Do-it-Yourself Guide to Soundproofing a Home Theater

Now that you have spent thousands of dollars on equipment to build the media room of your dreams, I provide in-depth details on implementing an effective soundproofing solution that will help you achieve two goals:

- Keeping noise inside your home theater
- Keeping exterior noises out of your home theater

If you live in a multi-unit dwelling, it is likely that your neighbors complain when you blast your stereo or favorite movie. Not only will you appease your neighbors by properly soundproofing your home theater, it is also easy to make your audio system sound as if it cost two times its actual price. (Side note: don't you wish I told you this before you bought all of your equipment?)

Before I tell you of the proper soundproofing techniques, you must first understand a few principles of acoustics and soundproofing. For your home theater, you must understand Sound Transmission Class (STC) to determine what you will need for your home. In short, STC is the average decibels (dB) lost through a barrier across the range of frequencies 125 Hz to 4000 Hz. A high-end home theater will typically produce sounds as loud as 100 dB to 110 dB. To compare this, a quiet room typically hovers around 40 dB. For proper balancing when treated, the wall between the two rooms should have an STC rating of 60.

Typically, an interior wall composed of stud construction with drywall on both sides has an STC rating of 30 to 34. If the separating wall were to remain non-soundproofed, the dB in the room adjacent "quiet room" would increase to 70 dB (100 – 30 = 70). Considering that a loud home theater, at 100 dB is too loud to hold a conversation, the adjacent room at 70 dB would also be too loud to hold a conversation.

One common misconception in soundproofing is that filling the wall with egg cartons will reduce noise transmission between rooms. In actuality, test results have shown that filing your wall with egg crate cartons will not produce any measurable reduction in sound reduction between rooms.

To achieve the best results, you should use the proper materials such as faced acoustical foam or studio foam and plain acoustical vinyl barrier. Although you should not substitute the proper soundproofing materials with unproven methods for noise reduction, there are a few combinations you can use to help hinder sound transmission between rooms:

Adding another layer of drywall will reduce sound by another 2 dB

Putting insulation in a wall will reduce sound by another 3 – 4 dB

Adding a plain foam barrier will reduce sound by less than 3 dB

Purely from an economical standpoint, studio foam is the cheapest way to soundproof your room. For those desiring a properly soundproofed room, it is recommended that plain acoustic vinyl barrier be used in combination with the studio foam, or the more aesthetically pleasing faced acoustical foam (available with a black, white or bone facing) at http://www.soundprooffoam.com .

While people have spent thousands of dollars soundproofing their rooms, desired results are easily achieved for as little as a few hundred dollars. Soundproofing your home theater has become a do-it-yourself project with only a few hours of time investment required.

Resources

American Micro Industries provides free soundproofing advice! Call them Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST to discuss your individual needs. If you prefer email, you can send a message to sales-spf@soundprooffoam.com to receive a prompt and courteous response. They also have a soundproofing discussion board.

Web Links

How to Soundproof a Room

Soundproofing Information

Order Soundproofing Materials Online