Feedback on Costco & Amazon sound absorption panels from folks who have purchased them.

The key is to have an air gap between the insulation and the wall .  Set up your speakers in approximate location. You can take a mirror down the wall and tell her to say when the speaker reflection and mark that on the wall.  I have 3 2 x 4. Panels on each side. The insulation should have an 2" air gap from the wall.  I feel the best place to buy insulation and fabric is from a panel maker.  Bass traps are thicker.  A 24" triangular corner trap needs to go floor to ceiling.  In order to get 6" of insulation the front of the trap is 24" because, once again, you need the air gap in the corner.  You can make rectangles 8" deep as well.  The ceiling can have panels.  I bought 11 panels made up for $1100.  They are higher now

I just did my sound room with the Artika from Costco. It has been done for about 1 month and am very pleased with the sound of the room and the aesthetics. This is also my living room so had quite a bit of cutouts to do for tv, brackets etc. These panels were easy to form to any situation I needed just using a tape measure, razor knife and jig saw. My first round was using the 3m command strips and doing a systematic trial and error and developed a pattern that was very effective music wise and also withstood my OCD for symmetry. When I was satisfied, I used a little all-purpose spray glue and drywall screws. Cost was about $600 as I wasted some material. I was replacing foam egg carton style mounted on cardboard which did a good job of taking out my echo but made the room deader than I liked. The Artika was like popping your ears after a steep road climb with your radio on. I forgot how dead the room was after so many years. Hoped this helped and good luck.

You have to be cautious with sound absorbing panels since when utilized they can suck up all the sound so none reaches your ears. This is the dirty little secret nobody in the sound panel cabal wants you to know.

I used bass traps & acoustic panels from Acoustic America with very nice results. Extensive availability of fabrics, nice pricing, fast shipping. 

@jsd52756 

Traveled down the road of "acoustic materials" that at first bluster seemed to be the way to go. However, once the overall price hits you upside the head you realize that cotton...

Here is what AI states:

Yes, sound can travel through cotton, but it also absorbs sound effectively. Cotton's porous structure and soft, fibrous nature allow it to trap and dissipate sound energy, making it a good acoustic material. In other words, sound can pass through cotton, but it also loses energy and is not reflected as strongly as it would be from a hard surface. 

As Dave and Troy stated, you can create a dead room by using too much. This is especially true if your room is smallish. A big room will require quite a few of 703 baffles before the room gets to that point. 

There has been a fairly large uptick in commercial entities (restaurants, office buildings, etc) using noise barriers as privacy is becoming more important, even in public settings. Perhaps some of it started in the covid era where public places realized people do not like to listen to other people talk..or maybe it's they don't like what other people say.