It would be nice to have curtains that absorb street noise.
Some custom curtain tailors offer a fabric that claims to be soundproof. It’s a little pricey. Not absurdly pricey, but it’s also a bit hard to be confident that such thin fabrics can absorb much sound (they claim 20%).
I would prefer to try hacks. I’ve heard that thick furniture moving pads absorb sound well. I’ve also heard that fiberous fabrics can be effective. For the moment, I probably want to pass on edgy ideas like egg cartons. Maybe later on those. What fabrics are decent for reducing sound? Specifically, I’m wondering about carpets or painter’s drop cloths. Not the simple white canvas drop cloths, but the thicker drop cloths may out of recycled fabrics.
@Fredselfish This article gives some useful info:
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/best-soundproof-curtains/
I’m most interested in a cheap option so the paragraph on “Industrial Blankets” caught my attention. But it didn’t give much detail or mention how carpet fairs in comparison.
As an experiment, I took mattress someone threw out and pulled the memory foam-like pad out, and stuffed that into my window, then hung a cheap normal blackout curtain with a drop cloth safety pinned onto that, then i have a thermal curtain hanging on a 2nd support track. It seems to work well although I’ve not tried it on a noisey night. Weekend is coming so maybe I’ll have a better idea next week.