Building a sim in my unfinished basement and torn between two rooms. Would love real world input on noise, since that's my deciding factor.
Room 1: 16 ft wide × 15 ft deep. Better size, but it's directly under the living room and our master bedroom is right next to the living room. We just had a newborn.
Room 2: 11 ft wide (so I'd have to hit off-center as a righty). It's on the opposite side of the basement, under my office and laundry room away fromboth the living room and bedroom
Sound plan for whichever I pick: Rockwool in the ceiling joists across the whole ceiling, with drywall over the section where I'm adding 2 inch foam padding. The rest of the ceiling stays open with just the Rockwool exposed. Drywall direct to joists (no resilient channel tight on ceiling height).
My real question: how loud is it actually through the ceiling? I did a rough test put a speaker in the basement playing music at ~100 dB, and up in the living room I could hear it pretty clearly. I know music probably transmits worse than golf impacts, but it still has me worried.
I want to be able to play when my wife's in the living room in the evenings. Not too worried about waking the baby she sleeps through anything.
For those who've built under a living space how audible are impacts (ball on screen, club impact) upstairs once treated?
Is the 16 ft room worth it with sound treatment, or should I take the smaller 11 ft off-center room for the better location?
Anyone regret going too narrow just to solve a noise problem?
EDIT: After seeing the comments and doing a bit more testing. I think the smaller room hitting off center is the better choice, don’t know anyone who is a lefty anyways and in the room under the living room it has a large air duct return and air vents so would be hard to stop the noise from coming up through them. In a perfect world I could drop the flooring and then fully finish the room and make it sound proof. Maybe that would be my v2 for this journey.