Choice of ceilings for music room?

[FauxHall]

Starting a retirement home build, like so many others here, but I'm building in the Philippines. The basic construction here is reinforced concrete foundations, columns, and header tie beams, with tiled concrete slabs floors. Walls are plastered cement "hollow-block" filled with concrete. Metal roofs are on welded steel rafters,

We'll have high ceilings, of course, but what to make the ceilings of is the question.

They sometimes use marine plywood and sometimes stuff call Hardeflex which is a cement-fiber composite. Wood is generally avoided due to the aggressive tropical termites. Gypsum board seems rare but I could be wrong.

Sometimes they use "ceiling systems" which I take can be suspended acoustic tiles. I'd have Persian carpets on the tile floors and wall and corner acoustic treatments, along with bookshelves. There would be thermal insulation like rockwool above the ceiling too.

If I got fancy, I'd make the ceiling non-parallel to the floor to create more room nodes.

How important or helpful would acoustic ceiling material be over a more reflective, and economical, options?

 

[tomlinmgt]

Starting a retirement home build, like so many others here, but I'm building in the Philippines. The basic construction here is reinforced concrete foundations, columns, and header tie beams, with tiled concrete slabs floors. Walls are plastered cement "hollow-block" filled with concrete. Metal roofs are on welded steel rafters,

We'll have high ceilings, of course, but what to make the ceilings of is the question.

They sometimes use marine plywood and sometimes stuff call Hardeflex which is a cement-fiber composite. Wood is generally avoided due to the aggressive tropical termites. Gypsum board seems rare but I could be wrong.

Sometimes they use "ceiling systems" which I take can be suspended acoustic tiles. I'd have Persian carpets on the tile floors and wall and corner acoustic treatments, along with bookshelves. There would be thermal insulation like rockwool above the ceiling too.

If I got fancy, I'd make the ceiling non-parallel to the floor to create more room nodes.

How important or helpful would acoustic ceiling material be over a more reflective, and economical, options?

I'm in the process of building a 19x26 (with vaulted ceiling) dedicated listening room and have what is pretty much a blank canvas in terms of interior finish out...so I have the luxury of making every design decision advantageous in terms of creating an optimized room response for music playback. I follow several studio design/construction and acoustics discussion groups where the acoustic engineers and studio designers hang out. I've presented my scenario, asking how to best approach my ceiling (and the rest of the room) and the consensus is to make the entire ceiling absorptive in the 80-250 Hz range by installing r19 (6" thick) fluffy insulation with the paper backing facing into the room and covering it with a somewhat heavy yet acoustically transparent fabric...and in my case I'll be using 10 oz cotton/poly blend duck canvas. Then treat the early reflection locations on the ceiling with 2" or 3" thick broadband absorption panels using rigid fiberglass or rockwool. This makes an entire boundary surface where low frequency energy accumulates one big bass trap without being totally absorptive/dead (the paper backing on the fiberglass reflects mid range and high frequency energy). And if your ceilings are high enough, you may not even need the broadband absorption panels. The only drawback is there is no rigid surface for mounting lighting, but that's solved easily enough by creating rigid panels from plywood that could provide a mounting surface for the light fixture.

 

[FauxHall]

Wow, Tomlinmgt, that sounds perfect - well designed! However, that's probably over my budget and beyond the technical capacity of the local builders.

My room will likely be 4 x 5 meters with 3 meter ceiling. I'll want that extra rockwool or fiberglass in any case, just for the thermal protection.

I'll check on the acoustic tile performance for available products (I'm literally in the "boondocks" - a Filipino word.)

Hopefully I can come up with an effective compromise. Note that we have considerable security concerns too as thieves sometimes enter through the soffits and the ceilings.

 

[totem]

"boondocks"

In Canada you can still find "boondocks" used if your of a sufficiently aged vintage.

 

[tomlinmgt]

In Canada you can still find "boondocks" used if your of a sufficiently aged vintage.

We still say it in Texas! But it's been condensed over time to "the boonies".

 

[grinx76]

Wow, Tomlinmgt, that sounds perfect - well designed! However, that's probably over my budget and beyond the technical capacity of the local builders.

My room will likely be 4 x 5 meters with 3 meter ceiling. I'll want that extra rockwool or fiberglass in any case, just for the thermal protection.

I'll check on the acoustic tile performance for available products (I'm literally in the "boondocks" - a Filipino word.)

Hopefully I can come up with an effective compromise. Note that we have considerable security concerns too as thieves sometimes enter through the soffits and the ceilings.

TIL

Why is it called boondocks?

The word "Boondocks" derives from the Tagalog word "bundok" which means "mountain". The word came into American use after the Philippine-American War when returning military personnel used the term. It became a slang word for suburban or rural areas.

TY Knowledge!

 

[FauxHall]

It is in regular use here in the Philippines in both local speech and when conversing in English.

Another ceiling design popular here is tray ceiling with indirect lighting. Crews know well how to build those.

How could tray ceilings behave acoustically? How to optimize?

 

[tomlinmgt]

So a tray ceiling would be formed from drywall?

