creative cost conscious cave (1 Viewer)

[george.armenante]

I have a small room, small budget and the hope to make a listening "cave". Its in the basement of a south philly home, so I'm working with 11' x 9' with a 6' ceiling. I have all the audio equipment (left and right, a center channel, and a subwoofer), so this project is solely an environmental design project. My goals in hierarchial sequention are to be respectful of my roommates and neighbors, and have a place for high volume, high sound quality enjoyment. I've read about the concept of creating a mechanically isolated room within a room, and I was hoping to get direction about how to achieve it. This is not my dream project, but if I could make it happen for under $300, I would love to do it. Material wise, craiglist's free listings feature alot of old mattresses and box springs, as well as old doors. Could old mattresses be used as an effective means for insulating sound? Would I need to build a hard surface in front of the mattresses? Should I create geometries within the room to deviate from the simple rectalinear layout? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have no qualms about shrinking the internal volume of the room. Transforming the space into even more of a cave would not be an issue for me, being as I can't even stand upright in it as is. Thankyou for taking the time to help me out. To reciprocate, I could answer just about any questions regarding cycling or product design and development, just tossin' that out there.
-thanks,
George Armenante

 

[Robert_J]

The Theater Construction section is a better place to post this type of question. If you decide to build speakers, then we can help more here.

Acoustically decoupled room for $300. You will be lucky to get it done for $3,000. I can't think of anything you can do to isolate the sound in your budget.

For details, AVS Forums has a lot of information as well as the DIY channel with their 5 part series on converting a basement to a theater.

-Robert

 

[george.armenante]

Robert,

Thankyou for your direction. However, I would like to keep this thread alive in the DIY section. If I might inspire more people to contribute, maybe I could rephrase my criteria. I would like to construct a small listening room completely out of waste stream material, as in $0. Therefore, I'm looking for suggestions of conceptual similarities. For example: sound insulating sheet goods are dense elastomeric substrates...what are other dense pliable materials? I'm currently renting, so investing an exorbitant sum would not be very rational. I enjoy designing and building things, and I'm into salvaging materials. I would like to proceed, as daunting as it may seem.

 

[TeddM]

Your best bet is perhaps a layer of MDF on the door to beef up it's mass, and add some gaskets to seal the door. I'd also add a second layer of 5/8" drywall to the walls and ceiling. Then you need to give some consideration to the HVAC and electrical boxes to avoid flanking.

$300 isn't much budget, but you might be able to secure someone's leftover Green Glue and apply it at 50% coverage between the layers of drywall. I can't imagine any recycling that is going to give you the mass and isolation you need.