There are many studio designers out there. 2 that I'd recommend off the top of my head are
Wes Lachot and our own
Gullfo (Glenn Stanton of Running Brook Design).
The problem with using the Auralex U-boats is that Auralex has not released the specs on them, so that the designer can calculate the number and spacing of the pucks to ensure that they really do float the floor. The pucks have to have the right weight per puck: enough to "compress" the pucks enough that they act as a "spring", but too much so that they "bottom out" and are unable to absorb sound.
To quote a
very good article on the subject:
Quote:
How will you ensure that your floating floor will actually float?
In order to connect two things to each other without the connection point being a bridge for energy to travel across, there must be an elastic polymer ("elastomer"), a spring-like rubber substance. DuPont's "Neoprene" and ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber are commonly referenced in floating floor designs and other engineered acoustic isolation construction devices.
Imagine putting a 15 pound weight on a spring that "bottoms out" at 10 pounds. The spring is completely compressed. The weight is unable to bounce on this overloaded spring, and therefore is not isolated from the surface below.
The same holds true of a lighter weight upon a heavier grade spring. Imagine a 10 pound weight on a spring that does not begin to compress until the weight reaches 15 pounds. The weight is too light to cause the spring to compress, so it too is unable to bounce, and is therefore again not isolated from the surface below.
Now, imagine an entire room floating on springs made of rubber pucks. How do the rubber pucks deflect under the loads of the room? Are parts of the floor loaded more heavily than others? Are the walls erected on top of the floor, and if so, is the weight of the ceiling overhead transferred to those walls? If so, the perimeter of the room is much heavier than its unfurnished middle. How many pucks should be used? How far apart should they be positioned? Should they be closer around the perimeter to account for the additional weight of the walls and ceiling? How much closer? Should the elastomers around the perimeter be harder/stronger so as to handle the additional weight? What about the dynamic loads of the varying number of people and gear that will be inside the room? What about the lifespan of the elastomers under the loads -- how long will they last before they lose their elasticity and "bottom out," rendering them useless?
These are not easy questions to answer! Yet we often see cases where people either do not think of these questions, do not take them seriously when asked, or resort to guesswork when attempting to answer them!
The fact is, a floating floor that is not engineered to account for all of the above questions is most likely doomed to fail to meet its designer's intentions.
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Apart from that, you shouldn't need a sound lock if each door opens into the hallway. In this case, the hallway itself is acting as the sound lock.
The floor plan looks decent, though I'm not sure you need so many small rooms. I'd gravitate toward fewer but larger rooms, as it's difficult to get tiny rooms like that to sound good. It seems like there is some "wasted space" in the bottom right of the drawings; what is that triangular structure that the hallway curves around? Is it important enough to lose so much room space over?