Acoustically Treating a Bomb Shelter


Seriously.  My house came with a 1960s era bomb shelter.  It's a total of 2,200 square feet of Cold War Era awesomeness, basically divided into two 51X21 long rectangular rooms.

It's under a pool and pool house, easily 15 feet down. Hard concrete walls. Huge metal out swing doors that could keep out Bob Dylan looking for a string bean. 

We turned one big room into a giant pantry, wine cellar, and storage room.

The other I softened with hardwood floors, sheet rock (with foam insulation) on walls and ceiling, in that it could make an excellent apartment, being 1000 sf by itself, not counting the kitchen and bath.  And has two entrances, one at each end.  Very airy with good ventilation (and expensive filters).

It's this (now) 50 X 20 room iswhere my listening area is.  Ceilings are 14 foot sloping down (the short way on the rectangle) to 12 feet.

I've divided it into three areas of roughly equal area.  One end has a power rack and tons of free weights and whatnot.  On top of the hardwood is a protective layer, hardwood, and then rubber horse stall mats.  Kitchen and bath beyond that.

The other end is an emergency bedroom, with flip down Murphy beds, etc.  Area rug where the wife does yoga.  At its end are double metal doors, then stairs, then another metal door.

The middle third is my listening area.  Speakers and subs on the higher-ceiling side, although I could flip it.  Set up in the classic 60 degree triangle with a leather couch facing the speakers.  Chairs to the side, and a table I use as a desk behind the couch.  Area rug.  Decor: think Andy Warhol meets Austin Powers.

My thought is I don't get a lot of reflection from either the right or left side, due to the width of the room, and the stuff in each room.  I suspect I mainly get reverb off the back wall.  And perhaps the ceiling, although it is sloped up to the speakers.

I'm thinking all I need is some absorption on the back wall, immediately behind the couch/table (so facing the speakers), as I sit closer to the back wall than the speakers.   Perhaps something on the ceiling about 2/3 of the way across the room.

Thoughts?  I'd like to be informed a tad before I get involved with GIK or one of those groups.

davetheoilguy

Any acoustic space then any space can be acoustically managed well ...

It does not matter in acoustics science that it was a bomb shelter at all ...😊

 

Plus, it's not like loud music would bother anyone.

In seriousness, it's a just a very giant empty room.  Not dark or damp or whatever.  Excepting the fact you walk down a flight of stairs and through a mud room (er, "decontamination room" made to look like a mud room), you'd never know you're in a bomb shelter.

Zero noise from anything.

And while we haven't had to shelter from bombs, during a couple of tornado warnings, we have made our way down.

That sounds awesome. I’ve two systems in the basement because it sounds so much better than upstairs. Concrete rocks. Photos would be interesting. 

Cool. You have the enormous advantage of a really low noise floor. One of the great characteristics of my room is it is underground on three sides… it really helps quiet the ambient noise. 
 

You sound like you already are thinking about the right stuff. If you have a system, move it down there and then make observations… move, dampen areas… move.. experiment. Then you can get into buying expensive treatments. 

Yeah, I’ve got the system there already, although I have a new turntable I need to assemble.  And missing a shelf from my rack.

I’ll post pictures after I get it looking reasonable.