Starting Again...

[Fish]

OK, I have a 12'x8' room that I am converting for H/S. I have removed all the plaster on the walls due to most of it being blown.



What would be the best thing to keep the noise from travelling outside of the room?



I am going to replace the floorboards, using insulation between the new boards and the ceiling below. But what should I use on the walls?



Should I just re-plaster it and use something like Auralex on the walls, or go for something else?



Thanks in advance.



Fish

[juboy]

What would be the best thing to keep the noise from travelling outside of the room?




Bass frequencies are the big problem as far as travelling noise is concerned. The best cure I found for it was to put my subwoofer on an Auralex Gramma isolation platform. It virtually eliminates the sub's energy being directed into the floor and walls and gives a cleaner sound as well as significantly reducing noise travel.



I've also used Auralex on the walls, although can't say how this affects noise travel as I'm lucky enough to have a house with 17" thick stone walls and it's not a problem.

[Cessquill]

If you can afford to lose a few inches in width, I'd dry-line the wall, filling it with insulation and put resiliant channels over it. From them, hang two layers of plasterboard with a sheet of soundblok (or similar) in between. That might be overkill for what you need though, don't know. Also, it might make the room too thin.



http://www.acoustics101.com/

[Gary Lightfoot]

Cesquils suggestion will work very well, but I'd be wary of using resiliant channel - It can work too well insomuch as it has an unfortunate side effect that it can make the wall too flexible, and suck all the bass out of the room. No amount of subwoofers will give you a good sounding bass if it should do that.



Building a stud wall (idealy using 4 x 2s an inch away from the existing wall) filled with rockwool insulation (Wickes high density slabs work well) and finished with two layers of plasterboard (or soundblock) is a common method that works well. Seal all edges with silicon rubber or similar. Better still, mount the header and footer onto rubber strips for further isolation.



As has already been said, Bass will always be the hardest thing to stop, as your house is attached to the one next door (bass vibrates what it touches), and only building a room within a room will greatly reduce it. Not many of us have that option though.



If all the above options seem to take too much room width away, you can probably just replaster the wall, then glue/fix 2 or 3 more layers of plasterboard to it. They add mass and that's all that will really work in reducing sound travel. Insulation helps reduce in-wall resonance and can attenuate some higher frequencies, but doesn't do much on its' own.



Don't forget to use silicon rubber or similar to fill in the gaps between the floorboards, and use a good thisk rubber underlay. Fitting another layer of plasterboard to the ceiling (or in between the beams from above) will help further reduce the sound travel. Use the silicon at the edges of the room too before refitting the skirting. Where air can go, so can sound. A hole (or gaps) the equavalent of an inch square will allow a 15db sound increase.



Gary.

[Cessquill]

Interesting, cheers :)~:-)~:smile: Obviously not my post, but learned some more.

[Fish]

Thanks for the information. Gary I would love to fit a stud wall, but I feel that I would loose too much width in the room.



I think what I am going to do is add insulation under the floor boards, to try and stop noise going downwards. Plaster the walls and then add stuff like Auralex.



Yes I understand that Auralex is a room treatment, but I think that this will also help stop the noise from travelling.



I will put the sub on a nice slab of granite.



Thanks

Fish