Been spending time and design money trying to cram a dedicated theater into small 70's basement with low ceiling. Due to lots of duct work in small basement, best location is right at bottom of stairs, w/ 2'4" from hitting the floor to wall. Not really optimal for aesthetics and WAF is playing a part. Due to other constraints (e.g. support beams), can't really do much about this constraint.
I have a design being done with full acoustical treatments (bass traps, side wall and ceiling diffusors, etc.), but that deisgn obviously requires 4 walls w/ 1 door. Pocket doors would be awesome, but sound isolation and improved acoustics would be horrible. Optimally would like to walk down stairs in to an 6 - 8' arch, but then I have no wall at all at what I suspect is the 1st reflection point. If I leave it open, sound isolation to upstairs I am concerned about, but also general room acoustics wouuld be poor. One idea I had was based upon something I saw in Electronic House. They used heavy Lutron Sevioia black shades to enclose a HT that was inside another room. The installer claimed it blocked 90% of the sound. The shades were built into soffits around arches, then with a touch of abutton (can be manual also), they'd come down to the floor. They were installed so they were not just hanging on walls, but would basically come down "inside" of the walls. Lutron does not advertise anything I could find on their site about good sound isolation from these shades, so have my doubts. Sent an email to Lutron to find out more about this and awaiting an answer. Might be cost prohibitive, but researching. My thoughts are if I must go with an arch to open the basement when entering, a shade design like this would be better than nothing. Maybe even double shades making something like an empty wall of shades. Sucks, but better than open? Wouldn't this also improve the sound of the room a bit vs. just an open space?
Welcome any thoughts ideas as I fear I am trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
I have a design being done with full acoustical treatments (bass traps, side wall and ceiling diffusors, etc.), but that deisgn obviously requires 4 walls w/ 1 door. Pocket doors would be awesome, but sound isolation and improved acoustics would be horrible. Optimally would like to walk down stairs in to an 6 - 8' arch, but then I have no wall at all at what I suspect is the 1st reflection point. If I leave it open, sound isolation to upstairs I am concerned about, but also general room acoustics wouuld be poor. One idea I had was based upon something I saw in Electronic House. They used heavy Lutron Sevioia black shades to enclose a HT that was inside another room. The installer claimed it blocked 90% of the sound. The shades were built into soffits around arches, then with a touch of abutton (can be manual also), they'd come down to the floor. They were installed so they were not just hanging on walls, but would basically come down "inside" of the walls. Lutron does not advertise anything I could find on their site about good sound isolation from these shades, so have my doubts. Sent an email to Lutron to find out more about this and awaiting an answer. Might be cost prohibitive, but researching. My thoughts are if I must go with an arch to open the basement when entering, a shade design like this would be better than nothing. Maybe even double shades making something like an empty wall of shades. Sucks, but better than open? Wouldn't this also improve the sound of the room a bit vs. just an open space?
Welcome any thoughts ideas as I fear I am trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
