Zargon, you said:
Before closing up the walls in my new dedicated audio room...
If you have a choice in how you will finish your ceiling, you may want to do a drop ceiling, with a solid ceiling hidden underneath. That's what I did, and the results have been wonderful. The listening room is almost completely acoutstically isolated from the rest of the house. It is so well constructed that while my boys sleep above in their rooms I can listen to audio at very high levels!
I built individual recessed sound barrier boxes into each floor joist above where the cans were placed. a LOT more work and planning, but I would gladly do it again for the results obtained. Also, with drop ceiling I have accessability to the wiring if I ever need it. The ceiling panels also give a small degree of absorption of reflected waves from the main speakers.
This is definitely NOT the lazy man's way of doing things, but it's absolutely wonderful to be able to have both sconces and cans AND have the acoustically isolated environment.
If you wish to contact me, I can send you a couple pics of my construction of the ceiling. In a nutshell I:
-Insulated between floor joists above
-built the can light "sound-proof" recessed boxes at the positions of the lights. NOTE: boxes need to be large enough to give some room to maneuver the can lights when drop ceiling installed. Also, you'll need insulated can lights, so the smallest, I believe 4" were used so that insulated housing can fit into recessed sound boxes.
-caulked all seams of said boxes and injected expanding foam into the holes where the cables entered the boxes
-Put insulating sleeves over all ducts between floor joists
-Used "Hat Chanel" (2 leg) to hang soundproof ceiling
-Used sheet "Homasote" (obtained from Home Depot - no longer sold there) as primary sound barrier; affixed to hat chanel. The sound proof boxes for can lights were of Homasote too.
-caulked all seams on homasote sheeting
-Used triple # of drywall screws necessary to affix sheeting, as it reduced odds of vibrations
-Caulked all screw heads (NO! Just kidding!)
-Used black drop celing rail and tiles for proper HT appearance. I'm REALLY happy I did that! Makes the room look serious as a high end music/video space.
Other lighting ideas:
Do some reading on "how to" books regarding lighting, or else you're likely to have hot/darker spots in the room if the lighting plan is not done well.
I used BOTH cans and sconces in order to have options re: lighting. If you're doing video, do NOT place sconces too close to the screen or else you will not be able to have them on dimly without effecting the screen! (You have to plan for symmetry, but not mindlessly)
I used a remote lighting system, i.e. Lutron, with "scenes" or preset memories for coordinated settings on all the lights. While a ridiculous up front cost, the longer I use it, the more I feel it was well worth the money.
Bottom line: I took my time, did not rush, and stopped to think long and hard prior to making difficult decisions at critical points. If you rush it, you will likely regret it.
Blessings, and I'm sure you'll love the room when finished!
Before closing up the walls in my new dedicated audio room...
If you have a choice in how you will finish your ceiling, you may want to do a drop ceiling, with a solid ceiling hidden underneath. That's what I did, and the results have been wonderful. The listening room is almost completely acoutstically isolated from the rest of the house. It is so well constructed that while my boys sleep above in their rooms I can listen to audio at very high levels!
I built individual recessed sound barrier boxes into each floor joist above where the cans were placed. a LOT more work and planning, but I would gladly do it again for the results obtained. Also, with drop ceiling I have accessability to the wiring if I ever need it. The ceiling panels also give a small degree of absorption of reflected waves from the main speakers.
This is definitely NOT the lazy man's way of doing things, but it's absolutely wonderful to be able to have both sconces and cans AND have the acoustically isolated environment.
If you wish to contact me, I can send you a couple pics of my construction of the ceiling. In a nutshell I:
-Insulated between floor joists above
-built the can light "sound-proof" recessed boxes at the positions of the lights. NOTE: boxes need to be large enough to give some room to maneuver the can lights when drop ceiling installed. Also, you'll need insulated can lights, so the smallest, I believe 4" were used so that insulated housing can fit into recessed sound boxes.
-caulked all seams of said boxes and injected expanding foam into the holes where the cables entered the boxes
-Put insulating sleeves over all ducts between floor joists
-Used "Hat Chanel" (2 leg) to hang soundproof ceiling
-Used sheet "Homasote" (obtained from Home Depot - no longer sold there) as primary sound barrier; affixed to hat chanel. The sound proof boxes for can lights were of Homasote too.
-caulked all seams on homasote sheeting
-Used triple # of drywall screws necessary to affix sheeting, as it reduced odds of vibrations
-Caulked all screw heads (NO! Just kidding!)
-Used black drop celing rail and tiles for proper HT appearance. I'm REALLY happy I did that! Makes the room look serious as a high end music/video space.
Other lighting ideas:
Do some reading on "how to" books regarding lighting, or else you're likely to have hot/darker spots in the room if the lighting plan is not done well.
I used BOTH cans and sconces in order to have options re: lighting. If you're doing video, do NOT place sconces too close to the screen or else you will not be able to have them on dimly without effecting the screen! (You have to plan for symmetry, but not mindlessly)
I used a remote lighting system, i.e. Lutron, with "scenes" or preset memories for coordinated settings on all the lights. While a ridiculous up front cost, the longer I use it, the more I feel it was well worth the money.
Bottom line: I took my time, did not rush, and stopped to think long and hard prior to making difficult decisions at critical points. If you rush it, you will likely regret it.
Blessings, and I'm sure you'll love the room when finished!