Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Starting from scratch

From what I've read and personal experience stopping bass requires either a lot of mass (lead?) or decoupling. Otherwise the energy from the bass frequencies will just follow the materials to the next room.

I'm trying to do that for my new HT where I can. I'm definitely making some sacrifices as I just can't justify the cost in making the room completely isolated. I'm just hoping for a reduction, thou the more the better obviously.

Right on Ben! That was the point of my long post. My understanding is that a lot of people build "stages" in the front of their theater and fill them with sand to make a large mass that reduces audio wave transmission through to the floor, especially if they put a sub in front. I know that there are other reasons for having a stage, but I'm more talking about the filling it with sand part.

You should check out the "official green glue" thread on AVS. Lot of discussion on de-coupling vs mass vs ....

hsb

I'm happy with my Green Glue-treated HT. It stops almost all sound at moderate levels, with a little more of the bass getting through, as it is harder to stop, as mentioned above.

At loud, near-concert levels, there is some significant sound coming out - nothing would stop that in my budget - but it still sounds like the system is playing at a much lower volume than it really is.

I picture Green Glue as a really good set of earplugs. I should really do a test with an SPL meter to see what the dampening effect is. I'm thinking (:pulls number out of air:) at least 30 - 40 dB.

Medic8r, did you use on ply of green glue or did you use two layers of GG? (i.e. drywall-GG-drywall or drywall-GG-plywood-GG-drywall)?

And did you go through the trouble of decoupling or did you just use GG?

thnx

Since my HT will be in the basement, my biggest worry is stopping the sound thru the ceiling. Because I want to keep it accessible I'm going with ceiling tiles, thou I'm worried that's not going to do much in stopping the sound from moving upstairs.

I would add Safe N sound insulation into the floor joists to really help cut down some sound transfer between floors.

I've read that sound insulation only makes a small dent in sound proofing. I noticed on the safe n sound site where it shows it's sound ratings it says "when used with resilient channel". That doesn't give me a warm fuzzy that they wouldn't just show the rating of their material by itself.

True, but I have used insulation and it will atenuate the mids and highs quite well, you have to go to great lengths to stop bass notes.

Well that's good to know. I am still debating if I want to invest in something like that.