Abstract Noise is frequently unnoticed, but it is one of the causes of unhealth for human beings reducing people’s quality of life. There are many materials that can be considered as acoustic absorbents. Textiles can be used to both improve the acoustic quality of and to decorate the room where they have been placed. In this study, we used some fabrics with 15, 20 and 30 ends/cm and 15, 20 and 30 picks/cm. The acoustic absorption coefficient was measured when the fabric was added as a resistive layer on top of a nonwoven made of polyester fiber. Results evidence that these fabrics can be efficiently used to modify the acoustic absorption of the nonwoven. Sound absorption coefficients measured via the impedance tube method show that these modifications occur. The results show how it is possible to improve the acoustic characteristics of a simple nonwoven to obtain sound absorption coefficients close to values of 1 at different frequencies by choosing a fabric with the appropriate combination of warp and weft count.