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Help with media room - DIY and on a budget


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Hi everyone,

 

After some major renos on the house, (which initially included a media room), I have ran out of money with a room left to finish.

The media room is approx 5.3 x 4m, with windows in the corner.

My plan is to go 7.2.4 and in terms of equipment, I basically have everything.

I have a few questions but let's start with these.

 

1. Sound insulation / Room treatment

I think it's a good idea to get the room sound treated, but not sure about costs and how to do it. I have watched videos but they all seem to go way over the top with sound batts, then some sort of plastic membrane which gets glued together, then some special plaster boards etc etc.

At the moment it is simply plaster board on the wall and is uninsulated. The floors and ceilings have insulation. I think it's a good idea to put some insulation/sound treatment in the walls. Is the only way to do it to remove the plasterboards and skirting and cornices, then put insulation in, then re-plaster and put in new skirting and cornice? If so that seems very expensive and time consuming and almost not worth it.

Can someone please advise on

  • Is it nesseary to insulate the walls?
  • Is removing everything and putting it all back the only way to achieve this?
  • What kind of cost am I looking at for a room that size?

I also intend to put up some sound treatment around the room once I've set it up, but that can go on top of the walls.

 

2. Carpet

At the moment there is pine flooring. I intend to put carpet down and put up some curtains. In terms of carpet is there anything special I need? Or will any carpet do?

 

Once I decided on if I should put insulation and how, then I'm pretty much ready to start.

 

Here is the room and the intended placement of speakers.

 

TIA

 

2081407471_HTRoomPlan.thumb.jpg.1f3ce6228646cf40f2150a96a29801d1.jpg

1700081454_HTRoom3D.thumb.jpg.3d20bf968250217937e453c1709ef2c3.jpg

 

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With barn doors you will be wasting money on soundproofing unless you get rid of these - any door that isn't airtight will pass sound. Use solid core door(s) with a jamb at the bottom, not hollow core.  Once the room is airtight you need to think about heating/cooling - if ducted, you need a return air vent in the room.

 

Assuming you change the doors out, you could leave the existing plaster and just add extra layer(s) of 16mm Fyrchek plaster (usualkly cheaper than Soundchek). It won't be as effective as adding insulation in the walls and/or mounting plaster to isolation clips and using furring channel, but it all depends on how much you want to spend.

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2 hours ago, Quark said:

With barn doors you will be wasting money on soundproofing unless you get rid of these - any door that isn't airtight will pass sound. Use solid core door(s) with a jamb at the bottom, not hollow core.  Once the room is airtight you need to think about heating/cooling - if ducted, you need a return air vent in the room.

Can't get rid of the barn doors. This was a very contentious point and a very expensive one and in the end the barn doors are in and they are here to stay.

The barn doors are solid, but you are right there are huge gaps. I was thinking of putting some sound proofing foam on the inside of the barn doors, and maybe the carpet can go right out under the barn doors to minimize the gap.

 

2 hours ago, Quark said:

Assuming you change the doors out, you could leave the existing plaster and just add extra layer(s) of 16mm Fyrchek plaster (usualkly cheaper than Soundchek). It won't be as effective as adding insulation in the walls and/or mounting plaster to isolation clips and using furring channel, but it all depends on how much you want to spend.

The barn doors will not be going unfortunately, and I understand no matter what I do there will always be gaps in the barn doors ... does this mean any sound proofing I do inside the room is  a waste of time and money? Or does every little bit help?

 

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2 minutes ago, AudioFool18 said:

Can't get rid of the barn doors. This was a very contentious point and a very expensive one and in the end the barn doors are in and they are here to stay.

The barn doors are solid, but you are right there are huge gaps. I was thinking of putting some sound proofing foam on the inside of the barn doors, and maybe the carpet can go right out under the barn doors to minimize the gap.

