New studio/house build including John’s small studio design

Hey Ben, it's looking great! And you sure are making that silencer box massive! That looks like two layers of 5/8" drywall plus an inch of solid wood? Wow. There's nothing at all wrong with putting a lot of mass on there (the more the merrier), but is it really needed? Something else: That box must be pretty darn heavy... I'm sure you have a good plan for supporting that weight and keeping it decoupled, but what is it? Just checking.... extra eyes over your shoulder and all that... - Stuart -

Hi Stuart, Thanks! We are definitely moving slowly and carefully to make sure that everything is carefully sheeted, no gaps and sealing as we go. Yes the box is big and heavy. The wood is 360 x 45 treated LVL and the spans were checked by the supplier against the weight. The double drywall is there as these air in and out baffle boxes are essentially also doubling as ceiling panels where they occur. In between these the other ceiling panels are just normal double sheeted panels built inside out. So these boxes are only connected/touching the inner leaf. Given the space above the ceiling that I could spare, the overall finished room dimensions (carefully checked and re-checked using bob golds room mode calculator), thinking about how the final inside finished space would look and almost endless calculations around airflow speed and volume, this seemed the best way to go. The boxes all have at least 2 x 180 degree turns before straightening out as the air approaches the vent and are lined with 25mm fibreglass that is also lined with black material that aims to keep air noise down. It's a Bradford product called Ulratel and the black coating is Ultraphon. The ducting that connects the boxes is also insulated but that is more to keep the air temperature consistent. The HVAC designer has placed additional attenuation in the metal ducting that leaves the air handling unit (all located outside of the outer leaf under the house at the back). I must admit I am still not sure what that attenuation is and will ask him again before the AHU and other bits and pieces get installed. I have been assured (I know I know I'm hoping/accepting to some extent but I am confident that the HVAC designer knows what I need as we talked and talked about the design over several iterations) by the HVAC designer that the only noise issue that I may need to look more carefully at is that generated by the air in the baffle box. But, he suggested the Ultratel/Ultraphon and getting the cross sectional area correct to address that. I am also following the suggestion/guidelines that you have kindly provided, i.e., a quite/low noise air register, having a straight path after the baffles to allow the air to settle down prior to the vent and also those pesky internal dimensions to slow the air as much as possible immediately after leaving the duct and entering the box, i.e., around 100fps. Hence I've ended up with something that maybe overkill :roll: I hope not! On the upside the process of putting it all together is quite straight forward. Just time consuming. We are lifting with a genie lift from a local hire company. They go up easily with the lifter and it is just small enough to roll into the space. It's actually more hassle getting the lifter into the space than using it. The last ceiling panel will be a challenge in a few weeks time. Thanks for checking back in it is much appreciated! Cheers, Ben

Cool. Knowing how you've been approaching this whole build, I figured you had though through it carefully anf come up with a good plan. :thu:

So these boxes are only connected/touching the inner leaf.

Seeing that you are going for over-kill, you might want to consider putting Sorbothane pads between the silencer box and whatever is supporting it, to get just that extra little bit of decoupling: You'll need to do some more math to figure out the thickness and size of the pads, but Sorbothane provide a downloadable app on their website for doing exactly that. If you decide to follow this plan, then you'd add a short wooden "sleeve" that goes down from the box to the register, make the hole through ceiling a few mm bigger than the sleeve, and use extra-soft caulk to seal that up, so there's no physical contact at all between the silencer and the inner leaf. I've done that on a couple of builds, and it works well. That's just in case there might be any slight "rumble" in the box structure itself from the air movement, or from sympathetic resonance, or due to the position of Jupiter relative to Saturn... :) Of course, if it's too late to do that, it's no big deal: it probably only buys you a point or two on the NC or NR scale. But for the sake of extreme overkill... :)

I must admit I am still not sure what that attenuation is and will ask him again before the AHU and other bits and pieces get installed.

HVAC people normally talk about the "insertion loss" of those inline silencers. It's sort of like "transmission loss" for a solid barrier. Sometimes it's just a single number (usually expressed in decibels), but occasionally you get lucky and the manufacturer of the device provides a table or graph showing the performance at various frequencies. See if they can give you that.

by the HVAC designer that the only noise issue that I may need to look more carefully at is that generated by the air in the baffle box.

He's probably right, but you are moving the air so slowly that there should not be two much of an issue there.

But, he suggested the Ultratel/Ultraphon and getting the cross sectional area correct to address that.

