If you like to drive around with the volume turned up, but don't enjoy the sounds your car make on the road, then you might want to consider soundproofing your car.

There are many options and strategies to this process. The first crucial step is to stop metal panels from rattling, but as you are doing research, you may start coming across certain terms that seem to refer to different things. Some people talk about sound deadening while others talk about sound damping or dampening.

What is the difference?

Read on to learn the differences between sound dampening, damping, and deadening.

While most people just want a general understanding of how products work, in this section we will talk some science for those of you that want a more intricate explanation of how vehicle sound dampening works.

These two springs were dislodged by a similar measure of power. The undamped, dark spring moves pleasingly. The damped, blue spring's motions stop after some time.

Sound passing through metal starts off as air vibrations and then turn into the vibrations in the metal, then the metal reradiates this back into the air to the other side. When the metal vibrates, it returns to its neutral state very fast. To better picture this, just imagine a metal ruler you hold one side at the edge of a table with one hand and then bend the side with the other hand, it will vibrate and then come back to its natural state fast.

Sound damping is the term used when a vehicle sound dampening material acts as a shock absorber and damp these vibrations. As the metal bends, the sound deadener resists and takes out energy from the vibrations. The less the metal vibrates, the less the metal reradiates sounds back in the air and to the other side.

The car industry utilizes the terms deadening, damping, and dampening interchangeably. Sometimes we'll use "damping" to attempt to make it extra confounding. You'll frequently see these terms joined with a word like sound, noise, vibration, or constrained-layer.

Sound Dampening. Sound Deadening. Sound Damping.

These are all referring to reducing the amplitude of vibration energy and reduce unwanted noise.

However, while the same process is being described, there is a small nuance between each term. At SoundSkins, we value as much clarity for our customers as possible, so below is a breakdown of the differences and similarities between these three terms.

Sound "Deadening' is one aspect of soundproofing. To "deaden" unwanted noise, you place material over metal to reduce vibrations which in turn reduce unwanted car noise. Any time you read the term "deadening", it's referring to the process of stoping metal from rattling and it's usually when someone is explaining how to soundproof a car.

This one seem pretty obvious, but let's look at what damping means. Here is the textbook definition of "damping":

• a decrease in the amplitude of an oscillation as a result of energy being drained from the system to overcome frictional or other resistive forces.

Oscillation is referring to something that is moving back and forth in a consistent pattern: a pendulum is an example of an oscillation system. Oscillation systems all slow down over time without needing additional energy. We want to make this process faster by adding material to the metal. Sound "damping" works by reducing the size and duration of the oscillation system in your car, vibrations. The reason sound "deadening" and sound "damping" sound very similar is because, when referring to car sound proofing, they are referring to the same thing.

Which brings us to the last one, sound "dampening". Dampening is term that is used to describe the vehicle sound dampening process. Some people will get upset when hearing this term being used to describe soundproofing because one of the meanings of "dampening" is to get a material wet or moist, and they believe that it's incorrect to use the word "dampening", but they are only considering one of the meanings, the other meaning is to decrease or to lessen. In soundproofing, this means to reduce or lessen the sound wave's amplitude. This sounds very familiar to sound damping, and that's why the car industry uses them interchangeably.

For those who want to save time while installing sound deadening, we also offer Pre Cut Sound Deadening Kits. We take all the hassle out of your project.

We make our templates from our SoundSkins Pro Plus rolls, measure them to an exact fit for each specific vehicle, run the material through a waterjet machine, and send them directly to you with marked pieces and easy to follow instructions for your convenience. This will save you hours of measure, cutting, adding pieces to parts you missed, etc. All you have to to do is remove and clean your door panels and apply the material. This will save you hours of work!

Check out our full collection of pre-cut sound deadening kits here:

If you are barely getting started with soundproofing, it can be hard to decipher what people are talking about when using these terms like sound damping vs dampening. Hopefully now you have a better understanding of the nuances between these terms. If there is something we know for sure is that a more informed buyer makes smarter purchasing decisions. If you have any questions, reach out to us on social media or email us at usa@soundskinsglobal.com!