Cheaper Alternative to Acoustic Foam?

[phatmass]

I shop at uline.com for a lot of my shipping supplies, and was browsing products one day and found these:

http://www.uline.com/Browse_Listing_863.asp

This foam can be bought in various sizes. I checked the price of acoustic foam at zzounds.com and the cheapest I could find is more than 3X as expensive as this foam at ULINE ($3.30 for a 12"x12" piece of acoustic foam when purchasing 48 pieces at zzounds compared to $1.10 for a 12"x12" piece of the above foam when purchasing 48 pieces).

So, here is my question: Is the above foam a good alternative to acoustic foam if someone is on a tight budget? Is the cost savings worth the decreased quality, or is this foam pretty much useless?

 

[Rod Gervais]

So, here is my question: Is the above foam a good alternative to acoustic foam if someone is on a tight budget? Is the cost savings worth the decreased quality, or is this foam pretty much useless?

Phatmass,

This is the stuff that dead people are made of............

This is not acoustic foam - it's packing foam - the same type of stuff that was on the walls of the Rhode Island night club that 100 people died at a few years back.

Aside from the fact that it isn't the same material or density that real acoustic foam is made of - if it catches fire - it goes up in seconds - and gives off tremendous amounts of smoke.

No sane person would ever use this to treat a room - and I assume you are sane.

This about that fire:

Investigators focused on the foam material which had been installed behind the stage. The foam was of a kind intended for use in packaging and product display and not for soundtreating buildings, and would not have been treated with fire-retardant materials. Witnesses to the fire have reported that once ignited, flames spread across the foam at approximately one foot per second.

If you wish to read the entire article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire

Sincerely,

Rod

 

[apl]

Yep, don't even think about it. I'm not really keen on using the flame-treated stuff because when it does burn (it can't sustain burning on its own) it spews lots o' nasties.