Hi everyone,

 

We recently purchased a property and it came with a half-finished studio (approx 3.3meters x 5.6meters internal).

 

I have always dreamed of having my own space as a dedicated listening room, so the plan is to convert this studio and hopefully do it properly. I am reasonable with DIY but I don't have much building experience.

 

I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with this type of thing? I have found information about converting sheds into recording studios but I'm not sure if that applies to a space that is purely for listening.

 

My thoughts so far:

• The existing plaster work etc will come out
• I'm thinking the wall cladding will need some sort of vapour barrier/insulation layer? The roof already appears to already have this.
• The roller door will come out and the wall will be reinstated.
• A timber frame would be made to isolate the internals from the steel structure (to what specifications I'm not yet sure).
• Some sort of plasterboard would be affixed to the timber frame, with another layer of insulation/soundproofing behind.
• The subfloor sits directly on steel joists, I'm not sure what to do with this.
• I'd like to keep the gable roof inside, I'm not sure what this will do acoustically.
• I will be going down the path of room treatment as well

 

I'm still in the very early stages, any advice/resources/product suggestions would be welcome.

 

Thank you,

Phil.

 

 

 

 

Hi Phil,

 

You say you want to use the space as a listening room. The design requirements for a studio space (for recording ) and a room for listening can be quite different, depending on your use case. A big issue for a recording studio is to be able to isolate the noise from outside the recording space from getting in and also to isolate the control room from the recording space and also depending on where the studio is, it may also need to isolate any noise from any of these getting into neighboring (commercial or otherwise) spaces. 

 

However the requirement for a listening space may not require any of those things, or at least not to the degree required by a recording studio. Acoustically speaking, the only requirement for a good listening space is contained within this  specification and others similar to it. https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3276.pdf .  Meeting the spec (or at least getting close)  for background noise is not too difficult for a shed in a backyard in a relatively quiet area but if you have a drum kit and a marshall stack playing full pelt in the  next room it might take a bit more effort. 

 

Some of the requirements are the same for both situations but would suggest the most expensive and difficult requirements for a studio space arejust not required for a typical good quality domestic space. 

 

Hope this makes sense to you. Feel free to ask further questions.

Thank you Frednork, this is good to know.

 

It is quiet spot on a rural property, no neighbours nearby. A bit of sound proofing would still be good, I'll try to find a product that can both insulate and offer some reduction in noise.

 

I'll have a good look through the spec.

 

 

 

 

Hi Phil, I researched quite a bit of this stuff a couple of years ago when I had some plans drawn up for a listening room I planned to construct separate to the main house we built 10 years ago. As it happens the opportunity to actually get it built is now imminent so I have been revisiting the information I collected.

 

Although as @frednork stated above a studio (designed as a really inert space without reflection colourations) is very different to a domestic listening space. Most decent loudspeakers are designed to work with room reflections and I recall reading once that 40% of what you hear are actually room reflections,  here's a couple of things I found which sounded worthwhile ...

 

Walls

• Two layers of Gyproc sandwiched together with Green Glue ... https://www.greenglue.com.au
• IsoMax clips to fix the wall panels to the frame ... https://kineticsnoise.com/isomax/sound-isolation-clips

 

I'll be doing as much as I can in the build to reduce the amount of room treatment required, although I'm sure there will be some what I've read is that the less treatment required the better.

 

I'm going to contact an acoustic consultant / specialist prior to build as much of this is way beyond me and I figure the cost of getting it right first time will be far less than trying to fix it later. Corsini Acoustic Solutions have some very positive feedback here on SNA and subject to the cost of their consultancy they will be the first ones I speak with.

 

Good luck with the build and do be sure to keep us updated ... I will watch with interest.