Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Soundproofing for Basement HT

I've sent out a couple of inquiries via PM's but I thought I'd send this out to all you kind folks for your opinions. How many of you have paid much attention to soundproofing your theaters? I've just started to build my basement HT and I'm really struggling as to what I should do in this area. For one thing the theater space will be open to the larger basement area so the reality of true sound isolation is not going to happen, and this stuff can get very expensive. Is there anything I can do to reduce the sound to upstairs or is it not worth trying? Right now the basement is totally unfinished with the floor joists for the first floor (upstairs) exposed. We don't have kids at home anymore and most of our movie watching is done together so I'm not real concerned about keeping people awake. It's just that my wife's opinion of acceptable volume doesn't usually match up with mine :).

Any and all thoughts are welcome and appreciated. At this point I'm going nowhere fast. Thanks.

Some good insulation like Roxul in the ceiling will help stop most of the sound making to the upper floors but the LFE is pretty much impossible to stop. I didn't bother with insulating the ceiling and I do not find it a problem with normal(75-85db) levels.

Agree with Jason. I did some research before finishing my basement and there is no reasonably priced way to stop LFE.

I insulated around the entire perimeter (19'x25')and in the ceiling with R-13. "Deadened" the room nicely and contains everything but LFE reasonably well.

We used staggered stud walls and double Roxul insulation in the ceiling/floor joists.
Sound drops 30dB with the french doors closed, 10' outside of the room. Only LFE can be heard on the main floor but boom box cars going down the road make more noise.

I have come across a product that I will most likely use when I finish my basement.

http://www.quietsolution.com/html/quietrock.html

Have fun!

Thank you all for your thoughts so far. I have also looked at "quietrock" as an alternative but it seemed really expensive and difficult to work with, especially if I have to do the whole basement, but I may have to give it a second look. I also am limited to what I can put on the ceiling because I have only 7'2" to work with. I think the Roxul solution may have to suffice and live with the result. And you guys are right about LFE, unless you can go all out and build a room within a room completely detaching everything from the rest of the house, you won't stop the LFE issue, and I don't have that option.

Easy.

Earplugs