Ceiling Tiles for sound

[Electone]

I am in the midst of completing my new home theatre room. It is 17' wide by 15' deep. The ceiling will be at most 8' high and at it's lowest 6 1/2' (hvac vents). Because it is in the basement of my house, I have decided to put in a drop ceiling for logical purposes - it is impossible to gain access to critical wiring and plumbing when you drywall your basement ceiling.

I see that most ceiling tiles are labelled "Accoustical" and that is what I am installing because I want to keep the room above the home theatre as quiet as possible.

I am just wondering what effect ceiling tiles have on sound compared to a drywall ceiling.

 

[Ethan Winer]

'tone,

> I see that most ceiling tiles are labelled "Accoustical" and that is what I am installing because I want to keep the room above the home theatre as quiet as possible. <

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Calling tiles "acoustical" means they absorb sound, not that they block it from passing through. To reduce sound from travelling upstairs you really do need sheetrock or something equally massive. But even making the ceiling more massive is not enough to completely eliminate all sound getting through. Sound in the basement will also strike the walls, which in turn vibrate and conduct to the rest of the building structure. So a complete solution also has floating walls that don't touch the outer walls.

--Ethan

 

[warnerwh]

I put in soundboard then resilient channel then sheetrock and finally acoustic tile on my ceiling in my basement listening room. It helps alot to just do the ceiling but as Ethan notes the walls will help also. If your room is like mine in the corner of the house where there's two walls of concrete then there won't be any vibration to speak of traveling up those walls. I can turn my system up pretty loud and it runs flat from 19hz on up with a pair of 260lb ea speakers and a 350wpc amp and get no complaints from my females upstairs. It's mostly bass that makes it through up there. Do a google on soundproofing. You'll find it's quite a process and quite expensive, think my ceiling alone cost 400 plus in materials. If you decide to use resilient channel be sure to put it up asymetrically. RC1,resilient channel, is very inexpensive and just it with sheetrock will make a good difference. RC1 was designed for this purpose.