No "Room Correction" Topic option. Why?


I wanted to pose a question on room mods but do not see a logical place
to insert it so I am going with "Speakers" as a good, wrong choice.
Moderators, can you attend to this deficiency? 

My question: I am redoing my listening room in several ways.
Not because it was bad-quite the contrary. But because the room 
was a dark hole so I bought three new windows and replacement door.
The existing wall allowed rain water in from the patio floor outside.

 I started dismantling a 20' section of wall. As I opened the wall i found the
existing base plate-not treated wood, to be dust. Then mold on the drywall.
then termite evidence. 

Once the old crap was gone, I poured a concrete base plate 20 feet and another 6 feet
on the return. Termite damage had trashed the double sill plate and parts of two joists.

With all the wiring exposed I discovered an abandoned 220 a/c line buried in the wall.
Voila!  I had 2 dedicated 110v outlets for another part of the room. 

Might as well add 5 can lights while I was at it.

I upgraded the Streaming ethernet line from cat 5 to cat 7. Might as well
since I had sawsalled thru the old line. 
Then I learned that fiber is a better bet so I will be changing that later.

Another find! A buried abandoned entry door offering a 30" x 80" x 10" shelving
opportunity! 

I started this task by removing the old carpeting.

Now to my question. 

Shall I go with new porcelain tile flooring and plan on area rug -or-
put carpet back for its superior sound absorbing properties?

I hope someone out there has been down this road and has
an experience to share?

Thank you!


chorus

Showing 10 responses by terry9

@yyzsantabarbara 

I note that your article references the Salford simulations. Nice to have company!
Tomic, you might like to know that both M1 and BuildSecure are low-odour, low-VOC, non-toxic substances. Unlike some other construction glues I could name. And elastomeric is only common sense in an active earthquake zone.
Egan, you are absolutely right. The first thing one notices upon entering my music room is the quality of the silence. Not only are there no distracting noises, but the room has a positive quality of its own - sorry, but that’s the best description I can write. Could be as Tomic says, "the baseline noise floor of the room."

I would add that books and articles on acoustics often discuss H x W x D in terms of opinion and rumour instead of science. The only way, IMO, is to do very many computer simulations. Cox and D'Antonio at Salford have done all this - all the heavy lifting. I am just the beneficiary.

@tomic601 , I had the same experience at Quietrock. After talking with them I bit the bullet and paid the bucks. May your project prosper!
Chorus, I suggest that you also consider the lights themselves. LED's and fluorescents tend to create electrical noise which can get back into your equipment - certainly through the line, but also perhaps through EM radiation.

Does not apply to strips of bare LEDs, and maybe some other LED fixtures.

I used 12V quartz track lighting throughout, powered by 20 little toroidal transformers mounted outside the room (in case they hummed). The electrician was great and did all the hard work, leaving me to sort out logic and connections. 

Barts, it's actually a whole lot more than soundproofing. The thing is to make the walls rigid, so that they don't flex in response to sound energy, especially sound from the speakers.

If the walls do flex, they act like exceedingly low grade woofers - woofers made of drywall, responding out of phase. Hence Quietrock 545 with embedded sheet steel.
There has been solid science done on room size and dimension at the School of Acoustics at the University of Salford.

They found that MOST rectangular rooms are poor, a quarter OK, and a few are good. Look up 'room ratios', but be prepared to design and build to tight tolerances.

Also, you might want to build with Quietrock 545, a very thick and solid drywall. I also used a lot of elastomeric glue, M1 from Chemlink.

Good luck!
Don't forget the cost of labour to put up two layers of drywall and slather with green glue, instead of just one layer. If you're not doing it all yourself, that is.

Good luck!
Decided against green glue and acoustic drywall. For one thing, it isn't a glue, IIRC. I had some experience with low VOC elastomeric glue, and went with modern incarnations from Chemlink.

Also, I suggest a supplier of commercial/industrial specialist drywall. That stuff has to make spec or there is hell to pay. I used Quietrock. Their 545 has a layer of sheet steel embedded into several (5?) distinct layers of drywall. It works. And it’s specced.

Or you could go to the friendly folks who don’t know much at your local building store.
@tomic601 

I used several hundred tubes of M1 caulk/glue and 20-30 tubes of BuildSecure construction glue, which is marginally stronger. Both are elastomeric.
Good question about matching elastomeric to drywall, Tomic. Another reason to choose something engineered over something contrapted. I use elastomeric to join things that can’t be bought as an engineered unit - like drywall to stud.