Yup! :thu:

I am also following the suggestion/guidelines that you have kindly provided, i.e., a quite/low noise air register, having a straight path after the baffles to allow the air to settle down prior to the vent and also those pesky internal dimensions to slow the air as much as possible immediately after leaving the duct and entering the box, i.e., around 100fps.

" :thu: " applies here too! Except that I think you mean "FPM" not "FPS"... :) 100 FPS = 110 km/hr. 100 FPM = 1.8 km/hr. Slight difference... :)

Hence I've ended up with something that maybe overkill

Then you are DEFINITELY doing it right! In my book "overkill" is a good thing. Studios do not end up awesome by scrimping and cutting corners... they only end up awesome by major attention to detail, and truckloads of overkill.

The last ceiling panel will be a challenge in a few weeks time.

Keep the photos coming! I love watching studios come together. - Stuart -

hi stuart, thanks again ... i wish i had prepped to use something like a sorbothane pad but alas one box is already up and the next is under the lifter tines ready to go up on sunday ... may jupiter and saturn stay perfectly inline !!! :mrgreen: oops yes fpm not fps ... 8) ... we have to vote for a new leader tomorrow and i have some design/development work that i really should get done ... so saturday is a rest day of sorts ... more pics soon ... thanks ben ...

Hi, Here are a few more pics. The live room air return box went up yesterday and the last wall for the live room went up too. We'll sheet the last live room wall today, then get the lintel in for the opposite control room wall in, get that up and close to in place, sheet it and move it to its final location so it can be fixed. Once they are both in place the air gap between the two can be filled and we can get the door frames in and the air covered between the two rooms. The HVAC guys should be here later this week to connect the live room air return in.

Hi again, A bit more progress. We got the live room end wall up today as shown below. Things will go a bit slower until next Monday when we will get the control room front wall up. In the meantime I'll spend some time caulking inside the live room, bonconcreting to seal the points where the duct breaks through the baffle boxes in the live room, cutting rock wool for the live/control room air gap and fyrchek ready for the control room front wall build next week. Once that control room wall is up we will be getting close. Just the control room air in and out baffle boxes, fixing a few more panels that are already built and sheeted and then a few last ceiling panels. After that it's on to the door and window frame install, cover plates made of 18mm MDF for the door and window air gaps (for aesthetics) and then the glass suppliers can drop the laminated panels i. Then some final caulking and all the main heavy stuff will be done. Hopefully that's no more than about two or three weeks away.

:thu: Important milestone reached! It's starting to look like a real studio now, instead of showroom for various bits of building materials... Nice work, too. - Stuart -

Hi Stuart and anyone else following this odessy, It has been a while since I last posted and the pics below might not look like much has been done, but, I am confident that the inner leaf build is well along the way to completion. This Friday The HVAC folk are on site to install the last of the ducting to the control room and to also install the air handler, ducting, fresh air in and stale air dump outside of the studio outer leaf and also the compressor that is outside of the house. At this point I have to acknowledge my step dad who has gone well beyond the limits with his commitment, expertise and building wisdom. Without Bryen this build would still just be getting going. Nothing has been too hard for Bryen and his experience/intelligence leavering heavy baffle boxes and panels has been inspiring to say the least. After 76 years of surveying, engineering and building he makes me look like an old man and heavy panels and boxes 2-3 metres in the air simply bend and move to his will ... :) ... after fixing with heavy gauge bugle screws bearers and framing pulls in spot on straight and true with zero visible gap ... Much respect !!! Below are a few pics of where we are up to. Other than the control room entry door, we only have 4 small ceiling panels to build and they are mostly done, in that the LVL wood and Fyrchek is already cut to size and ready to assemble. We are essentially just waiting for the HVAC folk to do their thing this Friday. Then, inside a week we should be ready for the glass folk to install the laminate. We have infilled all the aluminium frames with a composite mix of Fyrchek offcuts and dense Gyprock plaster to increase their mass. All the door frames and the fixed window have been installed within a fraction of a millimetre into the available frame cavity. There is essentially no space to inject/seal with Green Glue Company's acoustic caulk. Again, Bryen has gone beyond the call to get the fit as tight as ... well you know what ... let's leave it at that ... :shock: The reveals between the LR/CR and the fixed window have pulled up around 1-2mm short of the outer leaf to make sure they do not touch.