 

The barn doors will not be going unfortunately, and I understand no matter what I do there will always be gaps in the barn doors ... does this mean any sound proofing I do inside the room is  a waste of time and money? Or does every little bit help?

 

 

Sadly, with the barn doors you'll be wasting money on sound proofing. Even small air gaps leak a lot of sound.

 

However, room treatments to reduce reflections  will still help with in-room acoustics.

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Guest niterida

Look at Kilargo seals - they should have something to at least help.

 

Is there actually a wall behind your seating, the 3d drawing doesn't show one ? If there is then you would be best bringing your seating (and surrounds) forward a touch so your seated ears are 1766mm from the rear wall - this will give best acoustic response and help to stop "boomy" bass.

Although I don't see subs drawn - I hope you are using them ? Best to put 2 on the front wall 1000mm in from each side wall - although sub positioning sometimes takes a lot of experimenting or measurements, moving and re measuring etc. But front wall 1/4 points is a good starting point.

And your Atmos speakers are not far enough forward/rearward. Assuming a 2.7m ceiling height and 0.9m ear height, they should be 1.8m in front and behind your ears.

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1 hour ago, niterida said:

Is there actually a wall behind your seating, the 3d drawing doesn't show one ? If there is then you would be best bringing your seating (and surrounds) forward a touch so your seated ears are 1766mm from the rear wall - this will give best acoustic response and help to stop "boomy" bass.

Yes there is a back wall. I removed it form the 3D drawing so the room better.

The

positioning is very rough at the moment. My plan is to put the seat about 1/3 the way in the room ... but of course much of this will depend on how things fit. I did want 2 rows of seats, but I don't think there is enough real estate there for it.

 

1 hour ago, niterida said:

Although I don't see subs drawn - I hope you are using them ? Best to put 2 on the front wall 1000mm in from each side wall - although sub positioning sometimes takes a lot of experimenting or measurements, moving and re measuring etc. But front wall 1/4 points is a good starting point.

 

Yes I have subs ... they will be where the main speakers are more or less.

 

1 hour ago, niterida said:

And your Atmos speakers are not far enough forward/rearward. Assuming a 2.7m ceiling height and 0.9m ear height, they should be 1.8m in front and behind your ears.

Ceilings are 2.4m, and I didn't know there was a formula to work out where speaker fit. Thanks, this will be very useful.

Positioning the ceiling speakers shouldn't be a problem. I can put them in where they need to go.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Quark said:

Sadly, with the barn doors you'll be wasting money on sound proofing. Even small air gaps leak a lot of sound.

^ this

 

4 hours ago, niterida said:

Look at Kilargo seals - they should have something to at least help.

any seals that work will help with sound isolation/proofing.

 

Likely too late in your situation, but here's a good link https://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing-101

 

Room treatment and sound proofing/isolation are very different things, and often work against each other - especially in the bass end:

  • sound proofing/isolation is about stopping the sound getting outside the room - which usually means the bass stays in the room, bouncing around taking ages to decay = bad
  • room treatment is about enhancing the sound within the room, mostly by absorbing/controlling the bass energy bouncing around in the room...the bass that leaks out doesn't need to be managed within the room

As long as you're OK with lots of bass energy leaking out of your room - which it will - you'll have less bass energy bouncing around your listening room to deal with using treatment to achieve good sound inside your room.

Glass makes for great bass traps! they let all the bass out (for your neighbours enjoyment? ) but reflect higher frequencies - a sub in that corner would be ideal for "in room" sound, but perhaps not so great for your neighbours.

 

Key things to consider:

  • sound proofing/isolation needs to be addressed during the construction phase - you can't materially change it after
  • managing the bass <100Hz in a room with treatment is hard - IME with leaky rooms, EQ works fine - the more rigid the room, the harder it is to manage the bass.

Mike

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Things are covered well by others posts. 

 

With the barn doors etc insulating walls etc is pointless. And the rooms on the other side of the walls aren't critical spaces. The only potential benefit is additional plasterboard on the ceiling if there is an upstairs bedroom etc. Eg 2 layers of 16mm.

