Im looking for a solution to my large bright booth's door to the main recording room (the only door actually in the booth).
It needs to have an opening of 6 feet or so and meet pretty heavy isolation requirements. The walls are double separate 2x4 walls with 2 layers 5/8ths Drywall on either side insulated with pink fiber glass.

So far the best solution given i want a glass door, seems to be a modified patio door with 2 layers of laminate glass; one layer 6 ml the 2nd 4 ml.
I could mount this window assembly in one wall and bring the 2nd wall assembly up close and acoustically calk it to the frame, same as a regular wall to ceiling drywall connection. Unfortunately this door is around 4 grand.

Any other cheaper ideas? I need to get a baby grand in and out of there.

Sorry, I only have more expensive ideas... but they will work.

Are you wanting the large reflective surface?? Do you need see through there?

In any case, I would recommend double, hinged doors for High STC partitions. Glazed and standard hinged doors are preferable to sliding doors as they are able to achieve a positive compression seal against the door frame when fitted with acoustic seals. Door bottom drop seals will be required if your door stop & rubber seal system does not extend 360 degrees around the door on the threshold. Page photo attached of page 20 from Zero International catalog.
This is necessary if you are going to roll a piano in and out of the room. The track system of a slider will become fouled with constant traffic across it as well as being difficult with heavy equipment rollers. - The same goes for thresholds with compression seals, hence the need for the door bottom drop seals.

As for glazing; You have 2 layer of 5/8" gypsum board on each side which constitutes a mass of 5.2lbs/ft2. You MUST match that mass with the glass or you might as well have used 1/2' drywall on the entire assembly. You will need laminated glass with a minimum thickness of 3/8"... so, One piece of 3/8 and the other should be 1/2". -- in metric this is: 2 layers of gypsum board = 23.4kg/2, so the glass needs to be a minimum of 9mm and the second piece should be thicker.

Cheers,
John

Thanks John, i'm not seeing an attachment, where do i look for that?
Also i should note the floor is concrete with heating in the floor so the assembly has to sit on that.
I'll try to find the pic you referenced.

Regarding wanting the reflective surface, i want the room to be bright, there will be a diffuse rock wall in the back opposite the window.

Well, I thought it attached... I'll try again.

concerning the large glass... Then make sure that either the glass or the rock wall is angled. You don't want them parallel.

Cheers,
John

Thanks John, yes the walls are splayed.

I'm still in the market for some doors like you mentioned above John, do you know anywhere in Canada one might look for them?

Your best bet is to buy Rod's book and build them.. or you can build my sand-filled versions. Basically, the doors should match the mass of the walls. We also build them here in Indonesia and ship them.

Cheers,
John

Can hyou give more information on the doors you are looking for and your location? Canada is kinda big.

Kinda big too,
Andre

I'm in the Yukon.
I'm looking for sliding glass door options as mentioned above, not solid core, those i will build myself.
Thanks for any info.

bump

what options do you have? you could look into exterior grade sliding doors back to back - these usually provide a good level of isolation and visibility and usually are 1/2 the cost of equiv acoustic doors. another is a large window set next to a glazed panel door - good visibility and tends to be something you can build with higher isolation than the commercial exterior sliders.

As far as triple/quad leaf systems then wouldn't 2 2x pane glass doors kind of be against the rule of keeping only 2 leafs?

yes there is consideration for that but if you're on a budget or don't have the ability to construct the windows and doors, then you take a slight loss in this regard. it's probably minor and keep in mind studio designs are typically a series of compromises made to hit budget, aesthetics, acoustics, workflow, etc.

John do you know of a Canadian dealer for this type of door?

Another option of course would be to construct a hinged wall section - properly sealed - with a standard door as a part of the installation - the wall could have a window in it as large as you wished - and only when you need to move the piano do you have to open the wall - the rest of the time you simply use the man door.......

The pic below is am example of this minus the window.. it still maintains excellent isolation levels - however the devil is in the details with this approach..

Rod

something almost like the double door John described but perhaps planning to leave the "window" side closed per Rod's idea.

I like this concept.
If i built the doors could i get enough isolation with both pieces of glass in one door, sort of a super door with glass?
Maybe a hybrid of John's sand door and glass?

You could limit the amount of glass if that was more cost effective and create the rest of the door as super door or sand door. I'd probably build this with a removable post between the window and door to ensure best operation of the seals and make it more rugged.

But both panes in one door like the pic?

a window in each, or one is a full window and the other solid. really a matter of aesthetics and cost of the glass versus other mass

But i mean for isolation, are you talking about one door with 1 pane of glass or one door with 2 panes of glass in it, or two doors layered with one pane each?

the layers for doors and windows should either match your MSM configuration of the walls, and/or bring a similar amount of mass as compared to your inner wall (so if you chose to use a single layer of window and door, then it should at least match the inner wall mass, and if there were exterior, then i would add another layer of window and door on that exterior wall to avoid significant reduction in the TL.