WSR's
Holosonic Home Theatre System Part
II - The Noise Control Acoustical
Foundation
By
Gary Reber
Widescreen
Review's New State-Of-The-Art Reference
Theatre At New Facility
This is Part II of a series of articles on
the design, development and execution of a
new state-of-the-art Reference Home
Theatre Laboratory at WSR's new office
facility.in Temecula, California (north of
San Diego, southeast of Los Angeles) that
serves as Widescreen Review's and Surround
Music's review laboratory. Part I appeared
in Issue 48. Part VII concludes in Issue
53 (October 2001).
Our dedicated theatre measures 26-feet
deep x 21-feet, 8.6-inch wide x 13 feet,
11.9-inch high, or approximately 8,000
cubic feet in volume.
The entire home theatre room and the
rear-projection room were constructed with
the complete QuietZone® Noise Control
System build-materials package from the
Owens Corning Science and Technology
Center Acoustical Design Division. In this
Part II group of articles, Harry Alter and
Norman Varney of Owens Corning write about
the application of the QuietZone approach
as our acoustical foundation for the
theatre. In a separate piece, acoustican
Norm Varney discusses Owens Corning
QuietZone building materials and their
application in our theatre. This is
followed by an article written by Ken
DeLasho, who designed the Noise-Lock Sound
Control Access Systems manufactured by the
Industrial Acoustics Company. With this
interated system of QuietZone building
materials and IAC acoustic doors we were
able to achieve a Sound Transmission Class
rating of STC-63 for the theatre
construction and a STC-61 rating for the
doors. STC is a single number (laboratory)
rating of how well a structure (wall,
floor, door, window partition) reduces
sound passing through it. A minimum STC-60
(partition) performance level is
recommended for home theatre.
Feeney Acoustical Builders, based in Grass
Valley, California, and Hodges
Construction (who also served as our
general contractor on our new building) of
Murrieta, California, were retained to
construct the room. John Feeney and Jeff
Hodges are certified specialists in
fabricating acoustical sound home theatres
using Owens Corning QuietZone building
materials and Industrial Acoustics
Noise-Lock doors.