A few more pics to bring things up to date ... Knocked down frames prior to back-filling with Fyrchek and heavy Gyprock plaster. We had to have these delivered knocked down and build and fix ourselves as we were not sure if we would be able to walk them in assembled ... http://www.gjames.com pre-built and assembled everything prior to delivery so that all we had to do was make sure that the opening was tight and then re-assemble. The laminate was too heavy for us to handle so GJames are doing the glass install ... LR/CR door frames installed and in place ... the reveal space between has been sealed with acoustic caulk, under-coated twice and will get a final finish coat tomorrow ... we will build the bottom up so that there is no step down between the LR and CR frames. To do this we will use concrete in the 160mm air gap and place 5mm form work to keep the concrete off the door frames. The frames sit up 45mm and the concrete will only be 27mm deep with a 18mm MDF board finishing the space in between to keep the LR/CR threshold level. I'm hoping to find some kind of solid rubber or similar material to provide a ramp either side of the frames to allow road cases to wheel between the rooms. LR window reveal with its first undercoat on. The inner leaf LR window frame ready to be fixed after the final reveal paint has been finished. GJames provided this LR frame un-glazed so that we can fix it off into the inner leaf frame. Sammy our border collie and foregirl on duty watching both the build and her orange ball in the loo outside the build. LR 290mm air return duct passing above the CR on its way back out to the left and then through the 190mm thick concrete outer leaf. do do do looking out the back door ... the house builders actually installed the outer leaf laminated door handle the wring way around so the D handle is in the air gap. This should not be a big issue as there is space to accommodate the D handle. Still I am hoping to flip the D handle and its smaller companion on the other side and accept that the outer leaf door can not be locked given that it will not be possible to also move the lock keeper. Also looking out the back door, towards the alcove where I hope to set up a small desk and work space to support the studio. The Gyprock wall to the right covers the stairs that go up into the house. The area under the stairs will be used to store cases, cables and stands. That's all for now. Cheers, Ben

Howdy, Some good news to report. Today we finished all of the framing and ceiling work fore the inner leaf build. I'll add some new pics very soon. Tomorrow I will be painting the reveal between the control room entry doors, doing a few odd jobs like ordering the inner leaf stud cavity and bass trap insulation and cleaning the space. Then I'll be caulking for about a day I'm guessing. After that we are waiting to hear from GJames to know when they are coming to install the glass, Air Extreme are also due back to finish the HVAC install outside of the outer leaf, we have to build and seal the bottoms of the four baffle boxes, build the speaker soffits, get Andrew back to fit power points and lights, get the engineered boards down (bamboo) and finally finish off with material and skirts. I can see light at the end of the tunnel though and that is a good thing. More soon.

Another update, The AC was all but completed today which is great and there are some pics below. On Wednesday the AC guys are calling through to add a filter to the AHU that was not in stock by today. Also on Wednesday the glass installers are due to install the CR inner leaf door, the LR/CR doors and the LR inner leaf window. I can't wait to get past that point so I can run an initial REW test on the empty, untreated live room. And also get some sort of feel for how well we have achieved our isolation goal. There's a few pics of the finished window and door reveals below. They are all painted and were carefully cleaned today. A final touch up clean on Wednesday morning just before the glass goes in will probably be a good idea. Other than that, there are some pics of the finished inner leaf and also the underside of the first baffle box. The side that can not be seen is lined with 25mm Bradford Ultratel with their black Ultrphon coating to keep fibres in place and to keep things smooth on the inside of the box. I do hope I don't regret going with slots rather than a vent! If these do end up being too noisy then I thought that I would retro-fit custom vents in place by cutting out the slots. Here's the outdoor A/C unit with fresh air in and stale air out vents at the top of the pic. These are 100mm and required coring through the concrete and are plumbed into the AHU with insulated duct. Here's the fresh air in duct from the inside and under the house. All the ducting and AHU have been installed under the upstairs floor by attaching to the bearers. This area is outside of the outer leaf and is also easily accessible if servicing is required. The second pic shows some of the ducting and the AHU. Here is some of where the inner leaf is up to. Essentially it is built and the ceiling area has also been sealed with Green Glue Company acoustic caulk. So more sealing to come. I'm trying to source initial stud treatment (Pink Sonobatts) and if I can get the Sonobatts then I think I'll use the 70mm batt for the walls and a double layer for the ceiling (as there are 150mm bearers I guess I may as well fill them up) and then the 100mm thick version for super chunk bass traps to avoid having too many triangles. Here is the live room window ready for the inner leaf glass and also the CR door too. Finally here is the primed bottom for the CR air in baffle box. That's all for now. Tomorrow I'll be sealing more and cleaning and my step dad will hopefully be back on the saw making more baffle box bottoms. As soon as they are ready I'll be sanding, priming and applying Ultratel. We'll put them all up in one go, most likely using a hired Gyprock lifter as they are heavy 18mm MDF. Ciao

