Noisy ceiling

[ChrisSU]

@Hani

If I do go down this road, I guess i will be starting a new thread with my experience, pictures of the work done, the before and after measurements and my personal view of the impact of all of it. I think it will be helpful for users who have gypsum ceiling or false ceiling and who happen to experience something similar but are not sure how to go around it.

I had a slightly similar experience a few years ago, when I was refurbishing a bedroom above the listening room. I had to lift some of the timber floorboards, and so had easy access to the space without disturbing the plaster ceiling below. Being an old house, the cavity was full of debris (plumbers and electricians tend to regard these spaces as convenient rubbish bins). There were also a number of water pipes and electrical cables just lying loose on top of the plaster. Regulations dictate that these should be secured to the joists, but they weren’t. So there were a mass of loose objects just lying on the plaster, free to vibrate with the sound from below. There was one redundant copper pipe that was clearly vibrating against the plaster when music was playing.
I was able to remove or secure all of the loose items, and this had a quite noticeable ‘cleaning up’ effect on the sound in the room below.
So I would encourage anyone who can, to have a look in the cavity above or below your listening room and see if it needs cleaning up.

[Hani]

Hello @ChrisSU, did you secure the pipes by just making sure they are screwed in properly, or have you used any damping material to reduce vibrations? Have you added any extra layers of soundproofing such as rockwool or MLV (mass loaded vinyl)?

You mentioned that there was a noticeable “cleaning up” of the sound, was that just in terms of the annoying vibrations going away or have you actually noticed an improvement in sound stage or any other aspects of your system?

[ChrisSU]

Hi Hani
I just used ordinary pipe clips and cable clips, the type that a plumber or electrician would use, to secure the pipes and cables to the timber joists. I think the main problems were cables, and in particular one redundant copper pipe, that were just lying loose on top of the gypsum, free to vibrate against it. There was also a lot of loose debris lying on top of the boards which I was able to clean away.
I did add a layer of ordinary rockwool to the space, but this was just for thermal insulation, so I doubt it had much effect on the acoustics.
Having access to the space from above certainly made life easier!

The real difference in the sound was just that separation of instruments was clearer, making the music easier to follow. I suspect all those items vibrating on top of the ceiling must have been audible from below when music was playing.

[Hani]

Thanks for sharing @ChrisSU, i will be starting very soon with my ceiling adventure.