ok is this possible.

[shortedaman]

so i have a room in my new house. and i want to make it "soundproof." but not in the general sense. i want to treat this room effectively enough to make it so i can hear it clearly at low levels. so that others in the house would not be disturbed. i.e. watching a movie, music online, mixing etc. so i guess not soundproof exactly, but ultra clear?

any ideas? is this possible? and will it cost a lot? thanks.

 

[Capriccio]

Soundproof is 100% isolation, so that people outside the room cannot hear you and you cannot hear anything from outside. Soundproof is impossible to achieve. The way to do it is to work out how much isolation you need and then plan accordingly. Play pink noise at as a high a level you can in one room. Measure the level with C weighting on your SPL meter. Measure the sound level in the rooms (or outdoors) on the other side of your studio walls, floor and ceiling with the A weighting. Subtract the highest of the other rooms' levels from the first to know how much isolation you need aim for. Isolation can be expensive, running into tens of thousands of dollars.

To get a clear sound within the room involves acoustically measuring the room and installing acoustic treatment, finding the best listening position, the best position for your monitors and creating a reflection free zone at the listening position. Acoustic treatment is cheap(er), requiring up to $1,000 depending on the size of the room and materials used.

 

[stevieb]

Just some suggestions- not a full "treatment..."

From my reading, if you took your idea to it's extreme, you would be sitting in the room, listening to music (or whatever) with over-the-ear headphones. Not a totally pointless idea, though, because you can then move back from that extreme. Near-field monitors would be your next step- I would run them with longish leads so I could move them around the room, setting them in positions I though would work, then leaving the room and checking which position resulted in the lowest sound levels in the rest of the house. For example, assume there is only one door leading from that room to the house, putting the speakers on the opposite wall- thus firing towards the door- might result in more sound in the rest of the house, than putting them on the same wall as the door and firing away from the door. Once you find the "quietest" placement, you can then work on soundproofing the room, and that task would be easier than if you used the "loudest" speaker placement.

Excess reverb usually kills intelligibility, so you would want to tune reflective surfaces in the room with Auralex foam panels, but not too much, lest you lose too many hi's and mid's and end up with a boomy, bass-y room.

You might want to install weatherstripping on the door leading to the rest of the house, too.

 

[Capriccio]

You might want to install weatherstripping on the door leading to the rest of the house, too.

That is part of isolation and as door surrounds are one of the weak points for sound leakage it is well worth stevieb's emphasising this simple, cheap and effective task.

 

[clivus]

Where is your listening room located in your house relative to the other rooms? I have had success (and failure) with this issue in two different houses. 1st house--Ranch style--The listening room was a family room converted from a carport. It had a brick veneer wall separating it from the rest of the house and the bedrooms were on the opposite end with 3 doors in between. Worked great. 2nd House--Single story w/ basement listening room. First listening room was in the central part of basement, which failed due to too much sound leakage through the ceiling to the bedrooms. Present listening room is on the opposite end from bedrooms and works very well when all available doors are closed. I did also have double thicknesses of sheetrock and fiberglass insulation installed in the walls to help suppress transmission and resonance. Wall density and thickness are the keys to reducing sound transmission.