I'm currently in the process of having my new home built including a dedicated theatre room!  During the design process, I had a new product called Quietrock spec'd for use in the theatre room (visit www.quietsolution.com).  Has anyone here heard of it or used it because I'd like your thoughts?  Essentially, the Quietrock is used in place of drywall and if used according to the spec sheet, can have a STC rating of as high as 80.  The Quietrock itself seems pretty cool.  It's basically drywall with a very thin metal plate sandwhiched in between it. 

Anyway, thoughts would be great!

Matt

Matt,

Have you priced it out yet? As I recall it is *very* expensive.

A much less expensive solution would be to do dual layers of drywall on the inside of the theater with a product called 'Green Glue' spread between the layers. It is supposed to work very well.

Also very important is how you are going to build your walls. You want the inside drywall on different framing then the drywall outside of the room. That will help limit direct noise transfer through the studs.

A typical way of doing this is using 2x6" top/bottom plates and staggered stud construction. You basically stud the inside walls with 2x4"s the same as always with them flush with the inside edge of the 2x6s. Then frame a whole new set of studs on the outside walls again with flush 2x4s. That way when you are pounding away inside the room most of the movement of the drywall is on the inner studs and the sound is directly shaking the outside dryway.

Ditto for floor/ceiling joists. They should be decoupled from the room above/below to limit transmission. There should be no air leaks in the room... any place sound can get out ruins all the work elsewhere. If you have ductwork feeding the room there is a bunch of things that need to be done there to keep noise down too.

Building a room like this is a royal PITA but when you get it up and running is awesome with how quiet it is.

Good luck,

Shawn

I wonder if it isn't too good to be true....but the "white papers" look pretty legit (thought I only skimmed through them).
Just imagine staggered studs with that stuff...


Btw, how did you determine the dimensions of the room? A few feet here and there could have HUGE impacts on the bass response in your room. If you haven't done it already, I would recommend running some room mode prediction software to make sure you don't end up with something awful.

Also, non-parallel walls can make a huge difference and will get rid of so many other problems. Even as much as 1" every foot is enough to reduce flutter echo. If you can't make the room any wider, then I would totally recommend making the front slightly narrower. And esides the acoustical advantages I think it looks cooler too

IndyKlipsch looked this up when he was doing his basement.  $120.00 a Sheet!    Kinda Pricey!

  http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/560628/ShowPost.aspx

Rustle up Forum member Picky if you can. He did a theatre room in his home on a smaller scale than most, but I remember him being concerned about sound transmission and he had some interesting fixes.

Michael

" Just imagine staggered studs with that stuff.."

I was thinking staggered studs with double layers inside and out with Green Glue between them. Nothing like overkill. ;)

The problem with anything like this though is the room is as quiet as its weakest link. If everything else is sealed up well that usually means the door in. Acoustic doors are *expensive*. I ended up building my own out of a few sheets of 3/4" plywood with 1x6" spacers in it. I have a hydraulic closer on the door to keep it sealed up against the Zero Acoustics door seal products. Another common way of handling the door is to use exterior grade solid doors for the room. I didn't want a typical door latch (more theatrical with the hydraulics) hence the DIY method above.

Shawn

Shameless picture  of the theatrical effect not having a typical door handle adds to going into the room....

With some of those panels weighing in at over 150 lbs… it will make finding an installer very difficult... or a pita to do it yourself.  That's over double the mass of a 5/8" gypsum panel. 

BTW, if you are after increasing mass, you could look at firecode "C" panels.  Not as heavy as the Quietrock, but they only cost a slight premium over the regular firecode panels but do perform better in STC. (Proportionate to their mass).  These too are difficult to sub out though...

ROb

PS: Shawn, nice handle and door... is that simply stained veneered plywood?

I did look into it.. and money was not the only reason but yes, at what?  A 120.00  a 4x8 sheet of drywall..  Then you needed the special mud...  Then you need the special sealent... special mounting devices.. special membrane in between studs... It goes on and on... each electrical socket light socket... etc., etc.


And yes, very heavy and expensive to Indy,  because of shipping and not one person sells it here.. 

Bottom line, if you use everything they say,  I am sure you will have a pretty to very quiet room. (no one even mentions their ideas for floors too.. ??)  This is a very serious undertaking...  LOTS of $$ LOTS of time. If you have both I suggest it.  For 99% of us.. we looked at other ideas off of the forum we knew people tried and worked.

My 2 cents..  

colterphoto1 wrote:

Rustle up Forum member Picky if you can. He did a theatre room in his home on a smaller scale than most, but I remember him being concerned about sound transmission and he had some interesting fixes. Michael

Hey, thanks for the plug, Michael, old buddy! 

SHAWN: Great door handle, dude!

Bimmeup: If you are serious about lowering sound bleed-through, there are two things to consider and Quietrock probably isn't one of them. Unless you are wealthy, as my pals have pointed out here, Quietrock is just too expensive.