Hi again, A bit more progress which is great. 1. The HVAC is in and tested and runs very well. I can only just hear the CR air out but none of the other ins and outs and that is before the baffle box bottoms (and underside insulation) have been fixed. I am anticipating that any HVAC noise will not be an issue when recording with open mics. Outside the outer leaf and under the house there is a little noise from the AHU such that it that is obvious the unit is running, but, upstairs in the house there is zero noise from the system which ticks all the boxes. 2. The glass install went mostly well as can be seen in the pics below. There were a few issues but the installers were awesome and pointed out all the issues, rang their representative/sales person and just said that the configuration supplied was not up to standard. So, the CR/LR inner leaf door is in but will be adjusted and the paired inner leaf LR/CR door was not supplied as a mirror image of there paired CR/LR door (i.e., the handles were the wrong way around) so it is being replaced, the fixed pane glazing for the LR window was scratched on delivery so it is being replaced and the two inner leaf doors out of the CR are also being adjusted as they have large stabiliser bars on them that intrude into the finished space by roughly 45mm. This is important as these are heavy laminate sliding doors and these stabiliser bars would have been in the way of the RFZ wall that will flow off the speaker soffit. These stabiliser bars were not expected and are usually in place when sliding doors are placed outside to ensure that the middle of the sliding door panel lock together under all conditions, specifically under wind pressure. But, these doors are inside as part of a studio where there is no wind pressure so they are not required and just get in the way of the finished inner leaf. In fact the stabiliser bar on the CR door that makes up the CR/LR pair would also get in the way of the soffit which would have been a real pain. Anyway, the replacements will use the same interlock vertical that is on the inside of the fixed pane and this will mean that both side of all doors are flush with the framing. 3. We also had a first cut at a super chuck bass trap as pictured below. We used left over aluminium angle strips (from the window/doors) at the rear (not visible) to bind 5 x 16mm MDF shelf panels and 23 x 100mm thick Fibretex 350 Rockwool. The shelfs are really only there to allow use to have something to staple/fix plastic and then finishing material to. We also aim to fix the trap to the inner leaf studs through these shelves with a nail or screw to make sure that they can not fall into the room. 4. I have an order of 32kg/m3 Pink Partition insulation doing next Friday to backfill all the inner leaf studs, to build more super chunk traps and also to pack out the rear wall of the CR a further 100mm to increase its absorption. The trap pictured was a prototype and although it took the best part of a day to make (without plastic or finishing material) we now hope to spend a day or so just cutting MDF and aluminium ready to build 5 more (2 for the CR rear wall and 4 for the LR). After that things will unfortunately go a bit more slowly as I am starting a a full time IT/design contract next Monday and my step dad is off to Turkey and Scotland for 4 weeks to visit his daughter and to be at his son's wedding. I'll do my best to keep things ticking along in the evenings and on weekends.

Howdy, It's been a few days since I could post anything as I'm back on contract working on a web/app/ux/ui project at my local uni. The work and folk at work are great, but, it is keeping me from music and finishing my project. Still I guess that is life. My step dad kindly came out today to be home when the Pink Partition batts arrived and he also prepped more of the materials for the remaining five bass traps that I hope to construct over the next few weeks. I'm still waiting for the canvas material I have ordered to finish off the inner leaf, but, the silica gel packs that I am going to place in the window air gap (just in case there is a potential condensation issue) arrived today. Also, still no word from the glass supplier as to when they will be back to finish the last few jobs including the inner leaf window install. I have to say again that GJames have really come to the party with experience and expertise, but, if anyone else is following this thread and are chasing glass in the future then I would recommend asking lots of questions and when you know what you want still insist on talking to the most senior, experienced representative that knows the available products inside out and also knows everything that the most experienced installer knows too. Luckily I had an experienced installer who came to the job and when he saw the install he just said that the order arranged by the rep was not good enough. The rep was ok and I don't want to dish him too much, still, choosing, selecting and placing glass for a specialised, niche purpose requires thought and attention to detail beyond that that is required for a standard install. The installer who arrived at my place really he knew his stuff, he had a decades of experience, was upfront and also knew that his firm's reputation was more important than a quick install. Many thanks to him. Below are a few photos of a room full of Pink Partition batts and a couple of stud cavities filled. After a week on contract and being a Friday evening (i.e., start of the weekend and temporary freedom) I had to dive in and check out the batts. I am happy to report that the Pink Partition batts are very easy to work with. They mark easily with a permanent marker, cut easily with a long bladed knife, and are definitely semi rigid. Cut slightly oversize by 5mm or so they sit snuggly into stud cavities. I'm sure they would also work nicely to fill the inner/outer leaf air gap. I have a few thicknesses that are all 32kg/m3 density. 90mm for the stud cavities, 75mm for the 150mm ceiling beams (i.e., two layers) and 100mm for the CR rear wall in addition to the 90mm that will fill the CR rear wall cavity. If I understand correctly, then my not so large CR needs absorption attention on the rear wall, so at this point I'll start with 190mm and then test to see how the room responds. I'm hoping to get stuck into filling the inner leaf cavities with insulation this weekend. For now, alas it is beer and rest time :shot:

