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Need advice on how to sound insulate my room

Need advice on how to insulate my stereo room. My rig is is in the finished basement of my home. Problem is that the house is old'ish and the sound reverberates throughout the house - probably through the basement drywall and ceiling.

The upstairs floors are hardwood, with throw rugs. The walls are plaster on lathe.

The basement ceiling is drywall. However, the ceiling height is only about 8 feet, so a drop ceiling is not an option.

Not sure there's much I can do, but any suggestions have to be aesthetically nice or my wife will object.

Thanks
bifwynne
soix
9,672 posts
 
I'd recommend the book Premium Home Theater by Earl Geddes, and the concepts apply to stereo as well. I bought several books on the topic but found this one to be the most useful and an easier read. His approach addresses bass without dampening out higher frequency detail, which sounds like a concern of yours, and unlike most of the other books he recommends actual products which I found very helpful. Best of luck.
ths364
181 posts
 
Have you tried de-coupling the speakers from the floor? had a similar problem and proper stands with Blu-tack helped quite a bit.
bifwynne OP
2,206 posts
 
Thanks guys -- good suggestions all!

Ths, my rig sits on a carpeted concrete slab in the basement. Doubt that the carpeted slab will transmit that much sound to the rest of the house. As the above posts suggest, most of the sound is passing through the drywalls and ceiling to the rest of the house. I think the only way to attenuate the sound is by doubling up on the drywall as suggested, plus the Green Glue stuff.
soix
9,672 posts
 
Adding drywall and green glue (or liquid nails) may help with some of the problem, but the deeper bass will probably continue passing through the walls and travelling to the upstairs via studs, etc. You just can't practically add enough mass to attenuate those frequencies. If you're willing and able to do it you might look into resilient channels that act like shock absorbers between the drywall and studs, beams, etc. Again, the Geddes book I mentioned earlier does a good job of explaining this stuff.
dtc's avatar
dtc
1,047 posts
 
Green glue plus the extra drywall will really help with everything but the low base. The "glue" name is misleading. It really does work. Resilient channel is an option, but more work, plus you loss a little height. I don't believe that the resilient channel will give much better results than a green glue/drywall solution for the ceiling. You might give Ted White at Sound Proofing Company a call. He knows the details of both solutions.
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