How to make a "Quiet" room if you had the ability do it all over?

[MalVeauX]

Hello all,

I'm curious, where you are now with what you know and have experienced, how would you approach making a quiet room if you had the chance to do it over?

I think we are all used to having a room in the house/appeasement used as a theater or music listening area, while some have dedicated rooms made just for it. I realize it's not always in the cards to have a dedicated room truly to do what you wish with it for this. But, if you did, how would you approach it?

I soon will be building a new house and I will have the opportunity to have a dedicated room. It really is just going to be what would normally be the garage will instead be sealed and finished and be an extra room. So it will be fairly large, but not crazy big or anything. I'm not certain on the size just yet, just thinking ahead for this purpose. I'm curious how I should approach setting up the room based on what others would do who have a lot of experience with this stuff. I really like the idea of a quiet space, where it's less noisy than the rest of the house. The idea of doubling the dry wall with the green stuff between them and then treating the walls with acoustic dampening materials, bass traps, etc. But I'm curious, how much and how far to go with it? In my mind, I would adore a dead quiet room (not happening I realize, just wishing out loud) where it's eerie quiet. For filling the room, I have three towers and four 12" subs that will be doing the pressurizing of the room. I'm thinking I would like to find a way to do a sealed weather door into the room (and if I can avoid windows, I will simply not have a single window on any wall if I'm able).

So based on that.... if you had a large living room (garage converted to a big room just for your audio fun) with no windows and a sealed weather door, how would you approach treating the room initially and what acoustic dampening materials would you think to use ideally in such a large space? Isolation foam is fairly inexpensive and can literally cover every wall. Bass traps can fill the corners up fairly well. What about the ceiling though? And do you go with a hard floor and cover with throw carpets or do you go full on carpet?

What would you do?

Very best,

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

Bass traps and dampening materials improve acoustics inside a room. They do not make it quieter.

It’s no mystery how to build a quiet (read soundproof) room. They've been doing it in recording studios for countless decades. It requires “room in a room” construction, which basically consists of dual fully decoupled walls and ceilings, double or even triple-layered drywall with double air-tight solid-core doors for access.

Any downgrade from that – staggered-stud construction, fewer drywall layers, etc. – reduces effectiveness, although that could be tolerated depending on the level of soundproofing desired.

Once proper construction takes care of the soundproofing, addressing internal acoustics is another issue.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Speedskater]

Over the decades this AVS forum as had many threads and links on room construction:
Dedicated Theater Design & Construction

Dedicated Theater Design & Construction

Dedicated Theater construction ideas and design talk. From start to finish of your dedicated theater.

www.avsforum.com

 

[MalVeauX]

Thanks,

That's true, I didn't quite word it well in that sense, let's say one is not truly constructing a professional grade soundproof room, but rather you had a literal living room in a home to do as much reasonable treatment as you could, how would you approach it? Realizing construction within construction is industry, but not quite everyone's home approach. I'm very interested in what experienced people would do to make the room as quiet as possible without resorting to something like construction within construction (to preserve a lot more room space in a home) with things like the walls and ceiling and how to treat it for echo, dampening, etc. Sound proofing in general would be awesome, but I don't think that's completely in the cards, but at least doing a lot of treatment to the room up front is possible. So that said, there's a lot of information out there, but .... experienced folk who have done it work in it or are enthusiasts may have a different experience looking back from what they did and did it work?

And good point about separating internal acoustics from actual sound proofing. I didn't articulate that well enough looking back. Again, let's say you have a room that will not be the industry standard for sound proofing, but let's say you want to have it as quiet or sound proof as you can do with other means (and what those means are) and then also what internal acoustic treatment would you consider for bare walls, ceiling, etc to remove echos and all that.

It's easy to look at it from an industrial point of view building a studio. But what about a living room in a home, with a little more options being sealed off from the house via just one door and not open to the whole house and what can be done within that room (without building a room within a room)?

Very best,

 

[mtrycrafts]

That would also depend on how much isolation you want from the rest of the house and what sound pressure levels are we talking about.
Low frequency at a good level is very difficult to isolate.

 

[GoesTo11!]

When I remodeled my house, I used quiet-rock for 2 rooms and wished I had done more. It noticeably reduces sound transmissions between rooms, and was something my contractor could buy easily and install easily without special construction techniques.

 

[MalVeauX]

When I remodeled my house, I used quiet-rock for 2 rooms and wished I had done more. It noticeably reduces sound transmissions between rooms, and was something my contractor could buy easily and install easily without special construction techniques.

Thanks, interesting. Do you recall if it was just one layer, or two layers? No dampening material between them or anything?

Very best,

 

[GoesTo11!]

Thanks, interesting. Do you recall if it was just one layer, or two layers? No dampening material between them or anything?

Very best,

Just one side of a traditional stud wall that also had fiberglass insulation. Nothing fancy like double stud walls or clips or mass loaded vinyl - wanted to save $

Putting quietrock on both sides or doubling up could be other options.