Hey Ben, what can I say except: WOW!!! It's going amazingly, and your attention to detail is excellent. This is going to be one hell of a studio! So when do we get the first "empty room" REW tests? One suggestion: Save all of your insulation off-cuts, bits and pieces, and use them to fill your speaker soffits. No point in throwing away good acoustic damping materials! You can accumulate a lot of bits over the course of a build... :) - Stuart -

Hi Stuart, Thanks for checking back in on me and thanks also of the awesome kind words. Without your wisdom I would never have made it this far. To know that I am not guessing, such that each decision, material and job etc are all underpinned by knowledge and experience means a lot! Thanks yet again! :yahoo:

One suggestion: Save all of your insulation off-cuts, bits and pieces, and use them to fill your speaker soffits. No point in throwing away good acoustic damping materials! You can accumulate a lot of bits over the course of a build... :)

Yep I'll definitely keep all the bits and pieces of offset insulation and what I don't use in the soffits I'll use to start a second hand insulation business :mrgreen:

So when do we get the first "empty room" REW tests?

Hopefully within weeks rather than months. The glass installers should be back inside 2 weeks to install the replaced live room inner leaf window and also adjust the three doors so that the large stabiliser bars are removed. By the time the glass guys come back I also hope to have the CR floor down and the last few little bits of inner leaf insulation in place as well. With any luck I will also have the ceiling batts covered with plastic. Can I check one thing? Is there any point in doing an initial "empty room" REW test before I have built the soffits and the small RFZ wall return off the soffits that I am planning? This weekend I finished sealing the control room with acoustic caulk and spent the rest of the weekend cutting batts and infilling both the live room and the control room. There are some pics below. I am also waiting on some canvas material that I will be using to finish off the interior.

Is there any point in doing an initial "empty room" REW test before I have built the soffits and the small RFZ wall return off the soffits that I am planning?

Strictly speaking, it isn't totally necessary, but personally I do like to have as much data as possible about a room, so I can see how it is changing over time as each part of the puzzle goes in. Having the data for the entirely empty room, then again once the soffits are in, will show you a couple of things: Firstly (and rather obviously!) it will show you how the soffits affected the room modes, and secondly how mounting the speakers in them affected the speaker response. Neither if those is "life or death", of course, but it would be interesting to see both of those, to help determine if something else might be needed, or something might NOT be needed. For example, if the soffits do a good job of broadening the modal response, that might have implications for treatment that you were planning. Etc. If it would be a big issue to run those tests, then don't worry about it. But if you could, I think you'd find it worthwhile. Even just to satisfy curiosity! :) - Stuart -

