[orthobiz]

My new room is shaping up, will be about 7.5 x 12 x 17 in size; Green Glue with Double Drywall, exterior door, insulation around the electrical outlets.

My old room had cans in the ceiling. I guess the main lighting options are:
• track lighting (someone here said they rattle?)
• wall sconces (thanks JLM)
• regular light fixtures from the ceiling (do they also rattle?).

I do want more lighting options than just floor standing lamps.

I guess dimmers are bad, right? Create electrical interference? Likewise, fluorescent lights are bad? Any ideas and opinions?

Paul

[MaxCast]

Hi Paul,
Yep avoid the cans.  I put in places for 6 wall sconces and places for three sets of ceiling lights all on 4 light switches.  I plan to use the sconces for listening only.  I figure I can get a low wattage bulb and avoid the dimmer.  The ceiling lights probably be just a regular ceiling fixtures, no tracks. 

Watch out for your first reflection points.  Try to avoid putting a light there.

[bpape]

Flourescents and any other low voltage lighting are equally bad.  It's the transformer that's required - variable or fixed. 

Sconces are the way to go.  Or, if you want something low, try some crown molding around the wall/ceiling perimeter but dropped down a couple inches and then use 110v rope lighting and line the inside of the trim with tin foil.

Track lighting will buzz and rattle like crazy or simply pop bulbs so often that it gets to be quite expensive.

Bryan

[orthobiz]

Other than the holes in the ceiling that the recessed cans require with sound leakage into the next floor, does recessed lighting mess up the sound in the listening room?

Paul

[ctviggen]

For my pseudo-home theater room, I'm going to go with canned lighting.  One reason is the lack of apposing walls onto which I can put sconces.  Another is that my wife is making me.  I'm going to put these on their own 15 amp circuit.  I will also try to put in some boxes around the cans.  I'm also going to put in a dimmer (actually, two, one for each half the room).  Gasp!

[Big Red Machine]

Track lighting that Ikea sells is mostly plastic and will not rattle.  I put my boxes in the ceiling inside mini wood/drywall boxes sealed to the top side of the ceiling drywall and then attached track lighting to those with no issues.  If you're running 100 db+ maybe they will rattle, but I've never had them flinch.  Nothing like some task lighting right over your chair so you can read discs and/or a mag while listening.

[bpape]

Cans in and of themselves will not adversely effect the sound of the room in any way.  It's purely a noise transmission thing.

If you're going to use dimmers, electronic ones like the Lutron Grafik Eye are very quiet and perfectly usable without causing electrical noise issues.

Bryan

[orthobiz]

The possibility of dimmers is interesting, I'll check those out.

Seems like someone would have made pre-fab boxes to surround the back of cans in the ceiling. Do these exist?

But if I were REALLY dedicated, guess I'd mount all the outlets on the wall with conduit!

Paul

[bpape]

Don't laugh.  In HT layouts with all cloth walls, we do that all the time.  Surface conduit and pancake boxes fit behind the cloth nicely.  Grafik-eyes are another story...

We also do all lighting in soffits which are built AFTER the drywall is up so any holes in that, all wiring, etc. runs inside the sealed drywall shell.

Bryan

[orthobiz]

I'm not laughing, Bryan...
My basement redo was not planned, a freak flooding accident of nature in our "500 year flood plain" that left me with bare cinderblock and cement (as previously posted). I'm serious about maximizing the sound quality but my budget is getting a bit strained.

Can you elaborate on lighting soffits? Any pics? I assume it must be a channel that stands off the ceiling drywall and houses the lights?

And cloth walls? Like curtains in a movie theater?

Pardon my lack of knowledge here...thanks for everybody's help.

Paul

[bpape]

It was just funny that you mentioned the conduit.

For the soffiting...  Imagine doing your room as normal but with no electricity. Then build soffiting like you would to encase HVAC ducting.  Bring HVAC, electrical, etc. into the room behind the soffit so you only have 1 hole and it's 'covered' by a drywalled soffit to prevent noise leakage.  Install the can lights in the drywalled and insulated soffiting so you have not cut any holes in the sealed shell except the one for entry into the room. 

