Listening room ceiling type?

Some excellent responses.
In my HT which I built, soundproofing was of ultimate concern, as well as the sound quality. I had just under 8' of height.
To sound proof, I put prodigious amounts of insulation inbetween joists. However, I understand that if it's packed too tightly, it will actually work worse. I did pack it in around ducts, etc. which could carry noise.

I attatched "hat channel" or resilient channel (same thing) across the joists, then put up sheets of Homasote, which is a paper product good for noise barrier. I put the channel and homasote (you can check it out; it's at Home Despot), on the interior walls of the HT as well. It's excellent at sound blocking!
Then, put dropped ceiling in over the homasote and channel. This is one QUIET room! Very little noise transmission in or out of room. I can have system cranked pretty good and virtually no noise upstairs above.

Be forewarned; any "holes" or spaces in your ceiling will transmit noise. To allow for can lighting as well as a perfectly sound proof ceiling, I built individual sound-proof boxes recessed into the joists for the cans to sit in. They could be moved about within the boxes later for placement on the dropped ceiling grid. Worked perfect!
You'll have to caulk and foam all spaces! Even electrical outlets. Well worth the extra time.
I have zero noise from the dropped ceiling (it's a 3" drop; I had a professional install - very glad I did!)
Oh, and yes, if this room will double as a HT, DEFINITELY go witht he black ceiling tiles and channel! Very worth it! Really gives a classy appearance to the HT!

Get a subscription to Home Theater Builder Magazine and buy the past issues. There are some on sound proofing and every other aspect of room. Extremely valuable insights! don't begin building without first checking them out!

Resilient channels with one layer of gyproc, filled and taped. A second layer of gyproc installed going the other way so that that it covers the joints of the first one, filled and taped. Cover that with a rough stucco finish. Avoid suspended ceilings is my recommendation. You need both mass and resilience.

Unfortunately you can't have those nice coffered ceilings in a low basement, I don't know how good they are for acoustics, but they sure look nice.

Thanks for the responses folks, it gives me much food for thought.

Tom.

My old listening room was in a condo and my primary concern was isolation so as not to bother the neighbors. Now that I'm trying to make an existing home theater room in our new house sound good, I realize how good my old room was. Here's what I did:

The listening room was in a concrete basement with about 7'6" from floor to ceiling. I ran felt strips across all of the floor joists and put R13 insulation between them. Then I used 5/8" MDF panels cut in 4' x 4' sections. In each of the panels, I drilled five 5/16" holes - one near each corner and one near the center. These holes were large enough that the mounting screw would not touch the MDF. Then for each hole, I used a self drilling screw, a large metal washer and two large rubber washers. The panels were put up so that the felt isolated it from the floor joists and the rubber washers isolated them from the mounting screws. After they were all up, I sealed the whole thing with silicon RTV. Then I ran furring strips and put up acoustic tiles. I used track lighting to avoid leakage from recessed lights.

Off the subject a little, the rest of the room was standard room within a room studs and sheetrock with staggered studs on the one set of support beams. In the upper corners where the walls were shared with adjacent condo units, I put in some rubberized sound deadening material that is normally used to sound insulate ducts in large buildings.

The room might be considered somewhat dead to many people but it stepped right out of the way of my system and I wish I could reproduce it's qualities in my new home.

Oh, forgot, fill the space between the joists with fiberglass batts!