Hi Stuart, Thanks for the information about testing the empty room. I will definitely run a few empty room REW tests very soon, hopefully next weekend. When I do I will provide Dropbox links to the file/s here. Unfortunately not too much is likely to happen for the rest of this month as my step dad is overseas for 4 weeks and my web contact work and freelance work together are all consuming at the moment. On the upside GJames finished the glass this week and went beyond the call yet again. I have attached a couple of pics that show the LR window. Col and Troy from GJames built a thin aluminium strip that is sitting in the air gap and is filled with the silica gel that I had planned to place in the space to manage any potential condensation that might occur (up to a point, and hopefully as there is a 3 metre deep balcony outside and above the window that will protect and even out the inside and outside temperatures such that condensation does not become an issue at all. I guess I will know soon enough!). I was going to simply place the box of silica gel (the amount was calculated based on the volume of the window air gap using a calculator provided by a US supplier) in between the two panes of glass, but, Col and Troy offered to build a custom holder instead. It looks great as pictured below. They also taped the glazing into the frame rather than fixing it with silicon so that it can be serviced in the future if required. They even removed and reset the widow a second time when we realised that a small bug had managed to fly into the air gap as the glass went in! The 16.5mm laminate on the inside of the air gap is so clean it does not even look like it is there :) It is about 12 metres or so out to the road that can be seen in the picture below and although I am yet to run any real tests with my noise meter when cars and trucks drive past (admittedly it is only a 40km per hour local zone) I can hear absolutely nothing which is great. Also now that all the glass is in, with all doors shut (i.e, the LR and CR pairs) I can hear nothing in either the LR or CR other than silence. I hope to run some real tests very soon and will post the results here. So, things will go quite for a few weeks other than having a first shot at REW next weekend. There is a small chance that I might manage to get my electrician back in the next 4 weeks to get the power and lights sorted and although a long shot I may get the engineered floor down in the control room but I am not going to stress out if that does not happen. I have a nice upholstery material in red for the bass traps and white for the ceilings. The walls will be black and the black canvas was on order but the supplier cancelled my order. I am talking to them at the moment about transferring some stock from another store and I hope that all the finishing material will be on hand very soon. Thanks again, Ben

Hi, Things are still moving a bit slowly now I'm back at work, but, I did manage to get the floor down in the control room over the weekend. Next I hope to get the electrician back to install the power points, lights and cat6 cables. With any luck that will be inside a fortnight. Over the evenings this week I hope to do some isolation testing and also some initial REW tests to see how the rooms are behaving. Next weekend I'm going to look at the best way to get a professional finish on the walls and ceiling now that I have material. At the moment, for the walls, I am thinking that I will simply shoot upholstery stapes into the fabric along the top plate, drop there fabric down to the bottom plate, fix again with stapes so that the material is taught but not tight (i.e no sagging). After I have built the soffits, RFZ wall and put the super chuck bass traps in (and probably based on REW test packed the back wall of the control out with more insulation), I'll cover all the stapes with skirting and paint or stain that. For the ceiling after I cover the insulation with plastic I'll run material over the top, Again get this taught so it does not sag. I'm thinking I'll use stapes again that get shot into the bearers and cover them with the bottom of the baffle boxes. I'll probably also need to find a beading strip that I like for the few vertical wall seams that I will not be able to avoid. There's a few pics of the floor below. Cheers, Ben

Howdy again, Tonight I ran through what I hope is a reasonable rough isolation test of the control room space. Please note that I do not have power in the space yet so I used: * 1 x AER 60W Compact Mobile (battery/AC powered amp): http://www.aer-amps.com/en/products/aco ... act-mobile * 1 x noise meter set to C weighting and slow response * 1 x Macbook Air running iTunes and numerous adaptors i.e., minijack > RCA > 1/4" out to the AER (rough as!) * 1 x Apple external USB CD Rom drive * 1 x Cold Chisel CD (eponymous first album) Following are the slow C weightings from the noise meter. I played Cold Chisel's Daskarzine on a loop with the AER running the channel gain, master and all eq (low, mid and highs) at a stupid 100%: * In the control room 1m from the AER: 105-111dB * Upstairs 3m directly above the control room: 49dB-54dB (This is where our TV and lounge room is) * Upstairs and 5m or so to the side of the control room (47dB-53dB) * Outside the house at the same level as the control room, but, outside the outer leaf, with all studio doors shut and the external door to the house: 46dB-53dB I am also hoping that the isolation will improve a bit more (how much I'm not sure but anything would be better) after the baffle box bottoms are added, thick theatre curtains are placed in the CR and LR/CR air gaps, the inner leaf ceiling has plastic and canvas material and bass traps are added. I'm not too worried if there is no change, but, anything extra will be a bonus. As an aside we live within 70 metres or so from a very large lake (Lake Macquarie) and we are also 20 metres or so from a creek/water course. There is a lot of natural bush about the place and no traffic to talk about even during the day. When there is is traffic, the roads are windy and steep and the speed limit is 40km per hour, so things are relatively quite on that front. Any faster than 40 and you can easily end up in the bush. There is lots of wildlife around through the day and at night the main thing that can be heard are frogs and a few birds. Needless to say that inside the studio space I do not hear frogs at night and during the day I can not hear screeching cockatoos (or cars/people etc) even when they swoop past en masse within a few metres of the house. And with Daskarzine ripping at circa 110dB inside all I can hear outside the outer leaf tonight about 1-2m away was frogs. This is great! The same goes for upstairs. With the tele on very softly all I can hear is the tele. With the tele off I can hear the quite sound of a distant radio. In our bedroom I can not really make out any sound at all above the background of frogs and toward the front of the house there is absolutely no sound other than the sound immediately around you. All up I'm very happy with the result and my girlfriend is too! I hope to do some more precise tests and also move on to REW tests very soon. With any luck the electrician is calling though tomorrow arvo after work, or maybe the following afternoon, to advise on what I need to do (if anything) to prep prior to the power point, cat6 and light installation. Many, many thanks and kudos to Stuart, John and Parris:https://www.facebook.com/parrismacleodband (Parris's studio in Wyong NSW that I believe John designed, started my whole odyssey many years ago!). Hopefully the final finish is not too far away!!! For folks not from here, who may not know Cold Chisel (rip Steve Prestwich) ... the first version of Daskarzine that follows is from 1978, and though awesome it does drift a bit from the studio recording in the solo, yet Don Walker is in fine form on the keys throughout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaKRKigwdCo and here's the same track with Ian Moss in full flight during the guitar solo, this is a remastered recording from their final farewell tour and closer to the studio recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-x3TpYjJqg ... what can i say other than ... do yourself a favour ... 8) ... Cheers, Ben

