2. tech-talk
  3. 119545-501

Treating Floor in New Construction - Reducing Footfall and Vibration

Looking for some good ideas/solutions to treating my new dedicated music room's floor.  The room will be fairly large at 22w x 29L, built on the main floor of the new house with a basement below.  My current room is in my basement with concrete floors so footfall is never an issue.

I have asked the engineering firm to give me some recommendations on making the floor stronger structure wise; not sure what they will suggest, maybe floor joist on more narrow centers, say 12 inch vs 16.  

Have you tackled this issue?  What about mass loaded vinyl (MLV); would a layer of heavy vinyl between the OSB floor boards and carpet pad help?  Use two layers of OSB flooring and glue them together?  Ideas?

stickman451
dweller's avatar
dweller
2,152 posts
 

A person I knew had a giant listening room (30 X 30) over his garage.

This room has NO BASS! We speculated that the plywood flooring was soaking it up. I'd go with heavy ceramic tile flooring to keep the bass in the room.

elevick
2,439 posts
 
Joists 16" on center is the industry standard.  Usually you will get 5/8 plywood on top.  1 inch tongue and groove plywood all glued and screwed will be as Williewonka said "concrete".  You shouldn't need more joists.  The plywood is a cheaper and easier option.
rja's avatar
rja
2,112 posts
 
Glue and screw 5/8 plywood on the bottom of every other pair of floor joists. Turns them into box beams.
williewonka
1,826 posts
 
Dweller with a 30x30 room the listening position might have been located in a "NULL zone" - was the poor bass performance the same all over the room.

Without any acoustic treatments you should get hotspots and cold spots for bass

Also - I have found the distance between the speakers and the amount of toe-in can either impact or augment bass performance considerably.

Regards...
dctom
82 posts
 
My room is over the garage. Fortunately the garage is quite high so I was able to strengthen the music room floor by running two 10in deep joists under and perpendicular to the existing joists. 
I laid a very dense sound deadening material
http://www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk/tecsound-acoustic-membrane.htm
 plus a thin insulating layer over the existing chipboard floor with an  engineered wood floor on top. Works really well no movement in the floor and no bass emphasis from the floor even with 2 big subs.
More to discover