Sound Proofing for Home Cinema

sunama

sunama

sunama

Soldato
Joined
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Posts
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Location
NW London
Hi,

Ive just bought my own place and I intend to have a very loud home cinema setup in the living room. But to avoid waking up the neighbours upstairs, i wanted to install some sort of sound proofing in the ceiling.

Does anyone know anything about sound proofing a living room (ceiling) or can anyone point me in the right direction? Also any ideas of how much sound proofing would cost?

Thanks.
 
There is a hom e cinema in these forums.
Its a couple rooms down.
Havea look in there. They might be able to help with your needs :)
 
That ^^^ or something like gyproc soundbloc.

Ideally you'll want to batten the ceiling, fill the cavities with an insulator and then fit sound absorbing plasterboard.
 
aren't there speakers that give off a frequency that cancels all sound out that you can buy now?

I remember seeing it on Tomorrows World years and years ago....surely it is commercially avialable now?

Was funny - they had a full on rave going on in the studio and people dancing to the music but you couldn't hear anything....wierd but it worked!

Not got a lot of time now but try googling for that?
 
rewire or soundproofing: which should be done first?

Right. After some research, i think i know what needs to be done. The picture below shows how the soundproofing materials are attached to the existing ceiling:

http://www.domesticsoundproofing.co.uk/soundproofing/ceiling_rbars1.html

So, thats what im going to get done within the next few weeks. However, i now have a new dilemma. I will also be having the ceiling lights in that room rewired. The rewiring project would include removing the existing spotlights and repositioning them elsewhere.

My question: which should i get done first, the rewiring or the ceiling soundproofing?
 
sunama said:
Right. After some research, i think i know what needs to be done. The picture below shows how the soundproofing materials are attached to the existing ceiling:

http://www.domesticsoundproofing.co.uk/soundproofing/ceiling_rbars1.html

So, thats what im going to get done within the next few weeks. However, i now have a new dilemma. I will also be having the ceiling lights in that room rewired. The rewiring project would include removing the existing spotlights and repositioning them elsewhere.

My question: which should i get done first, the rewiring or the ceiling soundproofing?
Click to expand...

Both at the same time.

Be aware, almost nothing will cancel out low end bass, the wave length is very long and it will travel though all but the most extensive sound deadening

MB
 
The problem with getting the ceiling sound proofed and rewired at the same time is that the people doing the jobs are different and i would rather do them one at a time. It will be impractical to have someone skimming the ceiling (with plaster) while someone else is pulling wire out from the ceiling. One job has to be done before the other, unfortunately.

Point taken about the bass. Im just trying to do whatever i can to minimise disruption to the neighbours upstairs when i crank up the volume levels.
 
flanking noise will be your enemy here, no matter how good the bars, you will still get flanking noise going through

have a look at www.audioalloy.com for some very interesting product info
 
*ahem*

Some thoughts:

Are you considering the effect this soundproofing is going to have on the acoustics of the room? I havnt looked into the products mentioned here in any great detail but I would imagine them to be most efficient by behaving in such a way that they absorbed all but the top end and low end (where thickness = 1/4 wavelength).

This will have immediate, drastic effects on the room acoustics - if the surfaces are acoustically soft and absorbs the treble as well, the room will seem dead - very opressive to be in and will make things sound odd - no rear / side reinforcement means your speakers will have to work harder for that all-important stereo image at a decent level. Acoustically hard surfaces will make the room like a reverb chamber at the top end, which really will make the room tiring to be in.

Bass is going to be uncontrollable for an after-thought build like this - how do you plan to capture a 17m long wave? Even 1/4 wavelength techniques are going to take up most of your room!

Continuous droning of bass has a ridiculous annoyance factor - so, in my view, you are going to spend a LOT of money to end up with next door just as annoyed with a worse sounding room...

... just to take years off your hearing? 94dB at your listening location should be your absolute top level for sustained exposure if you like your hearing. 94dB isnt that loud ;)

EDIT: For that system above, depending on initial SPLs (and I cant see that system being linear at moderate SPLs) you arent going to make much of a difference with that - its too hard to absorb HF properly and too thin to tackle LF - attenuation would depend on how well the whole thing was put together - my money is still in the "waste of time" camp.

