A Dedicated Listening Room - Part 2

[Dave Burke]

It's been a little over 3 months since I posted on my project to create a new dedicated listening room, so I thought I should provide a further update on progress.

With the block-work complete to form the new room I turned my attention to the ceiling which needed replacement as I wanted to provide a degree of acoustic isolation from the rest of the house. The first step was to bring down the old ceiling which to say the least was a messy job.

The construction of the new ceiling involved adding a number of additional wooden battens to allow 2 layers of Soundbloc plasterboard to be installed then lifting the first layer of boards in to place.

The board hoist just about made this a one man job, but it was a major work-out! With the first layer in place I could position the second layer which was first covered in a layer of Green Glue acoustic damping compound to improve the sound-proofing.

The Green Glue dries to the consistency of chewing gum and acts as a viscoelastic damper; at least that's the theory which will be tested in a couple more months. With the new ceiling in place and the new electrics installed I was ready for the plasterer. The electrics are shown in the following picture and consist of 2 10mm radials and a standard ring plus provision for both cat6 and fibre networking.

The plasterer arrive in early July and suddenly the room began to really take shape.

One last building job remained which was levelling the floor to remove the 5cm drop into the middle of the room where there was once a drain. The original use of the annex was a wine making room as the original builder of the house was a keen home wine maker and must have wanted to be able to wash the floor down easily. No wine will be made in the future, but I imagine some may well be consumed! The picture below shows the primed floor ready for the levelling compound to be applied. This actually had to be done in 3 stages and this is the final one.

Green Glue in the ceiling and Green Bag floor levelling... hope the Naim kit feels at home with all this green!

The final stage once the floor had set was skirting boards so I am now ready for the decorator to arrive later in September. If all goes to plan carpets will be laid in early October and the room will be ready later this month for the system to be relocated.

New furniture is also starting to arrive as this room will also be used as my office.

I'm really looking forward to completion and I will of course provide further updates here on how it all actually sounds.

Best regards to all at the Tom Tom Club!

Dave.

[Scott Brown]

It is really starting to take shape Dave...bet you can't wait to hear what it sounds like!

Scott.

[Dave Burke]

Thanks Scott, it's coming along, but has been a long journey. I'm just finalising my initial order from GIK having spent some time choosing colours and textures that contribute towards the overall feel of the room as well as creating an acoustically benign environment. Hopefully it will sound pretty good from the outset, but will probably need some fine tuning.