We're moving and just bought a new house. I was trying like hell to get an unfinished basement so I could set up a proper media room from scratch, but the home we ended up settling on doesn't have a basement. "My" room is going to just be a normal, 13x13 (or so) guest bedroom that I can basically do anything I want with.

I'd love to put some kind of soundproofing in there, but I'm certainly not going to pull down the dry wall and add in extra insulation or padding. Does anybody know if there are any reasonable means to dampen the sound? I'm not expecting miracles here, just something to take the edge off would be good.

What kinds of sounds do you need to dampen? If it's just screams, that's one thing. But if you're using power tools in there it's a whole different story.

That reminds me of an episode of 'How I Met Your Mother'....

-Tim

Not if you are not willing to change the wall structure. What about the floor or ceiling?

There are many products on the market, depends on your budget but if you are not going to redo the walls, the choices will be limited to hanging curtains, fabrics, bass traps or sound tiles.

I had double drywall, staggered seams, screwed and glued, 1/2" over 5/8" with insulation in all the walls and ceiling. That works well and I also added a soundproofed door.

Naaa... just watching movies and sports pretty much. Just at the loudest levels possible to not bother neighbors/wife.Budget isn't a huge deal, I've got enough put away to chip away at a prospective basement project that these modifications probably aren't going to be near that level.

I guess I should qualify that *I'm* sure as hell not pulling down dry wall, I'd likely find a way to condemn the house. If that's the best way and that's something that local installers could reasonably do without tearing the house up, that's a possibility.

Otherwise, some of the other suggestions made sense. I didn't know you could buy a soundproof door, but that's the kind of thing that would help keep the noise muffled a bit. I'm also not familiar with bass traps or sound tiles, I'll have to research those a bit, sounds like something that could work.

You can have insulation injected in. They do a small hole to feed a tube through and then spray/squirt the insulation in which expands. If done near the ceiling you could use trim or crown molding to hide it. Might be good for hiding wire for rear speakers, too, if you need that.

http://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/ac...doors.htm?d=42

http://www.sweetwater.com/c672--Bass_Traps


http://www.soundprooffoam.com/

You could carpet the wall common to the other room, that would absorb a lot of noise. Remember the bass is felt more than it's heard.

These are all very good ideas, I appreciate it. I'll likely be moving next month so I've got time to research all of this. Thanks guys.

Based on my experience, I don't think a lot of things that are done for sound reduction to some home theater rooms are completely necessary, unless the purpose is sound proofing rather than sound reduction.

In my case, when my wife and I had a small two story place built, I was concerned that sound from the home theater room would reach the bedroom upstairs. Our bedroom is good sized and although about 1/4 to 1/3 of it is located above the HT room, the bed is located away from that area.

The only thing I did was have our builder insulate the remaining walls of the HT room (two were outside walls and insulated anyway) and the space between the two floors. They just used regular pink fiberglass batts, although I think they may have used two layers between floors as there is 16 inches of space between them because we used structural wooden I-beams for ceiling/floor joists.

Unless it's cranked up pretty high, you can't hear anything.

http://www.sonex-online.com/

http://www.pinta-acoustic.com/