I recommend considering building the staggered-studded wall, as mentioned above, and then installing a sound-blocking membrane woven between the studs, top-to-bottom. There are expensive sound-blocking mats available out there that are very heavy and very dense for about $200+ per roll, or you could try what I used, which some naysayers claim is ineffective. Yet, fellow forum members colterphoto1 and Michael Hurd have both experienced my room and both had written glowing reports about my room's performance on this forum about the end results of my efforts.

I used a very dense and cost effective material that is available from Home Depot (a regular stock item in my area). It's a thick, vinyl-rubber roofing material made by GAF called "Rubberoid Torch Plus". It's about $39 per 93-pound roll and can also be used on single-studded walls when nailed directly over the studs before installing the drywall over the top of it. Here's the spec sheet on the stuff: http://www.gaf.com/Content/Documents/10812.pdf  I also recommend using the following caulk on all studs prior to installing drywall and on all drywall seams: DAP Dynaflex 230 Premium Elastomeric Sealant. It helps eliminate rattles and seems to lower sound transmission. http://www.dap.com/product_details.aspx?product_id=4 (I do not work for Home Depot, DAP or GAF.)

As for doors, mine are all 6-panel, particle board composite doors with oak venier. Very heavy. I added exterior weather stripping to them and then a sound-blocking brush on the bottom gap of our laundry/furnace room door. It works! Those brushes are available from Memtech Acoustical: http://www.memtechbrush.com/brush-seals/brush-seals.htm (I don't work for Memtech, either).

Ceilings: I installed a Sonex "Harmoni" 2" thick, fireproof melamine foam ceiling. There are no rattles and the material absorbs 90% of the sound that hits it. The ceiling completely changed the way  our room sounds! http://www.sonex-online.com/SONEX%20Ceilings.htm  This can also be ordered with Acoustiblok sound-blocking membrane already incorporated in to it,. See Memtech (above) for this product. Nope: I don't work for Sonex either.

-Upfront disclosure, I represent Quiet Solution, so I know the products well-
QuietRock is available in 3 product levels, all the way up to the THX certified QR-545 and is sold at 300 dealer locations nationwide and in Canada. It is not sold direct, so there is no "shipping charge" per se. QuietRock panels are manufactured in California and shipped to distributors nationwide via rail.
You do NOT need any special mud or special mounting devices or special membrane or anytuing else. You hang and finish QuietRock panels just like regular drywall. There is a video on the front page of the website that shows this. And the 5/8" product (QR-530) weighs about the same as standard drywall. It isn't about weight.
QuietRock is a UL certified product that increases STC value in any wall assembly (single, staggered, or double stud) by using contsrained-layer damping, not by using mass.
There are hundreds of independant field and lab tests, and many lab tests in many configurations are published on the website.
The QuietRock QR-545 THX panel (which is the highest-end product made by the company) has been tested in assemblies to STC-80 with losses of 50dB at 50Hz.
QuietRock QR-530 is more expensive than drywall, but almost always the least expensive method to reach higher STC values. For instance many people use mass-loaded-vinyl which costs $2 to $3/sq foot delivered, but the wall only tests at STC 43 in a finished single wood stud assembly with MLV in it (there is a white paper on this independant lab test on the site as well). QR-530 is about $1/sqft more, but delivers a testsed STC 52 in the same wall (without MLV of course).
While QuietRock is certainly used in home theaters, QR-530 is most popular for large multifamily builders to build party walls that meet the required STC 50 code. QuietRock on one side of a single stud wall is the least expensive method of meeting STC 50+. But of course large builders have to consider labor costs, risks, failure liability, (and they get better pricing for large volumes), so for them, QR-530 may be an easy low-cost option.

" Shawn, nice handle and door... is that simply stained veneered plywood?"

It is maple plywood with a Mahogany stain on it. Two sheets thick with 1x6 oak spacers between the panels to give width for the Zero Acoustics automatic door bottom seals that I have installed top and botton on the door. The door itself is about 2 1/4" thick all done and *very* heavy.

Shawn

MODERATORS: Please correct me if I am wrong, but aren't solicitors supposed to be banned on this forum? Apologies if I am mistaken.

lol, I don't think solicitors are banned unless they're peddling other speakers (aka in competition with klipsch).

I wish I had my data here, but I think you can getter better results by going with the double studded method anyway.

EDIT: I thought the quietsolution guy was the same one starting the thread...my bad.

picky wrote:

MODERATORS: Please correct me if I am wrong, but aren't solicitors supposed to be banned on this forum? Apologies if I am mistaken.

Well, Tom Vodanhel (sp?) posts from time to time, and so do a few people who are in the speaker selling business, and they post deals and whatnot, so I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as that.  I thought the post was informative without particularly being a sales pitch, but that's just one guy's opinion.

I'm glad to hear it's made in California since it seems impossible to find Roxul or even the Dow/Corning rigid fiberglass out here.  Apparently we only need the fluffy stuff.