100 Year Old House Theater Build

I have a contractor coming in later this week to start construction on our basement to build two rooms. One will be my 1 year old daughter's play room, the other is my play room.

Since it's in my basement, the only real noise I'm concerned about is the heater/AC which will be about 5 feet from the entrance to the room which will be about the same size, sharing the wall on the left side of the theater.

Since her room won't be used when I'm using mine, and the two outside facing walls are concrete, I don't see the need to isolate those as much and concentrate on the ceiling and back wall (the one with the door).

For the back wall, I'm thinking of going the full 9 with isolation clips + insulation + GG. For the ceiling, maybe isolation clips + just one layer of drywall + insulation. The main sounds I'm concerned with are the humming of the HVAC unit. I know it won't be perfect, but cutting down significantly on the noise would be great.

As for flanking, there are no vents in this room so i'll have some kind of ventilation from the theater into the rest of the basement to keep things cool. There will be can lights used but the direction of the floor joists is in my favor to block the noise transmission to them.



For the record, here's what i'm looking at.
Seating for 4 or 5, depending on what I can find for furniture.
100-120" screen. I'll tape the wall to see what looks best.
Likely an Epson 5010 projector
My current set of Monitor Audio SS Series speakers (towers, center, surround)
JBL subwoofer or something better X2 if I feel the need.
False wall to mount the screen/put speakers behind

Anybody have thoughts or tips? I've read most of the articles on the soundproofingcompany.com. Will going simple on the shared wall be a big problem? It will be staggered studs due to the width of the space between the walls (the center supports for the house will be enclosed inside, the beams are about 8" square.)

I'm not sure how sound will transmit through cement and enter the room through the back wall.

This setup is a compromise, we're not touching the two exterior facing walls for several reasons. I did some testing last night with my rack of computer equipment unplugged and the HVAC off and it was around 30 dB. With either of those on it went up to 50 dB. Thanks for the advice, but I'm going to concentrate on where I'll get the best bang for the buck.

The good thing about the wall to my daughter's room is that it's already decoupled via staggered studs, so adding a second layer of drywall + GG if needed in the future will be a snap.

Craaaaaap. Ok, all 4 walls need to be done now. I just checked behind the two outside walls and they're actually just 1/4" plywood paneling somehow nailed directly to stucco. Without the paneling, it looks like a damn rape dungeon.

Talked to the wife and I'm going the full 9 on the HT walls and just framing/insulating/dry-walling the playroom.

I think my contractor is going to have a coronary tomorrow when I tell him that essentially there is double work.

I think you missed the dimensions of this room. I'll be lucky to not be ducking when I enter, soffits are a definite no-go. I'll make sure the room is air tight, it will be fun.

Construction started and the order was placed with The Soundproofing Company for GG, V-clips, IB-3's and acoustic sealant. Here are the obligatory starting pics:

Shot of the area in question. Notice the low ceilings.


Another angle, notice the ductwork that is all luckily on one side of the house.

No dricore planned, going with carpet. The entrance will be on the short end, so the beam won't matter. I was thinking about doing the vent on the outside too, definitely easier.

My house is in a location with no water issues. It's an English basement on the high ground, we don't even have a sump pump.

We're going to be running the wiring tomorrow before my contractor starts on the drywall, so it's time to figure out the seating/projector/speaker locations.

Using the HTA Designer app, I should have a 110" screen with a viewing distance of 11'. With my 2 1/2' false wall, that will leave me with about 6 feet behind the couch or whatever if I wanted to install a riser and a second row. The room is really damn narrow at around 8'6" after the new walls and drywall so I can only do 2 rows of two, which is likely enough. What I'm not sure about is if the 6' is enough to have a comfortable second row. Also, if I do that, I definitely won't have enough room for a second subwoofer on that end, although I could easily fit it up front.

Second is projector location. From what I've seen, I'll want to put above and just behind the first row so it's unlikely that someone will head butt it. I'm probably going to get an Epson 5010 which has a pretty flexible throw distance. The plan is to attach some sort of plywood to the furring channels in the ceiling for a secure mount. Is that a bad idea for any reason?

Here's a rendering for what I have so far. The blue panel is for absorption, the entrance will be at the rear.

Good idea. At the very least I could have him use it for the piece over the seating so I can put the projector anywhere.

Is it such a bad thing to have one row a few feet closer to allow for a second row? I suppose I could drop the screen size down a bit, after all, the suggestion is to not even buy a screen until everything else is in place.

Actually, loveseat in the back and nice recliner seating up front.

Walls started going up today. My contractor said it would be easier on the shared wall if he put the studs on the other side of the support beam for teh center support which means a bigger air gap. Awesome!

Walls going up!


ID-3's attaching the walls to the ceiling.

My builder just had a question that I didn't have an answer to. Wu staggered walls, what's a good way to do insulation? Just cut the 16" bats in half?

Thanks!

Update!

The basement is all framed and most of the electrical is finished. My contractor seems to have forgotten to add a few outlets, so I'll have him add those. Putty pads are on the way and should be here on Tuesday, hopefully before drywall time.

The room as it sits today.


Here's what will be the audio/networking rack


High Speed HDMI + Cat 6 to a wall jack. This is so I can use a laptop/ipad/gaming system from inside the room.


Double walls between the rooms


I had a ton of Dynamat left over from a car audio project, so I used it to add lots of mass to the returns which are really just aluminum tacked between floor joists. I can't believe houses were made like this!

My boss told me that his very new house is like that too. It seems pretty lazy to me. I sealed up along the edges with some silicone caulking too. There were massive air gaps which explains why my upstairs is extremely hot in the summer, there's almost no damn air return!

Oh, the dirt isn't my concern. It's that the ONLY return for my entire 2nd floor goes through the side walls of the house. Using a setup like this pretty much guarantees that it won't pull much air since it's shared with two other huge returns on the first floor.

Also, no progress for a few days, my builder has gone MIA. His mother just started chemotherepy last week, so I'm guessing he's dealing with that.