I may have misunderstood. The only dot and dab I’ve ever seen, including where we are now in rental accommodation, is adhered with clumps (the dabs) to sparse, thin wooden frames. I could kick my walls down if inclined. If tapped lightly they ring like a drum. If we owned the place I’m currently in I’d be replacing every internal wall.
I mistakenly assumed you were up against the same problem. i.e. walls barely worthy of the name.
But going back to earlier statements, it all depends on one’s appetite for having the builders in again versus compromising with what you’ve got. Everyone’s different. To me, it’s totally normal to start tearing up a property, putting in floors, different walls, you name it; not because a place needs renovation but because it’s natural to not care to compromise and no place, old or new, is likely to match my must have list close enough.
SQ improvement - with regard to the dedicated radial my setup at the time (CDX 2, 282,Supercap, 250.2, ATC SCM12) sounded great when we moved in. In the old house it was on a standard ground floor socket ring main.
With regard to adding mass to walls and floors, each room is quieter with less vibration. That’s got to be good for listening to music. My young daughter can now sleep when I’m having a late evening Led session.
To me (and I’m no sound proofing expert) you can either isolate with fancy clips and battens with studio grade double plaster boards or insulate by adding mass to walls and ceilings, gap proof doors and add mass to floors with heavy matting. The perfect solution is both.
The construction of a modern UK first floor is one massive void. It’s a hollow, great big echo chamber! Filling it with stuff will help all aspects of modern living. Unwanted sound is noise, and it’s noise that irritates so many of us.
Some great websites in the UK, just Google ‘soundproofing’ for advice and products.
Dot n dab I know and hate is big blobs of adhesive (cement?) on a solid (brick or block) wall, apparently randomly placed, with plasterboard pressed to that so it sticks. Sufficient in number for the plasterboard not to flex in normal room use, and gap between plasterboard and wall maybe 1-2.5 cm (that from observation of ones I’ve had the misfortune to have to have to do something with).
I’m in the US I’ve never heard of Dot and Dab… In the US if you had a Cinder Block wall which is typically the Basement. One can’t just slap up sheetrock. The wall has to be framed out because code still requires electrical outlets. Also the tops of the walls have to be finished with fire resistant sheet rock, or the room won’t pass code.
Having lived in a couple of new builds in recent years, I can reassure you any room can be treated to make it ideal, so don’t fret.
I think you have made the best move any music-lover can make - to a detached house. No more worrying about the neighbours when you want to crank up the volume
I live in a 20 year old detached house.
SL2s up against a dot n dab wall but placed on a concrete floor, personally I feel the concrete floor plays the biggest plus factor with the SL2s as the system sounds stunning and times to perfection.
I really don’t think dot & dab plasterboard would be a problem for room acoustics, even with Naim speakers. It should be very solidly attached to the masonry wall behind it, and won’t bounce around like a stud wall.
It doesn’t bounce around, nor does stud wall, its the void space thats the problem.
Speakers like sbl’s, sl2’s just wont produce the bass as well as they would with a nice solid wall
The only way the voids in a stud wall will vibrate is if the vibrations are transferred to it through the plasterboard. It’s likely that the entire structure will vibrate. Plasterboard stuck to a solid masonry wall with dot & dab adhesive is rigidly coupled to the wall, and will behave quite differently.
It has areas unsupported/undamped so each area between dabs, with its airspace behind will have its own vibrational resonance pattern, though the variability of dab spacing is likely to provide a wider spread of frequency effect, which is likely to be better than a more tuned effect (unless latter happens to be at a frequency where it may effectively absorb an unwanted peak). On the other hand if plasterboard on a timber or metal frame is packed with mineral wool, which on internal stud walls is what should be done for acoustic insulation, that also could provide considerable damping.
Well working on homes fitted with dot and dab plaster board, i can tell you it varies massively how its been installed, also the gaps between the board and block.
Its randomly placed and as the adhesive is quite expensive, most use as little as possible, its ment to have a solid joint, top and bottom to help prevent air flow, but you hardly see it done, so the void space can be huge and even extend into the floor space above.
As said above a stud wall might have insulation in it , if you are lucky and might be better for it.
But i can certainly say naim speakers certainly work much better against a solid rear wall, as been there
My system is located in a through lounge that measures approx 36x13 foot. The speakers (LS50s) are spaced about 6 feet apart, a little in front of one of the short walls, so as to avoid backing onto a floor to ceiling window. The normal listening position is about 10 feet from the speakers. I have always thought that the sound is compromised by the internal stud wall, and that it could have been improved if additional soundproofing could have been added at the time of construction. Having said that, I do feel that the best listening position is sat higher up on an exercise bike, that is located some 6 feet further back from the speakers. This position is also more central. I have toyed with the idea of adding sub woofers, and one of the reasons that I have not followed this up is that I fear the stud wall would interfere with the sound to a greater extent with the stealthier base output?
Best room to use for Hifi is a room with at the least one exterior wall and more are better. Exterior walls are of course much sturdier than interior walls. My system is setup in a room with two exterior walls. Great bass and very quiet. Little to no resonance, except for BIG BASS from the REL S-510 even then not so bad.
Room dimensions have far more effect on acoustics than construction materials in my experience. For example, the last two rooms I used both had stone walls on all sides and direct to earth concrete floors. The acoustics of both were really bad, with uncontrollable bass nodes. I’m now using a first floor room with a suspended timber floor and a couple of stud walls. With no attempt at room treatments etc. it’s by far the best room I’ve used.
Not sure I think room construction is so back seat to dimensions but I totally follow what you are saying. I think the missing variable in this is the speakers. You can have a well proportioned room and solid construction and speakers that don’t get along and awful dimensions and construction with speakers that don’t seem to trigger any problems.
I’ve experienced everything in between. Construction was always a problem in my last place with my last speakers. Construction is far worse now with every wall hollow like a drum and low ceilings. The current speakers seem perfectly okay with it.
So it comes back to dealing with what you can in the room while it’s feasible to so. Then, if the current speakers don’t work, go shopping!