John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

could this be correct?

STC Noise Ratings of PLEXIGLASS Sheet
Construction thickness STC
Plexiglass sheet (0.118")* 25
Plexiglass sheet (0.236") 29
Plexiglass sheet (0.472") 33
Plexiglass sheet (0.944") 35
Plexiglass sheet [(0.236") air space (0.177")] 38
*Estimated from measurements of .236", .472" and .944" sheet
from http://www.soundzero.org/specs.htm

Two lites of 1/4" laminated glass in an IG unit with 1/2" airspace provide an STC rating of 42. This compares with two pieces of monolithic 1/4" glass in an IG unit with a 1/2" airspace, the STC rating would only be 35. The higher the STC rating, the better the performance.
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The plexi supposedly is only about 2 dB worse than plain glass for 1/4" - still, laminated glass beats either by quite a bit. Also, plexi tends to do the "incredible shrinking, growing, twisting" thing much more than glass - for that reason alone, I'd keep looking. Remember, air gap makes more difference than plate thickness - if you can spare the wall thickness, it's a cheap way to improve things... Steve

so what is the recomended thickness/ space/ angle for glass?

terrible_buddhist wrote:so what is the recomended thickness/ space/ angle for glass?

The magic window answer

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... indows.htm

The only thing I'm curious about is can I make the studio window true to vertical, and slant the inside window without too much loss or transmission.

Technically, I don't need a window since the console faces away from the vocal booth. Just worked out that way based on the room.

I just found that page...I was coming back to post my own answer...dammit

I thought I had read more than I actually have...back to the studying!

knightfly wrote:The plexi supposedly is only about 2 dB worse than plain glass for 1/4" - still, laminated glass beats either by quite a bit. Also, plexi tends to do the "incredible shrinking, growing, twisting" thing much more than glass - for that reason alone, I'd keep looking. Remember, air gap makes more difference than plate thickness - if you can spare the wall thickness, it's a cheap way to improve things... Steve

any thoughts on laminated vs. tempered glass
The booth window is be 3' x 5', in a rock/2x4/rock wall(24" oc) separates the booth and CR. So the glass STC should match the wall's STC. This is just a temp. setup for about a year, then I'll go all out on the permanent studio.

oh....and I'm trying to find a STC on those"STANLEY" Steel covered wood core door's from Home Depot(like $98).

Thanks

Laminated, definitely. If you use RC on one side of the wall, I'd try to find a way to "float" that pane of glass too. Dissimilar weights on opposite leaves helps with glass same as wallboard. Glass weighs roughly 3 times what sheet rock does per thickness, so the rule of thumb is to use 1/3 the thickness of the total wallboard layers on each side of the wall. In practice, go up to the next available size. So if one side has 3/4" sheet rock, use 1/4" or 5/16" glass on that side. Wider air gaps help Low freq. Transmission Loss, so whatever you can gain there is useful. Tilting of glass, unless you have at least 8" air gap, has questionable value from what I've read. What you gain from flutter control you lose in isolation. Lighting glare is helped by slanting, but I think I'd slant BOTH glasses the same way to maintain air space unless I had really thick walls... Steve

Oh, no idea on the Stanley doors - HD discontinued the good ones with the magnetic seals, probably Stanley's doing - bummer...

Thanks

Safety glass everywhere, just because people are stupid, oblivious, darwinian creatures that are mindless zombies.

More than a decade, I co-owned a professional studio, and a bass player managed to stick his headstock, and his hand, through a side window.

We had a drummer nail an track light with a drum stick and dented the bell no less than five times.

Another time I found a drumstick piercing the front grill of an in-wall a/c unit.

Found a teddy bear hanging from a ceiling fan in the kitchen, using a mic cable.

Holes in sheet rock, dents in door knobs from banging them with large amps on casters, you name it.

If its your studio, and you're going to be the only person in it, ever, then do what you like. Once you invite a non-yourself human you have to sorta "childproof" your studio just because if something can be broken, or someone injured, it WILL happen.

Trust me on that one.

Lowes sells a good door with a magnetic seal.

The Reliabilt

Here is some info and a pic

<img src = "http://www.lowes.com/images/general/bra ... eddoor.gif" /img>

Hope this helps.

Bryan Giles