Drop conduit down the wall to outlets.

For the cloth, it's not like a curtain.  It's Guilford cloth that's acoustically transparent and doesn't absorb anything.  Space it 1" or so from the walls on firring strips and you see nothing but the outlets as you normally would. 

Bryan

[orthobiz]

With a 7.5 foot ceiling, I'm a little wary of cutting down on the height more than it already is.
I had two rows of ceiling cans in the old room, sounds like I'd have two rows of soffits hanging from the ceiling with your description, Bryan...

Also, am I worried that incandescence is going the way of the gas lamp? By 2012 will I need to stock up on a zillion spotlights?

Hey, how about a nearly-flush mounted LED type of spotlight? Then there'd be tiny holes in the ceiling, just to run the wire through????

Paul

[JLM]

It's easy to over estimate how many lights you'll need.  My guess is you'll need two sconces mounted about 6 feet above the floor and away from first reflection points for general lighting.  Add task lighting as needed. 

I'd go for a bright/warm color to fight the "down in a cold/wet place" feeling.  That would also help the allevate the need for more lighting.

[bpape]

With a 7.5 foot ceiling, I'm a little wary of cutting down on the height more than it already is.
I had two rows of ceiling cans in the old room, sounds like I'd have two rows of soffits hanging from the ceiling with your description, Bryan...

Also, am I worried that incandescence is going the way of the gas lamp? By 2012 will I need to stock up on a zillion spotlights?

Hey, how about a nearly-flush mounted LED type of spotlight? Then there'd be tiny holes in the ceiling, just to run the wire through????

Paul

A wise man once said:

" Think of your room like an aquarium.  Doesn't matter where or how big the holes are, you're going to get wet."

If the LED's are low voltage, they'll require a transformer which can be noisy both electrically and physically.  The soffits around the perimeter don't need to be big.  You'd be surprised how much light you can get with wall washers and some rope light/crown mold.

Bryan

[jimdgoulding]

I got wall washers bout 3' apart above a 12' wall behind my speakers with a floor lamp behind my chair.  That's it but was thinkin about potting a couple of bare trees and stringing some tiny white lites on em and puttin them back there but when my daughter said, "yeah, right, dad, ya think that's gay enough?" I decided to put em on some deer antlers instead   

(much later) I am not a bigot.  Incorrigible wise ass, fraid so. 

[orthobiz]

"yeah, right, dad, ya think that's gay enough?"

Always good to be cool in the eyes of the kids. But what is a wall washer? Is that a phrase for a sconce?

My latest (today) idea is to put a soffit across the back wall behind the stereo with four spotlights in it. Then use a lamp for the rest of the room.

Paul

[jimdgoulding]

Wall washers are cannister like recessed in the ceiling lights that illuminate an intended wall and area by way of a light guide for lack of a better word.  They would work for what I understand you want to do, too.

[orthobiz]

Or, if you want something low, try some crown molding around the wall/ceiling perimeter but dropped down a couple inches and then use 110v rope lighting and line the inside of the trim with tin foil.

So, Bryan, rope lighting is made of LEDs and that's OK for sound? Wouldn't it interfere with sound treatments in the corners and at the wall/ceiling junction?

Paul

[bpape]

When the LED's are strung together, in most cases, it's made to run on straight 110V so there is no transformer involved.

Most people don't do panels around the wall/ceiling intersection for aesthetic reasons - though this is common in studios.  If you need absorption up there, build a false soffit around the perimeter and fill with absorption and cover with just cloth.  Then you can still do the crown and rope where the soffit hits the ceiling.

Bryan

[arthurs]

I wouldn't be so quick to rule out floor spots or up-lighting lamps, you can do quite a bit without hanging on the walls or going into the ceilings...IMO of course.