 

7.2.4 is a lot of speakers in a small room.

 

Overall reverb, especially with carpet will be low in a small room (most home rooms are small in acoustic terms) plus as others have pointed out the current walls, windows and openings are beneficial.

 

In terms of treatments I'd be focusing on the rear and side walls around the couch. With this many speakers there will be multitudes of reflections muddying the sound after the direct sound from the speakers are heard. I'd be tempted to hit it with 100mm Autex. And leave the front and front side walls bare. 

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Thanks for everyone's reply so far ... it's been both good and bad for what I want to do.

At this stage I am just concertraing on sound proofing. Once that's done I'll deal with the sound treatment, speaker layout etc etc.

The only things which can't be changed is the size/shape of the room, the windows, and those bloody barn doors.

 

From the comments here is what I've taken away.

 

  1. Unless I can somehow seal the barn doors, there is no point in doing any sound proofing.
  2. IF barn doors can be sealed, then it may be worth putting 16mm Fyrchek plaster board on top of the existing boards, rather than pulling out existing board and putting in insulation.
  3. Any long pile carpet with decent underlay will do for for the floors.
  4. 7.2.4 may be overkill for the room of that size
  5. Lots of experimenting to do with room treatment

4 and 5 I will look at later once the room is ready.

 

So it looks like my first port of call is to see if the barn doors could somehow be sealed. If no, I could basically run the cables I need and lay the carpets and I'll be ready for the next stage.

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I would think it would also come down to how you plan on using the room. 
1 - Will you be using the room when others in the house need things to be quiet?

2 - Will the room be used as a family room or just for movies when the whole family will sit down together?

3 -Is it going to be used for music?

 

Point 1 if you have young kids or work from home and need quiet while others watch movies then definitely need some soundproofing.

If most of the time it’s point 2, I probably wouldn’t go to the hassle of sound proofing.

 

 

 

 

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Guest Peter the Greek
17 hours ago, AudioFool18 said:
  1. Unless I can somehow seal the barn doors, there is no point in doing any sound proofing.

 

Yes and you can't - unless you hinge mount the bloody things and seal appropriately. Doing that with such large doors is hard...trust me, I've tried.

 

You say you're on a budget - the number one thing you need to do first if you're doing to want it soundproofed is isolation. Given the small size of the room, every inch matters. You need to clip and channel the whole thing. You can add layers of dense plasterboard later if you want/can afford. But unless you isolate that room day one and be rid of the doors, you're totally wasting your money.

 

Here's the layout for my old room - similar size. Might help you get a feel for it:

 

image.thumb.png.a34f384afa9dc8802e5a0eddc591cbb1.png

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Guest Peter the Greek

I missed the windows......you're pretty much stuffed, unless they're big double glazed thermally broken jobs?

 

Be rid of the doors, line the room with 2 layers of 16mm fire rated board and hope for the best.......I'd still spend money on clips and channel though...can't easily do it again

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Hi everyone, thanks for the again for all the great advice.

 

If I know then, I would have not put in the barn doors. But they have cost so much money, there would be too much domestic disturbance to get rid of them ... in fact, I think she would get rid of me before she gets rid of them. So the barn doors are staying.

 

Given the difficulties of the barn door and corner windows etc, I think I can safely say I will not be doing any sound proofing/insulation. Seems too difficult and won't get me the results I want.

 

So the next step is the actual setup and room treatment.

Not sure if I should start a new thread about that to make things cleaner, but let's see how we go.

 

I had planned on 7.2.4 and went out of my way to buy an AVR with 11.2 chan outputs ... but based on the comments, that might be overkill for this sized room?

If so I would be happy, as I can save money on speakers and AVR.

Is the 7 surround channel the overkill or the 4 ceiling speakers which is overkill? Or both?