 

[grillebilly]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UVT436M?tag=producerhive-20

or economy models https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VDTR22...jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

 

[FauxHall]

So a tray ceiling would be formed from drywall?

I'll have to check. Just learning about home construction here.

They prefer two story houses so the ground floor's ceiling is the concrete floor of the story above. Given this is my retirement home, we're sticking to a single level albeit a bit elevated above grade for protection from typhoon floods.

 

[Bob in WI]

Not of the caliber discussed above but I covered a drywall ceiling w USG Sandrift tiles.
Left an inch between the ceiling & tile so they weren't right up tight against the ceiling.
Worked pretty well reducing slap echo & HF reflections.
Never did solve the problem w bass nodes in that room.
Good luck. They sure construct differently in the tropics.

 

[Swann36]

I'm in the process of building a 19x26 (with vaulted ceiling) dedicated listening room and have what is pretty much a blank canvas in terms of interior finish out...so I have the luxury of making every design decision advantageous in terms of creating an optimized room response for music playback. I follow several studio design/construction and acoustics discussion groups where the acoustic engineers and studio designers hang out. I've presented my scenario, asking how to best approach my ceiling (and the rest of the room) and the consensus is to make the entire ceiling absorptive in the 80-250 Hz range by installing r19 (6" thick) fluffy insulation with the paper backing facing into the room and covering it with a somewhat heavy yet acoustically transparent fabric...and in my case I'll be using 10 oz cotton/poly blend duck canvas. Then treat the early reflection locations on the ceiling with 2" or 3" thick broadband absorption panels using rigid fiberglass or rockwool. This makes an entire boundary surface where low frequency energy accumulates one big bass trap without being totally absorptive/dead (the paper backing on the fiberglass reflects mid range and high frequency energy). And if your ceilings are high enough, you may not even need the broadband absorption panels. The only drawback is there is no rigid surface for mounting lighting, but that's solved easily enough by creating rigid panels from plywood that could provide a mounting surface for the light fixture.

I'm not building anything but this is really interesting as maybe one day i will be ..so a big thanks for posting what you've learned

 

[FauxHall]

So just back from a month the Philippines. Got a crew clearing the lot and building the obligatory 2 meter tall concrete block wall around the parameter.

I did learn that gypsum board is rarely used for home construction here. I suspect the reason is the high humidity.

What they do use is called "plasterboard" which sounds like a fiber/cement material. This article says it has higher installation labor costs than gypsum board ("drywall") but that is not a big factor here - https://upgradedhome.com/types-of-ceiling-boards/

In any case, the ceiling material will be attached to metal framing. They like to reserve wood to doors and door casings where they will often use gorgeous Philippine mahogany.

Here's some progress photos of the wall in case you're interested. Still a long time yet to plan the interior ceilings.

 

[Ross6860]

Is the wall to keep things out, or keep things in?

 

[FauxHall]

Petty crime is endemic and foreigners are prime targets. The German guy nearby adds barbed wire.

Not dangerous so much as deterable.

 

[idf.bts]

For a listening space, with proper room treatments, I will take 6 concrete faces all day.

Keep the pics coming.

 

[bluesky]

I like the kind of overhead that keeps the rain out.

 

[sqlsavior]

Maybe ask them how they would do a sloping ceiling? If you want to go nuts, non-parallel walls, too!

 

[idf.bts]

My space has 14 walls, vaulted ceilings at 4 different heights, some concrete some timber & two floor heights. It,s a nightmare. I would prefer a rectangular room properly treated, still hearing the last CD you played after you changed it is off-putting. Although sometimes entertaining... Yeah keep the development pics coming, I have a place in Bali and similar methods were used, sod all re-bar and buckets of what could loosely be called concrete, catapulted to the next next level on bamboo stalks and every time your not looking a bucket of dirt is added, hope its not the case here but it would be remiss of me not to mention it. Also It pays long term to defoliate all around the footings too, No trees...

I don't know much about the Philippines and the people, but the methods look similar.. No judgement intended . Also the Balinese are wonderful people mostly. I have not been back since Covid, and often think about the friends over there..But I digress, again...

Not to get technical, but 6 faces don't have to be parallel and I didn't mean it that way. If I had it to design, I would adopt some form of music hall influenced design where the gear is where the stage is, and the room expands out from there. People that have listening spaces that are smaller at the back than at the "front" where the gear is are often doing it wrong. You generally don't want to play the music into a compressing space like that, it will sound that way.

 

[FauxHall]

Five of the six surfaces will be parallel. The sixth, the ceiling, will only be non-parallel to the floor if the wifey settles for a small and simple kitchen.

In other words, not likely. The music room will be a rectangular box.

But that's not so bad. Most classical music venues were built as shoe boxes and only adapted the converging designs as pressure for more seats was supported by improved architectural acoustics - see Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and Disney Hall in Los Angeles for modern examples. Boston Symphony Hall and the Vienna's Musikverein are two old school examples. The shoe box design maxes out at about 1500 to 2000 seats but always had many diffusing features to spread the sound. I'll have many book shelves and bass trapping foam in the corners.