Sealing off ambient noise is all well and good, but the one thing Greg failed to mention is if he actually put any exterior venting for his HVAC room after sealing the interior completely.  Every item I’ve read about this is there needs to be some way for gases to escape the space from the running units and is usually done with a door that contains venting or slats to let the air escape.

Huh. All of this time spent on soundproofing to hear a pin drop. Did anyone think to put the projector outside the room? If you can hear a pin drop, I bet you can hear the fan kicking on…

The projector runs in the “low lamp” mode so the fan noise is 24db. In my room with no sound on, you can only hear the projector if you stand up beside it. In a seating position, you can’t hear it so boxing the projector was not an issue.
I would diffenitely box a larger projector as the noise floor of the room would be lower than the fan noise.

The furnace is HE unit that is direct vented outside and receives fresh outside air in the cold air returns. There are cold air returns as well in the room.

Man, I thought I was being smart by just turning up the volume to drown out the projector noise

I have low cielling it’s 7 1/2 tall. I like to have a home theater in the Basement? can I ?

“The housing for the recessed ceiling lights was sealed and caulked while a wooden box was built around each one to isolate the fixture from the floor above.”

Um… fire hazard?

By using IC (insulated ceiling) pot light fixtures, there is no issue to be close to insulation, drywall or wood and they are sealed better against drafts or noise passing through them. Only IC units should be used in theaters for this reason. They are “double boxed” to seal them and to prevent fire issues.

The ceiling of this theater is just under 8’ with 3 rows of seating, so 7.5’ is no problem for a great theater!

nice theater…great work
where did you get the popcorn machine, and from where?

thanks

The popcorn machine is the “Metropolitan” and I got it from HTMarket.com.