mmutavdzic wrote:Paul Woodlock wrote:
…you can't really make a blanket statement that EPDM wins hands down, especially when the only evidence is the writings in a forum.
Paul, as I said previously
mmutavdzic wrote:
…considering the price/performance/longevity ratios, EPDM wins according to what I have seen on this forum?
This and HR forum are by far my most significant source of learning material. So, if the majority swings towards EPDM, so will I…
Greetings Mihajlo
To be fair though, each acoustics forum ( not just this one ) are only a small facet of the big picture. I was just trying to say that there are other excellent products around to do the job. nd I doubt everyone on here bases their purchasing decisions on the info in just ONE forum. but anyway it's no biggie
Having said that, I have been a frequent visitor to your ‘ultimate soundproofing’ project (‘the bunker’ as Steve called it) pages and it has taught me A LOT. But, it’s not for me – too costly and demanding. At least, I think I can achieve the famous 80% of the result with 20% of the effort and investment following the other recopies. I could be wrong since I have never done it before, but I could also be wrong investing 5 or 10 times more?
Cool, I'm glad the diary has been informative
I started it to 'give back' for the help I recieved off the expert folks at studiotips. Eric Desart in particular.
On the other hand, I do agree with everything else you have said – sure, think before you jump, calculate, measure, etc. before you commit your time and valet to anything.
As the last comment from me on this
Paul Woodlock wrote:
…Lastly I don't see much point in a wooden floating floor for these reasons...
You have to remember two things
1) A significant number of people visiting these pages are not really interested in uncompromised total soundproofing solutions, for whatever reason…
Yes exactly!
That's the very reason, I was proposing that often a flaoting floor is NOT necessary at all.
The floor is roughly 1/6th of the total surface area of the room ( assuming a cube ). Not many rooms are a cube, and NO studio room should be a cube, so let's say around 1/5th of the total surface area. A floating floor, whatever material is used to construct it, ain't cheap. The elastomer is the bulk of the money.
So for the person with modest isolation requirements, who perhaps builds his walls and ceiling with, say, 2 layers of drywall, is a properly designed floating floor gonna be of any benefit per cost, when perhaps the walls and ceiling are the main defining factor of the total isolation.
In most cases, I would hazard an educated guess that dollar for dollar, they would be much better off applying MORE Drywall layers to the walls and ceiling instead of having a floating floor. Apart from being considerably cheaper, leaving more dosh for acoustic treatment, I would this approach would gain more isolation. And all that is besides building a wodden flaoting floor that acts like a drumskin, and resonates in the room.
Personally I did NOT want to build a floating floor in my original bomb shelter design.
a] becuase the 6 layers of drywall and 1 layer of MDF o nthe walls and ceiling was 'surely enough'
b] becuase of the ridiculous work entailed in doing so. I had limited ceilign height, and an original sloping concrete garage floor. To do a floating floor would mean breaking up the original floor, digging out 20 tons of soil, and laying a concrete oversite supporting floor before I could even start on the floating bit.
What led me to actually build the floating floor followed a consultation with Eric Desart ( who has forgotton more about this stuff, than we'll ever know
)
Basically because I'd designed the 'bomb shelter room within a room' so solidly, the floor became the weak link in the isolation chain.
And even Eric couldn't say for certain whether NOT floating the Room would be enough isolation to avoid waking my Woman with loud bass at 4am.
So I was faced with a big decision....
It was either take a risk, and build the studio WITHOUT the floating floor, and just HOPE it was enough. or
Float the whole room and be 99% sure it was gonna work.
I chose the latter becuase I'm only building my studio ONCE. It has to last a lifetime.
I very much doubt you'll achieve 80% with 20% of the effort. From experience of builsiong my place, I would say you'd achieve more like 30% with 20% of the effort. The most time consuming things still have to be done however many layers of drywall you stick up, or whether you build a flaoting floor or not.
So anyway, I stand by my previous comments...
For those who only have modest soundproofing requirements, building a floated floor at all, should be seriously questioned. And why build something that could only give you another 5 ot 10% of the isolation for a DOUBLING of the Isolation budget?? Especially when it's a wooden floated floor ( not sand filled - thanks Steve ), that's unlikely to have a low enough resonant freqeuncy, and could also upset the room acoustics.
2) Significant number of people that are thinking of floated floor are not planning it only to contain the low-frequency inside, but to keep the exterior low-freq. and resonance on the outside. In that case, the ‘drumskin’ warning does not apply that much, but all the statements you made about the Mass-Spring-Mass most definitely do. That is why even the most basically (but correctly) floated wooden floor will produce much better results than not floating it at all, I hope you agree?
All the best,
Mihajlo
Mihajlo, the drum skin effect has NOTHING to do with isolation. It's the possible ( and quite likely ) negative effects on the acoustics INSIDE the room.
cheers
Paul
