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Drowning in information on acoustics and soundproofing

wickflair

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I have began to read and read the information on various forums on acoustics and soundproofing and I found myself more overwhelmed than I was before. I can appreciate a lot of the information and plan to better understand it all in the future, but to be honest a lot of it was over my head at this point. I also found a lot of the posts were back and forth between members giving their opinion on why others ideas are incorrect which made it hard to follow all the technical jargon.

I am hoping I can gather some general information on what to do to with my finished basement to get a decent sound out of it while limiting the sound from those above and my sound from carrying into the other living spaces. All while keeping a limited budget and being able to locally or online source the products. (60178 and 60115 area codes)

Details: I am starting to finishing my basement. One room will be my "theater room". (see the attached picture for what I want it to look like) This room will be used for watching movies, listening to 2 channel music and utilizing the dry bar. I know when it comes to Acoustics it's one or the other (2chan or Multi chan), so I am just trying to make it sound as good as possible. I am coming from a far from ideal basement with zero treatments and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Room will be ~ 24 x 16 x 8 with AV rack being stored in the storage room behind the back wall.

Equipment: Audio: Denon 3400h, Buckeye Amps 2 channel Power amp, Emotiva T1+, Emotiva C2+, Micca MB 42, Atmos speakers TBD
Source: NAS connected to Laptop playing via Plex, xbox one
Video: 120" 16:9 from silver ticket. (have not picked a specific model yet), Projector TBD leaning towards the Optoma UHD 50x
 

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waynel

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1) Make the room air tight.
2) Mass -gap - Mass works. Double drywall on each side with green glue in between the drywall layers on double studs (or sound clips if using single studs)
 
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wickflair

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1) Make the room air tight.
2) Mass -gap - Mass works. Double drywall on each side with green glue in between the drywall layers on double studs (or sound clips if using single studs)
What is meant by double studs? Two right next to each other for added support?
 

waynel

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What is meant by double studs? Two right next to each other for added support?
The interior drywall and exterior drywall (adjacent room) hang on separate studs.

Take a look here:

 
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wickflair

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The interior drywall and exterior drywall (adjacent room) hang on separate studs.

Take a look here:

Great resource. This really helps visualize things. Thank you!
 

waynel

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Great resource. This really helps visualize things. Thank you!
here is another good page to start on:


Remember, your soundproofing is only as good as your weakest link, you need to pay attention to the floor, ceiling, doors, ventilation, outlets, lighting, etc... to avoid flanking paths for sound. Otherwise you can spend a lot of money and effort on the walls and not have much benefit do to other paths the sound can take.

BTW, I've built (with a contractor) two sound isolated drum studios in my homes.

Wayne
 
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wickflair

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here is another good page to start on:


Remember, your soundproofing is only as good as your weakest link, you need to pay attention to the floor, ceiling, doors, ventilation, outlets, lighting, etc... to avoid flanking paths for sound. Otherwise you can spend a lot of money and effort on the walls and not have much benefit do to other paths the sound can take.

BTW, I've built (with a contractor) two sound isolated drum studios in my homes.

Wayne
Great info. This is really helping due to space/time/money constraints I would likely do something in the Level 2 range with the Furring channel and clips.

A few questions I have for you. Do you have additional resources oon what to do with ventilation, outlets, lighting, ect?

Also, If a wall I am building will back up to the foundation is it still beneficial to put drywall layers on the backside or would the foundation act as a dampening barrier?
 

DonH56

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Lots of information at sites like Kinetics: https://kineticsnoise.com/ I used their IsoMax clips to isolate my basement media room, along with doubled-up drywall everywhere and a minisplit for HVAC so no ducts to the rest of the house (ducts are a leading transmission route). I used acoustic caulk to seal outlets and light fixtures, and used on-wall instead of in-wall fixtures to minimize holes and thus sound egress. The drawing below was a draft I gave to the builder as an overview of the room's construction.