 

In terms of room treatment, this will be the first room I have done that with and don't know much about it. What I have been told so far:

  • The cheapest way to do it is to build a wooden frame, then put insulation/sound proofing batts in it, then cover it with cloth such as speaker grill cloth. These can be put on the walls etc. This is the equivilant of putting foam on the walls.
  • The foam or sound batts is for lower frequencies, for the higher frequencies, curtains/blinds are best
  • So ideally you would have something on the walls, then curtains/blinds on top of that.

I understand this is very simplistic, but is the basic idea correct? Or am I way off the mark?

 

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Guest Peter the Greek

I'll be frank. Your lack of knowledge on the subject is likely to lead to more bad than good. Just fit out the room and see how you like the sound. If there is an issue, pay a professional to help - Red Spade Audio would be a good place in Vic. It'll be cheaper in the long run.

 

PS....just put the damn doors on gumtree and cop it on the chin.  They're in a hallway, no one will ever appreciate them

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i like to keep things simple and in budget so i would suggest dont buy anything else.

 

you dont actually list what you have, that would be nice to know actually.

 

so set the room up and start using it.

 

add thick/backed curtains where needed, carpet or rugs where needed. i run full length thick velvet curtains over my solid brick walls and that alone made a huge difference. start with a basic room and add as you feel YOU need to. its your ears and you might be surprised how little of these "acoustic treatments" you may actually need.

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Thanks everyone again for their comments.

Reality is barn doors are staying. I'll have to live with that. I had though every little bit of sound proofing would help, but have learned based on everyone's comments that is not the case. So basically have given up on sound proofing the room.

 

In many ways this is good. It will save me money and will speed up the process.

 

So next step is to get the wiring/cabling plugs etc in, then carpet. I will start this in about 3 weeks.

 

For sound treatment, it seems like there is no 1 size fits all, and the only way to do it is to do it and see what works ... I'm ok with that.

 

On cabling and carpets go in, I'll set it up as is and see how it sounds and will keep adding and tweaking as I go.

 

Thanks everyone

 

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Guest niterida
1 hour ago, AudioFool18 said:

For sound treatment, it seems like there is no 1 size fits all, and the only way to do it is to do it and see what works ... I'm ok with that.

Actually I think that is incorrect. Acoustic treatment is a science - and you need to either apply existing wisdom or measure your room and apply the correct techniques to resolve the problems specific to your room. since you are just starting out I would keep it as simple as possible. What you initially need to do is get the room as acoustically symmetrical as possible. The windows will reflect sound differently to the walls and so the L and R speakers are interacting with the room differently. Hanging curtains may help but will only absorb the very high frequencies, which are being reflected by the hard walls. You may be better off treating both sides the same - either curtains on both or nothing on both. And depending on your speakers and there eventual location you may need absorbers at the first reflection points. And absorbers should be mounted with an airgap between them and the wall, with this gap being the same dimension as the absorbers depth, for maximum effectiveness. So  75mm absorbers are mounted with a 75mm gap etc.

 

5.1.4 is the sweet spot for value-for-money. But your room is certainly big enough to do 7.1.4 if you have the budget. Since you said you already have all (or most) of the equipment I am going to assume you bought an 11 Channel processing AVR, but likely it only has 9 channels of amplification. I fhtta is correct maybe just start with 5.1.4 and save the expense of an external amp and 2 speakers (unless you already have the speakers). However be aware that the position of the surrounds in a 5.1 setup is different to the surrounds in a 7.1 so if you permanently mount the 5.1 surrounds they will have to be moved if you go to 7.1 &.1 is superior to 5.1 but not by as much as you might think - it will fill the room a bit better and give a fuller soundstage and more ambience, but the discrete effects (things whizzing around) will be pretty much identical.

 

the .1 refers to the LFE channel and technically not the number of subwoofers you run. However most people change this to reflect the number of subs. For your room with one row of seats you should probably look at having 2 subs as I stated earlier.

