basement renovation - ideas?

There is a very cost effective product if you want to crank up the music and don't want to hear it on the first floor of the house. Green Glue. It comes in large caulk tubes and you put it on between 2 pieces of 5/8" sheetrock. You can certainly use 1/2" but 5/8 is better. Do a search on "green glue" and the website has a tutorial and lots of testimonials. I used it in 2 work applications with noisy tenants (I manage properties) and it worked great in both instances.

I just did a partial renovation of my basement and now I have to do some room treatments as I have a wood burning stove with a large floor to ceiling brick surround in need of severe dampening. The solution so far has been to drape the fireplace surrounding area with a lot of large nylon painters drop cloths when I want to do any serious listening.

Important that you silence all the mechanical equipment. If your heating/cooling system is forced air and the unit is in the basement, extra attention needs to be paid to duct work and equipment mounts of the unit itself. Otherwise, you will hear the noise over the sound of your rig. When I did my room all the walls were double walled in most areas and tripled in the mechanical area. Ceiling was ascoutical, floor built up on 2x4's, covered with carpet.

If you haven't already, also consider running dedicated lines before you put up the drywall. Best to plan where you will be situating your equipment and run dedicated circuits there.Whole lot easier at this stage.

Gregg