Soundproofing

Soundproofing your Home Theater

When building a Home Theater room one of the most important considerations is soundproofing. Most people know there are important acoustical considerations to soundproofing and there is also a need to keep the loud movie soundtrack from disturbing everyone else in the house. Although the two objectives are similar they are separate. The former is sound isolation and the latter is acoustic treatments.

Pure soundproofing prevents people through the house from being disturbed by the sound of a loud home theater system. This is an important thing to plan for if youre building your home theater room because its easier to do with materials inside the walls. Dense material making up wall partitions will help isolate sound. The best options for sound proofing are specialty materials, panels you can buy that are especially for soundproofing rooms.

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Check CEDIAs (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) own website for tips and more information on soundproofing panels. CEDIA is the leading authority on room acoustics and anything to do with electronics custom design on interiors. The only drawback to using specialty materials are the price, sure you can get several decibels of sound absorption from a relatively thin material that is specially made for soundproofing, but you can end up spending thousands just to do a small room, finding clever ways around by using available high density materials inside your walls will save you a bundle.

Some have found that multiple layers of drywall and pink insulation in the walls can reduce sound movement through the walls. Pink insulation is cheap and easy to install but its not dense enough to have a big impact, if youre using insulation you might want to use this in conjunction with other methods like extra drywall or a layer of some other dense material you can secure inside your walls. Creating an airtight seal inside the room is also important for soundproofing. Sound travels through air so your best efforts at soundproofing the walls are diminished by sound leaking through cracks, corners and door jams. The only ventilation into the room should be through air ducts that should diffuse sound on their own. Take the extra steps to seal seams in drywall and make sure doorways are airtight when closed. There are specialty sound absorptive sealants out there but theyre more expensive than your basic caluking. One product by a company called Audio Alloy is called Green Glue which has been approved by CEDIA and used by their sound engineers.

Remember that sound doesnt only travel through walls, if you're upstairs you also have floors to consider likewise if your theater is in the basement you have to consider the ceiling which can be treated in much the way your walls. There are floor treatments called Mass Loaded Vinyl. This is a sturdy floor covering that provides a almost 20 extra decibels of sound proofing to your existing floor.