Hi, My electrician was over before the weekend and hopefully will get to the power points, lights and cat6 very soon. He provided a powerpoint template so that I could build the required plates to mount the power points into. The plates were made from 18mm MDF that was left over from the baffle boxes. So this weekend I made four power point plates and also started to install some of the wall upholstery fabric ready for the when my electrician returns. There are a few pictures below. You can see the HVAC (fan and A/C) controller that I removed and re-installed after upholstery fabric has been added. I will use painted wood skirting for the floor and ceiling joins to hide the material end and perhaps thin, powder coated aluminium strip to cover staples on vertical seams. I have a new found respect for folk who work with fabric! In the end gaff tape was my friend yet again. Gaff was great to hold the material in place prior to stapling. Ciao

Howdy, A few more pics from the weekend, the live room walls are pretty much covered along with the prototype bass trap. Chasing up the electrician this week and hopefully next weekend I'll get close to finishing the live room. Just need to fix plastic and finishing material to the bearers, refit the bottoms of the air in and out HVAC baffle boxes, three more superchunk bass traps to build from pre-cut and prepared materials and then run some skirting/cornice and trim. Then I hope to get cracking on the speaker soffits, baffle bottoms, extra/deeper CR rear wall insulation, plastic/material for the ceiling and some skirting/trim in the CR asap. Then initial REW and any extra wall treatment. Ciao for now.

Hi Stuart, I had hoped to spend this long weekend finishing the live room, but, my electrician has not been through and that means the lights are not in and I really need them done before I can finish the ceiling, put the HVAC baffle bottoms on and then add the final bass traps and skirting. So, with my step dad back we decided to try and tackle the speaker soffit mounting, but, the day quickly disappeared amidst many discussions and reading forum posts. The problem is the slanted edge on my Adam a7x speakers and how best to flush mount them. Around 8 years ago I can see that you posted about the A7 speaker here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11199 In that post 3 options were shown (A, B and C). A was thrown out, B was not really discussed and C was shown in one of John's studios I believe: http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Pages/Somewhere.htm. I get why C is the way to go, but: QUESTION 1: How much better is option C compared to option B sonically/acoustically and why? QUESTION 2: Assuming we go with C, do you have any tips on how to cut the required shape away from the rear of the soffit face? i.e., i) Assuming a soffit face that roughly 1550mm high by 850mm wide and made from 32mm MDF (the large black panel depicted below), would it be best to cut an oversized opening out of the MDF as depicted below (Option i), so that the required cutting out at the rear of this small fill-in face panel is more manageable (The triangular bits shown in blue). I would still have the speakers encased in 18mm MDF with enough opening at the back for venting, and that case would be fixed to a shelf that is in turn fixed to the frame. Both this smaller MDF face panel and the main soffit face panel would also be fixed to the frame to keep the entire build rigid. Any gap around this smaller panel (due to saw blade width) would then be filled with acoustic caulk, get sanded and then the whole face finished with paint etc. The benefit I see here is that the speaker could be serviced in the future by just removing this smaller panel and then sliding the speaker out. ii) Assuming the same sized soffit face in i) above, would it be better to just try to cut a single opening that matches the speaker front exactly and then bevel out the required cuts? In this second option the entire 100kg or so soffit face would need to be removed to service the speaker and that would be a real pain. In addition, this option would mean that we'd be working on a large sheet weighing around 100kg or more and any mistake would mean that the sheet was wasted. At least with option i) there is a chance that the crazy wafer thin tolerance at the edge of the bevel cuts may be possible with a combination of multi-tool, chisel and sandpaper. Also, a smaller piece would be easier to work on and easier to replace if a mistake was made. I want to get this right, but, if option B would result in a very similar result to option C then I would go that way simply because it is easier to do. Otherwise, the best way to achieve option C, is the way I'll choose to go. Maybe, if my option i) is a good way to go then I might also try to see if there is a local carpenter/wood business that has precision cutting tools that could do the required bevelling based on a CAD drawing? That's about it for the moment, this weekend is blown out unfortunately and no work got done other than lots of thinking, forum reading and planning. Thanks, Ben