 

4 Atmos speakers is far superior to 2 - do not even consider 2 in your room. With 4 you will have fron-to-back panning as well as left-to-right, but with 2 you only get left-to-right. Bookshelf speakers make the best Atmos speakers as the can be mounted from the ceiling and aimed directly at the Main Listening Position (MLP), and they can be matched to the ear level speakers. DOlby recommend alll speakers should be identical (not always practical or affordable) but the closer you can get to having all identical speakers, the better it should sound. If you can't mount bookshelf speakers then angled in-ceiling are next best, with the bigger the angle the better. 45 deg is ideal but hard to find, 30deg is more affordable but still expensive, with most of the affordable ones being 15deg. Straight down-firing is the least preferred option.

 

So having said all that and looking at your drawings again I have come up wth a solution. Flip your room around 180deg. Build out a little corner to match the existing corner, run an Acoustically Transparent (AT) screen and a projector, with the centre speaker behind the screen. Doing this will give the front soundstage a symmetrical space to give a more even acoustic response. The windows then being at the back of the room will have less impact on the sound. See my drawing below with a 7.1.4 setup (subs not drawn) with the location of surrounds for just 5.1.4 shown in red.

 

 

 

 

YOMRHT.jpg

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Guest niterida
6 hours ago, hopefullguy said:

bravo niterida, now you can lead a horse to water but.....

 

dont forget adding a riser, even 1 row of seating should have a riser if you want the cinema feel.

Yes - a floating riser with subwoofer drivers to give that awesome tactile feel.  :)

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Firstly, @niterida thanks for all the great info. There is a lot of info there, so for simplicity, I will stick with 2 points for now. Will explore the rest as I progress.

  

19 hours ago, niterida said:

So having said all that and looking at your drawings again I have come up wth a solution. Flip your room around 180deg. Build out a little corner to match the existing corner, run an Acoustically Transparent (AT) screen and a projector, with the centre speaker behind the screen. Doing this will give the front soundstage a symmetrical space to give a more even acoustic response. The windows then being at the back of the room will have less impact on the sound. See my drawing below with a 7.1.4 setup (subs not drawn) with the location of surrounds for just 5.1.4 shown in red.

1. Layout

I initially had the layout the same way you have suggested. The problem was how to mount the surround R speaker? There is a big window there. The speakers I am using for surrounds are the Definitive Mythos 8 on wall speakers. As I understand it, the thing to do now is to mount them at ear level, and I couldn't see how I could do that. If this could be done, then this would be my preferred layout.

 

 

19 hours ago, niterida said:

4 Atmos speakers is far superior to 2 - do not even consider 2 in your room. With 4 you will have fron-to-back panning as well as left-to-right, but with 2 you only get left-to-right. Bookshelf speakers make the best Atmos speakers as the can be mounted from the ceiling and aimed directly at the Main Listening Position (MLP), and they can be matched to the ear level speakers. DOlby recommend alll speakers should be identical (not always practical or affordable) but the closer you can get to having all identical speakers, the better it should sound. If you can't mount bookshelf speakers then angled in-ceiling are next best, with the bigger the angle the better. 45 deg is ideal but hard to find, 30deg is more affordable but still expensive, with most of the affordable ones being 15deg. Straight down-firing is the least preferred option.

2. Ceiling speakers

This is interesting, cause it never even occurred to me to use bookshelf speakers. Always though ceiling speakers are designed for the job, and that's what I should use. This particularly useful for me as I already have  4 x Definitive ProCinmea bookshelf speakers spare which I could use. These are not totally identical to the wall speakers, but I believe the drivers are more or less the same, and the sound is more or less the same. But how would you mount it? Is it simply a matter of using a mount the same way you would mount it to a wall, but on the ceiling pointed at the MLP? If so, again, this is useful for me as I already have those mounts. This doesn't' seem as popular as ceiling speakers. Is the reason simply looks and ease of installation?

