So, you’re doing resilient channels in the ceiling but not the walls?
Two channel and home theater room under construction
Some of you have followed my threads about getting a new room in which to listen. Well, it's underway. I've got to work with the parameters of the space -- 26 x 15 x 8 ft ceilings -- but I was able to accommodate some suggestions. Two photos at bottom of system page:https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/9064/edit
There will be 5 dedicated lines. Three at the end of the room where my audio gear will be, and two more at different locations in the room just in case the gear moves or other things need to be plugged in further away. There is one line along the sidewall in case I can get my gear away from my speaker's front wall. The lines are using 10 awg romex. Hard to fulfill some of the other electrical desiderata because we are not using a special electrician and it was just too hard to do too much. I did get a sheet of requirements to them (regarding breakers, silver paste, etc. Some was done.)
The drywall is all 5/8". The ceiling has insulation, a layer of drywall, an RC channel, and a second layer of drywall below it.
It looks like the room will have to also contain a TV and an AVR, but I'll mount the TV flush on the wall behind the speakers and have something to cover it with. The electronics for the TV will be on a separate line.
For the short run, because we have pets, we're going with LVF flooring and area rugs over concrete. The LVF will hopefully have something under it -- cork might be good. In the short run, some area rugs. In the longer run, a wall to wall carpet, not too thick.
It's very hard to think through other things until I can get set up and listen, but hopefully the fundamentals are being put in place. It's a room not dedicated to audio, but it will be friendlier than my current space with 6 foot ceilings.
There will be 5 dedicated lines. Three at the end of the room where my audio gear will be, and two more at different locations in the room just in case the gear moves or other things need to be plugged in further away. There is one line along the sidewall in case I can get my gear away from my speaker's front wall. The lines are using 10 awg romex. Hard to fulfill some of the other electrical desiderata because we are not using a special electrician and it was just too hard to do too much. I did get a sheet of requirements to them (regarding breakers, silver paste, etc. Some was done.)
The drywall is all 5/8". The ceiling has insulation, a layer of drywall, an RC channel, and a second layer of drywall below it.
It looks like the room will have to also contain a TV and an AVR, but I'll mount the TV flush on the wall behind the speakers and have something to cover it with. The electronics for the TV will be on a separate line.
For the short run, because we have pets, we're going with LVF flooring and area rugs over concrete. The LVF will hopefully have something under it -- cork might be good. In the short run, some area rugs. In the longer run, a wall to wall carpet, not too thick.
It's very hard to think through other things until I can get set up and listen, but hopefully the fundamentals are being put in place. It's a room not dedicated to audio, but it will be friendlier than my current space with 6 foot ceilings.
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Thanks all! Yes only doing resilient channels on the ceiling. I hadn’t really considered doing them elsewhere because the other walls are concrete, or at least two of them are. I realize that it’s best to have all the walls the same in terms of their resonances, but that is very hard to do when two walls are concrete, one is brick with drywall in front of it and one is just drywall. I am expecting that I will be doing some measurements and using some audio panels to deal with some of the asymmetries. Until I have a chance to listen and measure there’s only so much I want to do ahead of time. And, of course, we need to buy furniture flooring and other stuff. I would say this project is somewhere between me building a listening room for myself and the family getting a basement ready for multiple uses; so it’s hard to go OCD in an audio direction given those other parameters. We are hoping to be done in two weeks, knock on wood! It will be tricky to try to integrate the audio visual and the two channel. |
@tomic601 My current room has an RT60 which ranges from 440ms-225ms between 40 hz and 150 hz and then is more or less between 150 ms and 200 ms from 150-12k hz. In this new room, I'm not sure what I'll get. I suppose the numbers don't mean that much to me because I don't fully understand how they correlate to what I hear. Typically, I look at the SPL graph and the impulse graph to gauge tonality and levels of reflection. RT60 has not yet played a big role in my measuring and I'm honestly not sure how to deploy that tool. Hints welcome. What I can say is that my current setup seems very balanced in terms of tonality and is pretty spacious sounding in terms of sound stage. With a new ceiling that is about 1.5 feet higher, I'm hoping for a slightly larger and more open soundstage -- more room between instruments and a larger presentation, overall. The width and length of the new room are not that much greater, whatever that implies, sonically. |
AFAIK, resilient channel is for isolating noise, not for improving room acoustics. Consider running a sub panel to the room. You'll have higher current and lower voltage drop, and you can put a balanced transformer in. I would not personally ever do a dedicated room with multiple, long 120V lines. It's a waste of time and resources. The math favors 220V with an 8 or 6 gauge line. |
I always shoot for control room standards for RT60. You are in a very unique position to measure, listen and tweak the room as you add treatments, furnishings… the journey of doing this while tracking your RT60 and trying to correlate to what you are hearing is massive. A true leg up on becoming an even better critical listener with modern tools in the arsenal. Your ears and happiness are #1. |
AFAIK, resilient channel is for isolating noise, not for improving room acoustics.That is generally correct, although at ASC we do use resilient channel in conjunction with constrained layer damping to allow walls and ceilings to act as giant bass absorbers. The ceiling is often a prime candidate as it is the largest surface in the room not obstructed with doors and windows. |
AFAIK, resilient channel is for isolating noise, not for improving room acoustics.If you read Earl Geddes’ “Premium Home Theater,” which is an excellent tutorial on how to build a good-sounding room, resilient channels are one of the most effective ways of reducing bass issues that are usually the most difficult room problems to deal with. They also minimize wall vibrations from being transmitted through studs, etc. that helps reduce noise leaking to other rooms (provided they’re installed properly). This is why I was a little surprised that the OP was going through the trouble/expense of installing resilient channels in the ceiling without doing the walls as well. |
Here's a brief recording of the room with nothing in it. Just old solid state gear but my current speakers in the mix: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Fmp8xHNgvdtHjBUy9 |
Now is the time to get a baseline plot for RT60 ( room empty ). In the above post for " current room " you may want to focus on low end range - zero Hz to 300 ms being the greatest imbalance @ 400 ms roughly twice the two hundred ms ring. You may be missing an opportunity to ' EQ ' the low range without more use of the ceiling as absorption ( as @asctim stated ). The ' range ' ( @tomic601 ) is a ' matter of preference ' and would require some trial placement / absorption. As an example 200 ms to 300 ms could be the preferred RT60 range. Then work to ' tune ' the room for a ' smoothed ' Plot '. The drywall should sound better overall than the brick ( higher frequency brightness ). |
Thanks for the reminder. I'll do another scan this weekend. Molding just went up yesterday. No floors yet, but they're coming. LVF with cork underneath. Then, some area rugs. The room will have to come together according to demands other than pure sound; once it's mainly together, I'll measure again and then start to see where to put the rig. Then more measuring and then perhaps adjustments, and then whatever panels I can get away with. |