I will see if I can dig up something that appears to me to work a lot better :)
 
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Of course the best way to deal with this situation is to have a room within a room type system in place. However, the cost of this would run way too high. Hence, i'm just looking to protect the upstairs neighbours from my movie watching. I have no neighbours to the sides of me, in that there are no party walls. There is a 2 meter gap on either side of the room, hence im not worried about the neighbours to the side. The only people that count are those who live above me. Its so bad right now that if they had a conversation at normal volume i could tell them exactly what was said. This is totally unacceptable to me. They are tennants so they cant lift up the floorboards and soundproof from their end.

Ive since discovered that the lounge has a suspended ceiling with about 13cm of air space above it. So ive changed my plan. Im gonna buy 10cm thick acoustic mineral wool (density at least 60kg/sq.m, preferable 100kg/sq.m). I will then lay it above the suspended ceiling. Im gonna see if that works. If it doesnt, then the next step would be to spend about £3k+ and have a room within a room. However, this would be an extreme measure.
 
its a flat mate, its not gonna be much different form having a stereo in the living room and hearing it upstairs in a bedroom in a 2 story house. you'll be able to soundproof it, but forget about being able to deaden it by any reasonable about by which you can play your stereo 'loud' without annoying them.
 
pieman109 said:
Stick a load of egg boxes to the ceiling! (sorry couldn't resist, but its feasible as a temporary try out)
Click to expand...

That wont work - the density of the egg boxes is too low. :p

Im currently in contact with the guys who supply the mineral wool. If i do get it in i will take pics and show how ive installed the stuff and will give an idea on whether or not they have helped out with the sound proofing.
 
sunama said:
That wont work - the density of the egg boxes is too low. :p

Im currently in contact with the guys who supply the mineral wool. If i do get it in i will take pics and show how ive installed the stuff and will give an idea on whether or not they have helped out with the sound proofing.
Click to expand...

It might improve the damping quality if the egg boxes were filled with another material, maybe some mineral wool. It sounded like a daft idea, but as a temporary try out it might give an indication of how it effective it might be. Loadsa boxes fixed to large sheets of cardboard taped to the ceiling. I reckon you could get enough egg boxes cheap enough to give it a go. Just a thought :)
 
When i first read that u wanted the egg boxes filled, i thought u were gonna recommend that they be filled with eggs. And that u had read some research documents which stated that eggs are terrific for sound proofing. Furthermore, i also had the idea that u would recommend that the eggs be rotten, to increase the sound proofing. It would then not surprise me if other people backed u up on this. ;)

Anyway, im gonna stick with my current idea. The mineral wool looks like it gonna set me back £400, plus installation charges (if i dont do it myself).
 
sunama said:
When i first read that u wanted the egg boxes filled, i thought u were gonna recommend that they be filled with eggs. And that u had read some research documents which stated that eggs are terrific for sound proofing. Furthermore, i also had the idea that u would recommend that the eggs be rotten, to increase the sound proofing. It would then not surprise me if other people backed u up on this. ;)

Anyway, im gonna stick with my current idea. The mineral wool looks like it gonna set me back £400, plus installation charges (if i dont do it myself).
Click to expand...

My prime recomendation will be that you use a frount fireing sub and that you keep music at a relatively low level. I've never thought that film carried too badly but music with a strong bass line will have your neighbours banging on the door in no time, the thing about movies is that apart from a few the very bassy bits aren't continous and hence don't cause any real disturbance.

We're lucky, the method used to tank (damp proof) our cellar was basically to build a room in room with a lining of a plastic material with a similar profile to egg boxes to we're got sound proofed by default. :)

MB
 
sunama said:
i'm just looking to protect the upstairs neighbours from my movie watching...... Its so bad right now that if they had a conversation at normal volume i could tell them exactly what was said.
Click to expand...

Hate to say it but If its that bad then I doubt your plan will achieve much if anything, you might be able to silence conversation level volumes but not anything approaching decent volume for home cinema use
 
When I fitted my recording studio I used rockwool and neopryene ( sp? :confused: ) and worked out things like transmission loss, and reverberation time before and after.

I'm guess if you're worried about bass trying having some form of "bass traps" around the room to absorb the lower frequencies, and buy some discrete acoustic tiling for behind your sofa if you can handle it.
 
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