 

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Guest niterida

1. Do whatever it takes. Making a stand for them shouldn't be too hard. Build a plug for the window to block it out completely and mount the speaker to that. Will give a better theatre experience the darker you can get the room.

 

2. Ignorance mainly, aesthetics and marketing play a part too. I made my own mounts but you should be able to buy some - basically just hang them from the ceiling. If you already have DefTechs then I would definitely be using them.

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On 14/04/2021 at 11:09 PM, niterida said:

Actually I think that is incorrect. Acoustic treatment is a science - and you need to either apply existing wisdom or measure your room and apply the correct techniques to resolve the problems specific to your room. since you are just starting out I would keep it as simple as possible. What you initially need to do is get the room as acoustically symmetrical as possible. The windows will reflect sound differently to the walls and so the L and R speakers are interacting with the room differently. Hanging curtains may help but will only absorb the very high frequencies, which are being reflected by the hard walls. You may be better off treating both sides the same - either curtains on both or nothing on both. And depending on your speakers and there eventual location you may need absorbers at the first reflection points. And absorbers should be mounted with an airgap between them and the wall, with this gap being the same dimension as the absorbers depth, for maximum effectiveness. So  75mm absorbers are mounted with a 75mm gap etc.

 

5.1.4 is the sweet spot for value-for-money. But your room is certainly big enough to do 7.1.4 if you have the budget. Since you said you already have all (or most) of the equipment I am going to assume you bought an 11 Channel processing AVR, but likely it only has 9 channels of amplification. I fhtta is correct maybe just start with 5.1.4 and save the expense of an external amp and 2 speakers (unless you already have the speakers). However be aware that the position of the surrounds in a 5.1 setup is different to the surrounds in a 7.1 so if you permanently mount the 5.1 surrounds they will have to be moved if you go to 7.1 &.1 is superior to 5.1 but not by as much as you might think - it will fill the room a bit better and give a fuller soundstage and more ambience, but the discrete effects (things whizzing around) will be pretty much identical.

 

the .1 refers to the LFE channel and technically not the number of subwoofers you run. However most people change this to reflect the number of subs. For your room with one row of seats you should probably look at having 2 subs as I stated earlier.

 

4 Atmos speakers is far superior to 2 - do not even consider 2 in your room. With 4 you will have fron-to-back panning as well as left-to-right, but with 2 you only get left-to-right. Bookshelf speakers make the best Atmos speakers as the can be mounted from the ceiling and aimed directly at the Main Listening Position (MLP), and they can be matched to the ear level speakers. DOlby recommend alll speakers should be identical (not always practical or affordable) but the closer you can get to having all identical speakers, the better it should sound. If you can't mount bookshelf speakers then angled in-ceiling are next best, with the bigger the angle the better. 45 deg is ideal but hard to find, 30deg is more affordable but still expensive, with most of the affordable ones being 15deg. Straight down-firing is the least preferred option.

 

So having said all that and looking at your drawings again I have come up wth a solution. Flip your room around 180deg. Build out a little corner to match the existing corner, run an Acoustically Transparent (AT) screen and a projector, with the centre speaker behind the screen. Doing this will give the front soundstage a symmetrical space to give a more even acoustic response. The windows then being at the back of the room will have less impact on the sound. See my drawing below with a 7.1.4 setup (subs not drawn) with the location of surrounds for just 5.1.4 shown in red.

 

 

 

 

YOMRHT.jpg

 

Not sure. 

 

Two of the areas that most need treatment are now windows...

 

I'd set it up 2.0 first for testing and see if the windows are actually an issue given how small the room is. Then flip as you suggest and see if there is any significant difference. 

 

If no, then I'd stick with the original layout and treat the rear and side rear walls as I previously suggested as things will get muddy with that many speakers on second and more reflections in the seating position. 

Edited by DrSK
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