Anyone consider ambient noise levels?

KenM10759

KenM10759

Audioholic Samurai
The 5.1.2 surround/Atmos system in my living room until earlier this year was reverted back to a simpler 5.2 system of lesser speakers. My 2.2 channel office system was also changed to a 2.1 system of lesser speakers.

This was all done because I became aware of several things I should have considered long before I spent the money. We live on the 2nd & 3rd floors of a 2-family home. Our 1st floor is a smaller apartment, rented to a now-84 yr old woman who is very nice. It seems I never noticed how my loud movies, concert DVD's, and music listening bothered her, she NEVER complains. And I was rarely watching surround-sound, I did more demos than actually watching. These two systems were on our main floor, the office above her bedroom and living room above hers.

Those lower floor rooms are all hardwood floors. Plenty of area rugs, plush furniture, artwork of walls, yet still a bit of "echo."

Now I've refocused to a 2-channel system and was pondering why that 3rd floor room sounds so good. It's horsehair plaster walls and ceilings. There's knee wall closets behind the north & south walls, with 2-1/2" foam up against the back and all sealed. Because of the roof line, there's angles between the walls and ceiling on those 2 walls. There's R-31 insulation right above the ceilings. On the floor is a 1/2" pad, 3/4" thick plush carpeting, and a Berber wool of top of that. Only one window, west side, and heavy drapes on it.

Absolutely nothing echoes in this room. It's dead quiet, and only a tiny bit of traffic noise raises the ambient noise level a wee bit, and that's just a low, non-descript hum. I have an app on my phone, and for kicks looked at the levels. Downstairs where things were, ambient levels are at 30dB to mid-40's! In my primary 2-ch listening room, it only rises above 20dB when someone is talking or the cat is purring in my ear. ;)

What is your room like?
Listening_rm_ambient_dB.jpg
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
My room is dead silent unless the movie is playing at 90dB or the music is playing at 90dB.

Even if I had some ambient noise, at this volume level, I doubt I could hear any ambient noise.
 
KenM10759

KenM10759

Audioholic Samurai
My room is dead silent unless the movie is playing at 90dB or the music is playing at 90dB.

Even if I had some ambient noise, at this volume level, I doubt I could hear any ambient noise.
Define "dead silent"? Is your room under 10dB?

It's not at 90dB that ambient noise levels affect what you hear, rather it's the quiet passages in movies or music that can be a bit muddied by higher base noise levels.

In my room I generally play music (no movies capability at all) at 60 to 70dB, with occasional periods of 75-85dB (though brief.) It's nice to keep it as "clean" as the room can make it. :)
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
Hi Ken, Not sure what downsizing your equipment has to do with the background noise in your room. My excuse for not connecting the dots us that Im only on my 2nd coffee. Its awesome that you have a very quiet room. You should measure the level just to get an idea what it really is. Ive not heard the term knee closet. Is that storage space on a wall where the roof intersects it or cuts it short?
 
KenM10759

KenM10759

Audioholic Samurai
Hi Ken, Not sure what downsizing your equipment has to do with the background noise in your room. My excuse for not connecting the dots us that Im only on my 2nd coffee. Its awesome that you have a very quiet room. You should measure the level just to get an idea what it really is. Ive not heard the term knee closet. Is that storage space on a wall where the roof intersects it or cuts it short?
The downsizing of two systems on our main flor has nothing to do with ambient noise levels, it was just to point out why I had created a single-purpose music listening room upstairs. I did do a "phone app" SPL measurement of the room, and posted a screenshot of the result. Most of the reading is from my own movement and breathing.

A knee wall is the term used for the triangle shaped space created by putting up a wall where it intersects the roof line a about 6ft up. Another 1-1/2 feet is angled, parallel to the roof, then a flat ceiling. There are short little doors that give us access to the space, good only for long-term storage. You don't want to crouch down in that hot space often. ;)
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
I can get my noise floor down to ~20 dB but it doesn't stay that way for long. There's always something kicking on or running like the fridge or ac, or the neighbors, etc. I do prefer calibrating in the winter time because I can unplug or turn things off without straining anything to catch back up. We've been hitting 115°-118° f here in the last week or so. Ugh.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Sure, I've thought about it and measured some. While a quieter room could have some advantages, and I have maybe one room that has a slight advantage (due construction/location but would need to measure to see how much, would guess we're talking maybe 5-6 dB at most as a guess), I'm good with the overall level of quiet the house has in general. That one perhaps quieter room is a spare bedroom in a semi-basement and I do hang out there in the worst of the heat but just haven't set it up to be any more than that. IIRC my noise level at quietest is low/mid 30s depending on time of day, and could be higher depending what heating/cooling noises are in play.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
LOL I get annoyed enough by my body's gurgling sounds....and if I start farting in what I'd think is a sealed room, I'm outta there pretty quick. :)
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
Rumor is that no one can stay in that room more than about 20 minutes because hearing all of what your body is doing makes one sick.
I dunno about that. My mind does a pretty good job on me at times!! :p
 
Teetertotter?

Teetertotter?

Senior Audioholic
My stuff is in the basement with the furnace, hot water heater, washing and dryer machine + a refrig. I have been known to turn off the furnace, while doing a speaker auto calibration. Nothing earth shattering to effect my 5.1. O, the basement is all open air with 8 foot joist ceiling. My designated area is 10 X 12. Its pretty quiet when nothing is running. lol Just my observation.
 
KenM10759

KenM10759

Audioholic Samurai
It occurs to me that I failed to mention an important factor in the quietness of my listening room, and that is the sound damping qualities.

You can have a very quiet room by virtue of being far from traffic, a home out in the woods, a room away from any appliances or HVAC systems. Without good damping qualities, it could still echo or reverberate your music. It could have reflective surfaces that cause music from your speakers to arrive at your ears multiple times, muddying the fidelity.

That's exactly what my room doesn't do. The damping is excellent, and yet it's not sterile. Pretty cool.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Having a nicely balanced room of quiet but not too dead would be a good thing....so you don't need AC up there in the summer or heat in the winter? Or does your measurement already reflect running HVAC? Anything special about the construction of your home?
 
KenM10759

KenM10759

Audioholic Samurai
Having a nicely balanced room of quiet but not too dead would be a good thing....so you don't need AC up there in the summer or heat in the winter? Or does your measurement already reflect running HVAC? Anything special about the construction of your home?
It does get warm in the worst days of summer. I haven't resorted to putting the window mounted room air conditioner in that I would for guests, I just use a nice quiet Hunter ceiling fan if it's really bad. Since the big insulation job, it never is.

Heating is forced hit air by natural gas on our lower level, and there's enough convection that it's never cold.

Nothing special in construction that I haven't mentioned already. Just good old-fashioned dimensional lumber framing, good horsehair plaster, etc.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
What weighting are your measurements made with? You don't have an actual measurement mic/software, just a phone app? 14dB seems a bit too much of a good thing...
 
KenM10759

KenM10759

Audioholic Samurai
I use my phone mostly, but I do have a Umik-1 and REW.
 
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