yourself into the perfect placement and measure where everything is. That way, you can use that one for a template for all the rest of your placements.

Grab the Paint

Remember, the Chameleon frames are metal, large, and fairly heavy. You're going to hit a wall - especially with the corner placed panels. Hopefully you weren't crazy enough to use anything but flat paint for your home theater (why oh WHY?!) so you're going to want to keep a little bit on hand for touchups. For the most part the "damage" would be hidden by the panel itself but sometimes (especially for the corner panels) there are plenty of scratches that'll need a dab of paint here and there.