How Should a Music Superstore Be Engineered for Great Sound?

The design concept is simple: every demo room is a performance space, and the building is the venue that holds them. Drum rooms, guitar amp rooms, keyboard areas, and PA demo spaces each get acoustic isolation designed for their sound levels — the drum room gets the most, the acoustic guitar room gets less but still real. The walls, doors, ceilings, and floors of each room form an acoustic assembly, and the assemblies get designed together so there are no weak links. The layout keeps the loudest rooms away from the quiet ones and from the neighbors — both the adjacent tenants and the outside. We coordinate the room locations with the structural engineer because isolated slabs and decoupled walls have structural implications. The acoustic consultant is on the team from schematic design, because acoustic isolation is a design-phase discipline.

The sales floor lives between the demo rooms: instruments on display, customers testing at stations, and the general energy of a music store. Acoustic treatment — absorption at the ceiling and walls — keeps it lively without being punishing, and the HVAC stays quiet. Display stations get power and data for electronic instruments, and the layout keeps the test stations from crowding the aisles. Lesson rooms are small studios needing isolation from the store and from each other. The repair shop is a workshop: benches, tools, ventilation for finishes and solvents, and acoustic separation from the retail. We engineer the lesson and repair areas as tenant-grade studios and shops, with the MEP and acoustic design to match. A music superstore that teaches and repairs is really three businesses — retail, school, and workshop — and the building serves all three.

Engineering for great sound: - Demo rooms with acoustic isolation assemblies designed for their sound levels. - Drum and amp rooms with floating or isolated floors for impact control. - Sales floor with absorption, diffusion, and quiet HVAC. - Lesson rooms isolated from the store and from each other. - Repair shop with workshop ventilation and acoustic separation. - Clean dense power and data at every demo and display station.

• Demo rooms with acoustic isolation assemblies designed for their sound levels.
• Drum and amp rooms with floating or isolated floors for impact control.
• Sales floor with absorption, diffusion, and quiet HVAC.
• Lesson rooms isolated from the store and from each other.
• Repair shop with workshop ventilation and acoustic separation.
• Clean dense power and data at every demo and display station.