Home Theatre Room Insulation

Hi guys.
is it worth putting wall insulation (sound deadner) inside the theatre room walls. Does it really make that much difference? And if so what type should i use?
thanks Mark

It depends; are you trying to increase the acoustic performance of the room itself or attenuate sound escaping into the rest of the house?

id also like to know what sound treatment insulation is available in Aus, as I plan on accoustically treating the walls of my future home theatre

J

Jazzman, the same question I posed to the OP applies to you. What effect are you hoping to achieve with any treatments?

is there a product / insulation that will do a reasonable job at both improving accustics whilst containing noise? or are these two totally different requirements? i appreciate that its not going to be the best outcome for either but is there something worth installing that is better than standard?

These are, by and large, two separate things. For instance, you could build your room with metre thick concrete on all sides and it will contain sound extremely well, but sound like crap.

Containing sound involves sealing off and isolating the room from the rest of the house as much as possible. This can get hideously expensive for a full-on effort so you need to ask yourself how badly you need to do it. And despite all your efforts you might go and stick a big subwoofer in and find that it defeats all your sound deadening treatments.

To limit sound transmission, the first thing you'll need to do is close off as many holes in the room as possible. That means not just around doors & windows but gasketing all the power points, cable wall plates, light fittings, etc, because if they aren't sealed then all the staggered-stud construction in the world won't help you. I'm not trying to frighten you though, just trying to point out that your approach will be very much dictated by what you want to do: do you not want to wake the neighbours or not want to wake the baby sleeping in the next room?

Room treatments are another matter altogether. Thick carpeting on the floor, acoustic panels on the wall, bass traps in the corner, these are all things that can be done after the fact to deal with whatever acoustic problems may arise.