Soundproofing your home theater..........methods  

Do a search for isolation, risc-01, green glue, staggered stud, light can boxes.

That should give you about 4 months ( of reading) of detailed discussion.

Scott

There's an e-book called The Home Theater Book. It's a great resource and can be found on the Dedicated Theater Design & Construction page on this forum about 3 or 4 threads down (click GO).
There is no one best way to "soundproof" a theater. Your budget will be the end factor. The good news is, if you follow the basic construction rules - starting with a room with a room - tuning and sound isolating the room will be a cakewalk.
I don't give a flip if sound gets out, but, I don't want outside sound to ruin my movie experience.

its all connected. Use the fish tank theory, nothing gets out... nothing gets in. build it tight.. Decouple everything from existing structures and lots of insulation. The other stuff like green glue is icing on the cake.

I'm still in the research phase, but they do not sell quietrock at Home Depot. Figure it will cost about 5x the cost of conventional sheetrock.

Haven't had any experience with the Quiet Solutions products, or decoupling methods, but if you are going the 'standard' sheetrock route, double up both sides of the wall with viscoelastic damping inbetween (Green Glue, Quiet Glue, etc) Sounds like the walls are already built and finished, so unless you want to rip out existing walls (which depending on your budget might not be a bad idea) you have to rely on what's there already.

A few questions come to mind at this point...
Did you put up these walls, or were they put up when the house was built?
How are these walls constructed? (possibly unknown if you did not build)
Are they insulated?

If not insulated, you have a couple of choices I can think of, rip down one side of sheetrock and insulate using standard fiberglass batts, or the easier method of blown-in insulation, which would require a hole to be cut in each wall bay, and after insulation, repatched.

If you want to get really involved (*and if you have the room and budget to spare) you could rip down one side of sheetrock, add insulation, and then add a second wall (i.e. double stud construction) either inside or outside your theater space.

Now lets talk about your ceiling and floors... What is there currently? Is this a basement room? Getting back to the fisktank analogy, you really want it well sealed on all sides, top and bottom.

So to sum up, how much do you want to spend on soundproofing? Because the skies the limit...

Green Glue is a great solution, I'll be using it my theater.

I was searching for solutions, just like you, about 1 1/2 years ago. My goal was to soundproof my entire basement since my theater, which is in my basement, is not a truly dedicated space. I used RSIC clips and hat track on the entire ceiling and decoupled all walls from the rest of the structure. I used double 5/8" sheet rock with greenglue between the layers. I built light boxes for all recessed lights and paid meticulous attention to sealing all holes, including outlets and switches. I have a separate HVAC zone for the basement, using a manifold and flex duct to isolate it from the main HVAC system. My doors are all exterior grade solid core with full seals and thresholds with automatic bottom drop seals.

There is nothing new in what I described above. I simply applied the techniques that I learned on this forum and from the GreenGlue and Pac International web sites.

While my basement is not yet completely finished, all of the "soundproofing" features are in place. I have to say that I am amazed at how well my basement is isolated from the rest of the house. I can crank up my sound system to uncomfortably loud levels, and it is barely audible in the rest of the house.

It seems that people always want a shortcut, easy or cheap method to achieve good sound isolation. If you really want to have good sound isolation, use the principles and products described on this forum. They work. Don't take any shortcuts or use cheaper alternatives.

Read the big Green Glue thread. Brian has shared a wealth of information on sound isolation principles and practical implementation guidelines. Sure, it is an investment in time to read the whole thread, but you will learn most all of the knowledge you need for good sound isolation.

There's an informative article in Fine Homebuilding magazine, January 2007; The Quest for a Quiet Room. I bought the magazine originally because of a detailed feature on Hidden Doors.

Also, I found a great product in the plumbing section at Home Depot for putting between 2 x 4's or on L- brackets as a hush gasket between the wood and the metal. It's called AP/Armaflex Insulation Tape (30' x 1/8" x 2"), sold as adhesive pipe wrap.

we did the full Quiterock 530 system on all walls on top of exising drywall and insulation.. we shall see how it works. they say it cuts down alot..

RSIC is "resilient sound isolation clip". It is a clip that decouples your drywall from the rest of the structure. Hat channel is the track that clips into the RSIC. Here is a picture of both:
http://www.pac-intl.com/pics/rollover/rsic1.gif.

Here is the link to the Pac International site that manufactures them. They have a lot of good information on their site as well. The clips are kind of expensive ($4 - $5 each), but work great if you don't have another means of decoupling your structure. Do a search on RSIC. There is a lot of information here on the forum about them.