Glass Door STC 51 --- is this enough?????

hey gang, Getting set to buy an external door for my recording space from a local studio door maker. Anyway my question is this ... will a 51 STC rated door do the trick for me, ah you say well that depends. Well here is my situation , we have a recording space 20' from the road which has moderate traffic (for IL) but the real problem is my lawn enthusiast neighbors that will ---- i kid you not --- mow for a upwards of 10 hours at a time; and i have several neighbors like this and they take turns cycling the days. IE very hard to ever have a quiet moment for recording strings and such. One of the mowers, i swear, must have a glass pack on it -- IT IS LOUD. Now we are taking the pain to build sound prooof walls and ceiling but i am concerned with the door in question ... can you guys help me out with some input. Will a 51 STC door be enough? jeffrey

Probably not; STC isn't a good indicator of what works for music frequencies. IF you could post a (zipped) mp3 of your neighbors' favorite toys at work, it might help figure out what frequencies need the most attenuation... Steve

First off thanx for responding to my question. - i don't have a recording exactly (i have the stuff on many recordings in the background - just not intentionally). But the sound sources are: riding lawn mowers, weedwackers, and the ever pointless LEAFBLOWERS (2 stroke engine). The rest of the studio is a doulble wall with a single side of 2lbs MLV so far, with plans for standard 3/4 sheet rock or quietrock/supress if still needed. The door company is charging 6k for the door so I want to make sure i'm getting what i need. thanx again jeffrey

My room is about STC 55-60 and: We have a major road about 100feet away and even with double walls, suspended ceiling etc you can still hear the odd low engine rumble, especially when trafic stops/starts at the lights on a still night or some dude on a motor bike or car burns it up. I also found that when the neighbour starts the lawn mower you can still hear it clearly in my live room (greatly reduced, but it's still there) - luckly it's a small lawn and he only mows it once a month or so and I usually track at night when he can't mow!! I was surprised at what STC50 actually is: - it's not that much really, especially at the low end. JohnG

roughly wrote:

The rest of the studio is a doulble wall with a single side of 2lbs MLV so far, with plans for standard 3/4 sheet rock or quietrock/supress if still needed.

Hey Jeffrey, Please slow down. You've already wasted your money on the MLV and you're thinking about wasting even more on Quietrock. Get acquainted with the "Search" feature on this site. Search for MLV and for Quietrock and you'll be overwhelmed with threads that consistently debunk the merits of those products -- at least in terms of their dollars-to-results ratio. Please review the "Before You Post" announcement and be sure to follow the link to the "Reference Area" thread. If you have already read it, read it again -- I lost count of how many times I had to look at it before I started getting a clue... ;-) ...Because the more I studied here, the more everything started to make sense and the dots started to get connected. I too did my "research" before arriving at this site, and I had gone so far as getting those clowns on the phone and nearly buying their products before I spend a few weeks here and learned the truth about them. There is no shortage of purveyors of soundproofing. None. They're all over the place, and some of them have fantastic Web sites. Of course I'm using "fantastic" in the "of or relating to fantasy" context. Fortunately Steve has already set you straight on using STC as a yardstick. I hope you don't think I'm being mean or disrespectful in this post -- I'm just trying to rescue you from wasting (more of) your money before it's too late. It took me about nine months of planning and research here before I had plans solid enough for me to apply for my building permit. You would be wise to do the same. :) --Keith :mrgreen: