Case Study: An All-White Studio in Calabasas

Finished all-white control room in the Calabasas studio, with speakers set into the soffit walls and a custom white desk

A multi-room studio in Calabasas, designed by Valley Acoustics and finished entirely in white. Keeping every surface white through construction was a challenge.

The Rooms

Control Room: Soffit-mounted Augspurger speakers in walls we designed, and a custom desk.
- Soffit mounting sets each speaker flush into the front wall, so the wall becomes an extension of the speaker's front face.
- A speaker standing out from a wall sends bass backward too, and the reflection off the wall behind it returns late and cancels part of the low end.
- The cancellation falls where the distance to the wall is a quarter wavelength: for a speaker 2 ft out, 1,125 ÷ (4 × 2) = about 140 Hz, using the speed of sound, 1,125 ft per second.
- Flush mounting removes that gap, so the dip does not form.
Listening Room: Tiered risers with built-in lighting.
Lounge: With a kitchenette.
Hallway: Connecting the rooms.

All-white listening room with tiered risers lit from below and white sofas

White hallway connecting the rooms of the Calabasas studio

Isolation Design

Walls: Floated on double framing, with plywood and double drywall and damping compound between the drywall layers.
- The damping compound is a viscoelastic layer that turns vibration of the sheets into a small amount of heat as it shears.
- Double framing means a second, inner row of studs that does not touch the outer wall, so the room's walls float free of the building's walls and no studs are shared between them.
Ceiling: Floated on isolation rafts, which are part of the isolation rather than absorbers. A raft holds the finished layers on isolators instead of screwing them straight to the joists, which breaks the solid path that carries vibration from the room into the structure above.
Floor: Raised, but not decoupled from the structure. The walls and ceiling carry the isolation.
Mass: Plywood and two layers of drywall on each side. In a single layer wall, each doubling of the weight per square foot adds about 6 dB of transmission loss, and the low end needs that mass most.
Seams: Acoustic caulk on every seam. It stays flexible and seals the gaps, since an open gap passes sound around the wall's mass.

The South Carolina Dolby Atmos music room used the same wall and ceiling approach. More on why isolation is a different job from treatment in soundproofing vs. acoustic treatment.