Howdy, Another week has passed with a little bit of progress but unfortunately no electrician yet. This weekend we built the frame and shelf for the first enclosure to soffit mount the control room speakers. We also finished off the section above the control room door that has the power for the right speaker running behind it. The speaker cables themselves will run in the slab via the conduit that was laid prior to the concrete pour. I decided to run the power for the right speaker from the left hand side soffit, up the wall and through the studs over to the right side. I could have run the power in the conduit, but, I did not want power and audio running in the same conduit. The power point for the speakers will sit on the left wall just inside the left soffit and should be easily accessed from the material covered lower section of the soffit that will have insulation hangers installed. From the power point I will run to a Furman AC-210AE (I know it's probably not necessary but I thought I'd do this anyway) and then out to the left and right speakers. Hopefully the lights and power points are not too far off. As soon as they are in we can finish the ceilings and also the live room. After that it's really just the soffits and another 75mm of extra insulation on the rear control room wall. There are few new pics below.

Oops, I should have mentioned that we have decided to have a go at soffit mounting the Adam A7Xs via option C and the i) variation from a few posts back. This will be a few weeks away and if we muck it up then I'll just have to buy a bit more MDF and get a local craftsman to make the two final panels that we will place around the left and right speakers.

Another small weekend step! Things are moving, but, they are moving between full-time work and other weekend commitments that can not be shifted. Still work is pretty cool at the mo, lots of web graphic design and UI/UX screen design. I'm still waiting for my sparky who has unfortunately been snowed under, but, with any luck lights and points will be in late next week. This weekend we built another superchunk and the frame for the second speaker soffit. We have all the component parts for the remaining (now four) super chunks ready so building these is more about assembling rather than measuring and cutting etc. Early in the framing build there was an attempt to cut templates and knock out components that was unfortunately not successful at all. One thing I have learnt throughout this whole build process is to measure, measure again, measure one more time and definitely stay calm! Nothing can be rushed, the job will take a lot longer than anticipated and nothing can be assumed. Again I can't say enough or thank my step dad enough for his wisdom, skill and attention to detail. There are a few more pics below. As for the coming week, I will order the skirts for the floor, dressed all round (DAR) quad for the ceiling, door and wall framing, some flat aluminium strip to finish off a few vertical material joins and some black and red paint to finish the various mouldings and speaker soffit faces etc. The skirt and DAR etc will be purchased pre-primed to make things a bit easier. The rooms are really starting to look like finished rooms which is great. Though there pics may not necessarily look like that! I also have started to talking to a custom furniture builder who I am hoping to engage to build a custom desk for my mixer, rack gear, monitors, 61 key controller and computer etc. That is unlikely to be ready until about February next year. So I'll use a 1800mm flat table desk in the meantime. Also, rather than an expensive isobox (I did not plan nor do I have room for a machine room!) I have decided to upgrade the fans in my desk's power supply and also my external hard drive enclosure to see if I can quieten them down a bit more. My MacPro is virtually silent bit my SSD enclosure and the desk power supply a a bit too loud for my liking. It will probably take a few more weekends until I can run the first REW test with soffit mounted speakers.