HTH - Don
2008 Media Room Diagrams reduced.jpg
 
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wickflair

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After I realized the difference between soundproofing and acoustics, let me ask you this. Since all my bedrooms are on the second floor and the HT will be basement, I am not too concerned with sound isolation as long as I can keep the sound in the kids rooms to a acceptable level. My biggest priority would be to get the most out of my gear and have the best possible sound regardless if I am watching a movie or jamming out to my favorite tunes. Would you then suggest focusing on the bare minimum for soundproofing and invest more in sound acoustics or Do they go hand and hand and you can't have good acoustics without good soundproofing?
 

waynel

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After I realized the difference between soundproofing and acoustics, let me ask you this. Since all my bedrooms are on the second floor and the HT will be basement, I am not too concerned with sound isolation as long as I can keep the sound in the kids rooms to a acceptable level. My biggest priority would be to get the most out of my gear and have the best possible sound regardless if I am watching a movie or jamming out to my favorite tunes. Would you then suggest focusing on the bare minimum for soundproofing and invest more in sound acoustics or Do they go hand and hand and you can't have good acoustics without good soundproofing?
Soundproofing and acoustic treatment are generally two separate things. However in my case, soundproofing my drum studio (making it completely sealed) increased the need for acoustic treatment. For acoustic treatment take a look at GIK https://www.gikacoustics.com/

Wayne
 

Hipper

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After I realized the difference between soundproofing and acoustics, let me ask you this. Since all my bedrooms are on the second floor and the HT will be basement, I am not too concerned with sound isolation as long as I can keep the sound in the kids rooms to a acceptable level. My biggest priority would be to get the most out of my gear and have the best possible sound regardless if I am watching a movie or jamming out to my favorite tunes. Would you then suggest focusing on the bare minimum for soundproofing and invest more in sound acoustics or Do they go hand and hand and you can't have good acoustics without good soundproofing?
It's true that sound proofing (stopping unwanted sound getting in your room and/or stopping it escaping) and room treatment (trying to solve the issues of playing music in your room) are two different things but I reckon that room treatment can affect the sound that gets out of your room.

The biggest issue of listening in relatively small rooms is boomy bass. Some bass frequencies will sound boomy, others you can hardly hear. Room treatment (in the form of bass traps, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), subwoofers, or a combination of these, not to mention careful positioning) can smooth the bass response so that all bass frequencies play at the same level. If you succeed with this then you will also reduce the noise that can be transmitted to other rooms.

Mostly though sound proofing is built into the room structure whereas room treatment, whilst you can also incorporate some of it into the room structure, is usually added later.

In my own room, living on a busy High Street, I found adding a third layer of glazing to the double glazed windows made a significant impact on the incoming noise and hence I could hear more details of the music.
 

DonH56

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Dunring

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I have began to read and read the information on various forums on acoustics and soundproofing and I found myself more overwhelmed than I was before. I can appreciate a lot of the information and plan to better understand it all in the future, but to be honest a lot of it was over my head at this point. I also found a lot of the posts were back and forth between members giving their opinion on why others ideas are incorrect which made it hard to follow all the technical jargon.

I am hoping I can gather some general information on what to do to with my finished basement to get a decent sound out of it while limiting the sound from those above and my sound from carrying into the other living spaces. All while keeping a limited budget and being able to locally or online source the products. (60178 and 60115 area codes)

Details: I am starting to finishing my basement. One room will be my "theater room". (see the attached picture for what I want it to look like) This room will be used for watching movies, listening to 2 channel music and utilizing the dry bar. I know when it comes to Acoustics it's one or the other (2chan or Multi chan), so I am just trying to make it sound as good as possible. I am coming from a far from ideal basement with zero treatments and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Room will be ~ 24 x 16 x 8 with AV rack being stored in the storage room behind the back wall.

Equipment: Audio: Denon 3400h, Buckeye Amps 2 channel Power amp, Emotiva T1+, Emotiva C2+, Micca MB 42, Atmos speakers TBD
Source: NAS connected to Laptop playing via Plex, xbox one
Video: 120" 16:9 from silver ticket. (have not picked a specific model yet), Projector TBD leaning towards the Optoma UHD 50x
I did some carpentry and helped a friend with their room a couple of years back. We used Quietrock which is a sound absorbing drywall and it really kept the sound in. They claim one inch of it is like 7 inches of normal drywall and I believe it. For the hung ceiling we just put some foam panels in each one, which wasn't a massive difference but it helped, and not much work or cost to toss them in the bays.
 

eric-c

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On avs forums, there is a master sound proofing thread pinned in the home theater construction sub section that has a ton of great advice. There are also a ton of threads with pictures with wip builds (including mine :) )
 
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wickflair

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On avs forums, there is a master sound proofing thread pinned in the home theater construction sub section that has a ton of great advice. There are also a ton of threads with pictures with wip builds (including mine :) )
I did read thag but began getting confused. I'd look to check out people's builds though.
 
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