[bs0755]

Hi: I had a water leak from my refrigerator, that damaged the ceiling in my basement listening room directly below.  So, I thought I would make the best out of the situation, and remove everything from the room, and start over from scratch--beginning with removing the drywall from the ceiling, and installing insulation.  My original intent was to insulate from the noise coming from the kitchen, but I am also learning that this will improve bass response in my room?

I have a hodgepodge of acoustic panels and bass traps (GIK and other brands). When the room is done, I want to reinstall most of the GIKs that I already have, and then purchase some of their newer products, focusing on diffusion. I have gotten excellent advice from them so far, and I have a pretty good idea of how I want to proceed.  However, the more I research, the more questions I have--Not wanting to take advantage of their time, I thought I would post additional questions here--Maybe someone else can be helped at the same time. In my research, I have come across many different opinions, but the one common theme is that you can not have too much bass trapping--but the problem is the balance between controlling the bass, and killing off too much of the upper frequencies.

With that in mind, I plan to start by reinstalling all of my Tri-Traps (two in each corner). Since my 12' X 14' room has a 9 foot ceiling, it occurred to me that the 12" X 48" monster traps with the range limiters may work well around the entire perimeter of the ceiling.  The test results seem to compare favorably to the soffit traps, while being much less expensive and bulky. It would seem as though I could get a lot of bass trapping without excess absorption. Am I on the right track?

[JWL.GIK]

Sorry to hear about the leak! 

Yes you are definitely on the right track. Both the Monsters and the Soffits are excellent, mostly because they are the largest bass traps we offer. In general for ceiling corners I prefer the Soffits, for both performance and fit&finish reasons. But it also depends greatly on the budget available. You can certainly cover more surface area for the same budget with the Monsters. But, the Soffits are thicker and look better in a ceiling corner when installed (in most cases).

Both are great options! But by all means contact us and we'll give you some one-on-one advice to help you make the right choice.

JWL.GIK
www.GIKacoustics.com

[mcgsxr]

Assume that in the joist bays in the ceiling you will install Roxul Safe n Sound or some equivalent.  I did, and recommend it.

You may consider going further than I did, and using resilient channel for the ceiling drywall.  I did not, but did use 5/8 drywall.

You may even consider using 2 layers of drywall and use green glue between the layers.

I am not sure that anything you put in the ceiling to address sound transmission between floors will actually make a difference IN the room.

Agree that using bass traps and panels is well worth the effort, and for sure you have connected with some of the best in the business!

[drummermitchell]

I see the soffits are 17"x17"x48"
the monster 12"x 6"ish x 48"
Even though the soffit is only 5"wider I'd assume that they would work better than the 12"monster
How much I haven't a clue.
I have a low drop ceiling 7' 6"which has RT ceiling tile through out.
walls have 6'(floor to top of traps)mondos,fat mondos+diffusers=6',was thinking of using the 12"x48"monsters to sit on top of the traps as that would fill in the top space which runs along the walls at around 19'.
I wonder also how much a 12"wide bass trap can really help..thoughts.

[JWL.GIK]

Assuming 2 different bass traps are made of the same materials, then the 2 operating parameters for their effectiveness is 1) surface area, and 2) thickness. The thicker traps will absorb to a lower frequency, and the larger trap (surface area) will give more overall absorption.

So yes, the soffit trap is more effective than a 12" wide Monster, since it is almost 3x thicker, with nearly 4x the surface area. 

These are one trap to one trap comparisons, though. Keep in mind the total number of traps in the room working together is what you will want to compare.... so 3 or 4 12" Monsters compared to one soffit might be a different story.

==================
James Lindenschmidt
GIK Acoustics

[ctviggen]

Assume that in the joist bays in the ceiling you will install Roxul Safe n Sound or some equivalent.  I did, and recommend it.

You may consider going further than I did, and using resilient channel for the ceiling drywall.  I did not, but did use 5/8 drywall.

You may even consider using 2 layers of drywall and use green glue between the layers.

I am not sure that anything you put in the ceiling to address sound transmission between floors will actually make a difference IN the room.

Agree that using bass traps and panels is well worth the effort, and for sure you have connected with some of the best in the business!

If he goes to the extent of adding insulation, he should definitely do resilient channel. I added insulation in my house with no channel, and I could still hear anything that hit the floor above. There is a direct path between the floor, the joist, and the drywall. You need to break that, and that is what the resilient channel (with clips) does. Extra mass, through fire rated drywall, would help too.

[mcgsxr]

Agreed.  I too failed to use resilient channel.  But I was also using 23 pot lights in the basement, so I figured that it would compromise all the added $ and effort to use channel anyway.

I can clearly hear footfalls above me when I am in the listening room.

But all that S&S in the joist bays does a great job keeping my music in the room vs upsetting those above me.

[gregfisk]

If you haven't installed the ceiling drywall yet, definitely use hat channel or something similar, and of course insulation. I used it on all the walls in my dedicated audio building and the only place you can hear music outside is from the cheap metal foam filled door from home depot. I have had a couple of GTGs and some of the guys who went outside were pretty impressed with how loud we could be playing the music and how it was quiet outside except right at the front door.

[Hipper]

I understand that insulating from outside noise and dealing with sonic issues in the room are different things.

For noises from the kitchen, if they are specific, you might be able to find some industrial solution: e.g washing machine noise.

In the UK, I have dealt with this firm for soundproofing:

http://www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk/

For bass traps etc. GIK note various measurements. I can't access them at the moment but you can compare the frequencies absorbed for the Soffit and Monster traps. I suspect the Soffits go deeper - down to 50Hz I think. This is useful. I've used quite a few Soffits, in the front wall/wall and wall ceiling corners, and in the back wall/ceiling corner. I've seen photos where all the wall/wall and wall/ceiling corners have them. I don't know if there will be an issue with over absorption of higher frequencies. I don't find that to be the case in my room, which I have measured.

Liveliness seems to be more about side wall reflections then over absorption anyway.



 

[ctviggen]

Agreed.  I too failed to use resilient channel.  But I was also using 23 pot lights in the basement, so I figured that it would compromise all the added $ and effort to use channel anyway.

I can clearly hear footfalls above me when I am in the listening room.

But all that S&S in the joist bays does a great job keeping my music in the room vs upsetting those above me.

23?  I "only" used 16.  You can build (even buy) boxes to put these in, but that's another level of work and cost.  LEDs are getting thin enough they're only 1/2 inch thick.  If you used multiple layers of drywall, the LED lights would be indistinguishable from canned lights, and would be way easier to soundproof. Those were not available, however, when I did my room.

[gregfisk]

23?  I "only" used 16.  You can build (even buy) boxes to put these in, but that's another level of work and cost.  LEDs are getting thin enough they're only 1/2 inch thick.  If you used multiple layers of drywall, the LED lights would be indistinguishable from canned lights, and would be way easier to soundproof. Those were not available, however, when I did my room.

In my room I mentioned earlier, I decided to use track lighting rather than cans. The reason of course was to keep the penetration of the drywall to a minimum. I ran two long runs of track with each being a double track so I have 4 switches of lighting configuration if I want. It worked out very well, is much less expensive and I can face the lights anyway I like such as general lighting, task lighting or picture lighting. I also used all LCD lights so the cost up front was higher the cost to run the tracked lighting is low.