Sound proofing panels and other equipment - What is the best out there right now

GIK Acoustics are my absolute favorites for having reasonable prices (compared to ASC) and very high performance.

Also have some innovative things like Art Panels.

atdavid ...

Contact member David Pritchard via PM. His mother is in a senior building and he has a nice system set up in her room. Even though she’s in her 90’s, she still enjoys her system and all of the tweaks David has done for her. Perhaps David has dealt with the room treatments and you can follow his advice.

Frank

Buildings like that are notoriously noisy (thin walls,lack of insulation,etc.).
I highly doubt you can quiten it down for use as a home theater unless they listen at fairly low volume. Not to mention bitchy neighbors!!!

Acoustic panels such as provided by GIK will not provide soundproofing; they are designed to improve presentation of sound within a room. To keep sound from leaking out is a separate topic and a more difficult task. Usually, significant sound reduction has to be built into a room by using specialized materials (resilient and with plenty of mass).

Ordinary contractors know next to nothing about this, so I urge you to do significant research and/or consult a professional in the field.

imagine the entire room filled with water.

then make it so the room has no leaks, at all. Not a drip. (which is a small part of the fix-it recipe, but we use it here for being a decent illustration of the problem. In the ordinary cases, the room is exceptionally leaky, and acting almost sealed --both at the same time)

Then imagine that the top of this box shaped cistern...has a steel plate on the top of it...and then you start hitting the plate with a 10 lb rubber sledge.

Hitting the plate with the rubber sledge, is likened to the bass in the room.

You have to isolate the neighbors, from that. Even though their very leaky cisterns share walls with your cistern, on all six sides.

Not only that, but make the bass sound good -inside of that cistern.

This is what you are up against, as problems go.

One half of the process is the making of a floating and isolated sealed cistern inside the leaky box.

The other half is fixing the bass in the now isolated box. Usually the entire room has to be rebuilt, in a near to actual tear-down and rebuild, done the right way. The floor, the works.

teo_audio is correct.  Unless the leaks are fixed and the structure is isolated, no amount of acoustic treatment will work.  I have helped build a recording studio using double wall construction, floating ceiling and concrete floors as a starting point and using acoustic calk to fill all air gaps.  It's effective when done properly.   

That's the problem, I am talking to contractors who have some expertise in this area, all recommended by local audio stores, but while their knowledge level of the installation of the products they are used to is good, and I believe they will get the basics right, their knowledge of the most up to date products, and their conceptual knowledge, such as what teo_audio is discussing, the box inside a box, comes across as weak.


I may be expecting too much and I likely just need to keep dialing till I find a suitable contractor. I was hoping to identify some of the leading newer products for residential then work back from there to their trusted contractors. I may be better off starting in the industrial space.


Teo_audio has done a good job of describing the difficulty of this task. It is not easy or cheap. I have already set the expectation that there will be practical limits on the sub-woofers to keep the neighbours happy.


Fortunately it is a newer building, and while I have no doubt the neighbours will be sensitive, the walls between units are concrete as is the floor and and ceiling of course. The hall wall I expect is thinner.

mike_in_nc160 posts11-10-2019 12:30am
Ordinary contractors know next to nothing about this, so I urge you to do significant research and/or consult a professional in the field.

As others have pointed out this is both a complex and unfortunately expensive task. Traditional sound proofing routes such as room in room will not work given lack of space so the likely best option is a complete rebuild using a system such as the ASC iso damp method. My former room in Portland (see my system description) was built to this method as was Robert Harleys as described in AS earlier this year. Most contractors however can not cope with the complexity of this type of work. Look for a contractor that is experience in passive house (ie extreme energy efficiency) building techniques as these are the closest approach. 
Having done all you can the limitation will likely be the doors, this was something I was actually never able to solve despite a pair of acoustic doors into the room!

An often overlooked Catch-22 was mentioned by teo_audio, and I want to make sure it's not missed by the OP:

>> make the bass sound good -inside of that cistern.  <<

Plainly speaking, solving one problem (sound transfer) significantly worsens another (acoustics within the room), particularly in the bass. Since this is a home-theater project, the processor will probably have DSP, which will help. Still, the more successful the isolation is, the more that bass trapping will become an absolute necessity.

I won’t go over what many have said here but in your case you’re probably best attacking the weak spots to start with. It’s very difficult to suggest something without knowing the situation of the room e.g. what the floor and wall materials are and where the people that might get disturbed are. I have made gobo’s before (google acoustic gobo) with glass fibre insulation and a free hanging limp mass, whether that could be scaled up to work treat whole room I don’t know. Adding mass to the floor beneath the loudspeakers might help as well.

edit-> I just re-read your last post properly and see that most room boundaries are concrete which for sound proofing is a good thing. Perhaps try the limp mass approach on the hallway wall.

pragmasi,
Condo mid/hi-rise, typical concrete ceiling / floor and walls between units. Current interior construction typical framing and open to "modification".

Thank you for the post folkfreak,

I have the width and length to do room in a room, but height is definitely an issue that may make it impractical. We can rebuild interior walls, but the ceiling and floor are fixed. I am going to have to get an accurate dimension. Even 6" in that dimension is huge one way or the other.


At some level the ASC system is room within a room (the floor especially), but the method doesn't matter, just the results. At least on the walls it would seriously impede the dimensions. I am going to contact them Monday and see if they can put some numbers around db suppression.  folkfreak, what is your feeling in terms of suppression?


I may have an idea for the door. I was looking at used/surplus vault doors.

I've got solid-core gasketed doors in my listening room with added sealing on sides and bottom gotten from the Soundproofing Company. The HVAC system in the next room is inaudible.

Regarding suppression -- my system delivered close to 100% to the next door neighbors (this was in a row house constructed with an air gap between the two houses) but was still audible to the corridor adjacent and to the room above -- primarily bass leakage, and certainly not at a "disturbing" level but the other resident knew music was playing and could identify the track if it was one they were familiar with. Basically think of it as taking 90+ dB in room down to normal what you would consider acceptable leakage for a person with a TV in the room next to you playing faintly.

I guess this goes some way to saying that in a residential setup with adjacent rooms its very hard to get to 100%, which is why my new build is a garden room 60' away!

@atdavid I just sent you a PM about the ASC isodamp system but I see you can access the file here -- it'll give you or your contractor a good sense of what is involved

https://www.acousticsciences.com/sites/walldamp/files/Product-PDFs/IsoWall-Install-Guide_0.pdf

The way you are describing it sounds sufficient for this installation. It does not need to be perfect, just good enough, and more than good enough to still enjoy the experience.


folkfreak1,332 posts11-12-2019 2:04amRegarding suppression -- my system delivered close to 100% to the next door neighbors (this was in a row house constructed with an air gap between the two houses) but was still audible to the corridor adjacent and to the room above -- primarily bass leakage, and certainly not at a "disturbing" level but the other resident knew music was playing and could identify the track if it was one they were familiar with. Basically think of it as taking 90+ dB in room down to normal what you would consider acceptable leakage for a person with a TV in the room next to you playing faintly.

I guess this goes some way to saying that in a residential setup with adjacent rooms its very hard to get to 100%, which is why my new build is a garden room 60' away!

Why not just get him some very good headphones?    

You can make your own for a fraction of the cost you will pay for commercial products.  Owens corning 703 is all you need. 

This is just a very small part of what goes into soundproofing a room.

zardozmike60 posts11-15-2019 10:14amYou can make your own for a fraction of the cost you will pay for commercial products. Owens corning 703 is all you need.