Experiment with acoustic panels or remodel

[chaosnetwork4]

Hello everyone,

New guy here. I just wanted your opinions on how to approach good sound in my home theater. I will be remodeling the area someday, but the room dimensions will not be changing. Right now it is an acoustical nightmare as there is paneling on all the walls with a hollow cavity behind the paneling against a concrete wall. The celing is a drop ceiling with no insulation and the floor is carpet over concrete. I will be removing this someday and insulating the walls and maybe trying to create a bit of suond isolation so my two young girls (who's bedrooms are directly above the theater) will not be able to hear it quite so easily. Anyway I was considering trying to use REW to measure the room and then add bass traps, and acoustic panels, etc so I would have a better idea of how to remodel this space someday. Do you think this is a waste of time and I should just wait for the remodel and then measure the room, or do you think this might give me a head start and hopefully help me avoid costly mistakes in the remodel? Sorry for the long question.

[bpape]

Welcome to the Shack.

You can certainly build some 'portable' type treatments for now that would be reusable later. Insulating the ceiling is an easy thing to do and will give you benefits both in terms of isolation and also in terms of bass performance in the room.

Having the hollow cavities in the walls is problematic as they'll just act like big drums. If there's any way to insulate them, it would be a huge help.

I'm not sure I'd spend too much time on measuring at this point with the wall issue as it will not be anywhere near the same later on after you redo it.

The key to good sound is a balanced treatment scheme coupled with careful seating placement and speaker/sub placement.

Bryan

[chaosnetwork4]

Bryan,

Thanks for the quick reply. Also thank you for taking time to answer my very amateur type questions. I understand about the wall cavity and ceiling being major problems. I was considering "playing" with corner bass traps and some wall panels. Like you said, I could re-use them later. I assume it would be a safe bet to say I will need these even if the walls and ceiling were insulated. On a side note, do you think it would be possible to isolate the sound from the upstairs bedrooms within a reasonable budget for a diy'er? I believe this would mean isulation in the ceiling and 2? layers of drywall. What about some sort of isolation channel to hang the drywall on? I guess I am wondering how effective this is and what kind of isolation I could expect. Sorry if this topic has been beat to death here.

[bpape]

Insulating above the drop ceiling is, to me, a no-brainer. You'll have to do it anyway when you drywall it so there's no money wasted.

Yes, you'll still need some additional broadband bass absorption and reflection control in the room.

Hat channel (NOT RC) will help with isolation when you are ready to do it - even with 1 layer of drywall. 2 layers will do a better job.

The biggest issue with transmission is usually HVAC.

For the effectiveness overall, it really depends on your goals. Are you trying to keep sound in or keep sound out - preferably the latter or both. Stopping sub frequencies requires structural design, decoupling of walls from the joists above, and mass (extra drywall). Can't say if it's doable at a reasonable price without knowing your definition of reasonable.

Bryan