Need to consider ventilation (heat and humidity) if you are 'soundproofing'.

What you may want to do is consider what noises you are wanting to stop and then focussing on those - so is it the rumble of the trainer, the noise of fans, your screaming in pain?

What kind of trainer do you use? The current crop of good trainers are in the low 60 dB range (including drivetrain), which is about the level of a normal conversation. Seems like it would be way easier to get a great trainer than try to soundproof a room. (Now a treadmill is another story-- I have no idea how loud those are, but much louder than a bike trainer.)

The big question is how much sound-deadening do you want? My brother built a sound studio, which had dual, physically separated walls. The easy path is putting sound-absorbing panels on the walls and ceilings. Then, you want to physically isolate the trainer from the floor with vibration dampening material.

bookshelves (filled with books)
best sound deadening you can buy

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I have a KK Road Machine. Wife has a Pelaton.

The KKRM is pretty loud, but the Peloton is very quiet. If you made a jump to a Neo or KICKR, those are both around 60 dB, which is quieter than most people speak. I think the Peloton is a touch quieter, since it has a belt instead of a chain drivetrain. Worth a thought-- you could save a lot of cash in sound-deadening materials and upgrade the trainer experience.

So a Neo 2T or a Kickr is what I want? They seem pretty close in price.

Thanks. I havent looked at trainers since 2018. It looks as though things have changed a bit.

Most of the new top trainers are virtually silent now. The Tacx is probably the quietest. The KICKR & KICKR Core are probably close. After that, I don't know. Here's a good video on it from DCR: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/...-depth-review-2.html

Soundproofing? Pain cave?

Exactly what kind of kinky stuff are you into?

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best bang for buck is create 2x walls; essentially fake wall with an air gap and then regular wall.

works better than any expensive sound absorbing insulation.

Won't sound travel through the air? A vacuum is better for preventing the energy transfer.

Love the book shelves idea. Heavy insulation helps.

See how much you need by testing. the KKRM is not too bad by itself. the stuff from speakers is what drove my wife nuts when she was kind enough to let me keep the setup in the dining area.

The key is physically isolating the walls between the two rooms. Sound travels between rooms largely through physical transmission through the solids: interior wall boards, studs, and other room wall boards. Physically separate those and fill the gap with insulation, and you kills most of the transfer. (A vacuum is nearly impossible around a room.

You don't even need to build two walls. All you have to do is build offsetting studs that alternate between the wallboard they support. For example, put a 2x6 bottom plate and then alternate 2x4 studs flush with either side of the bottom plate so there is about a 2" separation between each stud and its alternate wall. The studs can be 16" on center for each wall, so 8" apart combined. Looks cool, does the sound insulation gig, and only adds 2" to the wall thickness.

This...then fill the wall cavity with sound deadening insulation and you should be good to go. Carpet on the floor is also a good sound absorber.

If you can re-build walls you can use both blown in rigid foam insulation and also sound deadening wall board under sheetrock. It will make the room dead quiet to the other side. I have blown foam rigid insulation in my house and after doing that our bedrooms are all dead quiet. Its the best thing ever.

The alternative to the "room in a room" is adding a double layer drywall that are bonded together with Green Glue. In either case, you're still looking at redoing the casings on all of the doors.

You could use this stuff - not sure how much you need though.

https://www.amazon.com/...pop_mob_b_asin_title

“

Beantown Bob

5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
Not just for cars, trucks, and SUVs
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2018
Strange as this may sound, I don't own a car. I live in the city and purchased this for sound proofing in my condo. I applied a number of these panels to the inside of my entry door to block sound passing through to the hallway. I then applied a nice woven material over the Noico mats to conceal them.
Worked like a charm. I can't hear a word from anyone as they walk past my unit. Nor can they hear my private conversations in the hallway. It certainly beats buying an expensive new sound proof door. I also used this inside and around my window air conditioner. It quiets the AC when it's running and prevents noise from coming in from the street. Another use I found for it was to make several sound dampening panels for the windows. Should there be a loud concert or baseball game (I live near Fenway Park) I can deploy these panels to block unwanted noise. I'm sure I'll think up other uses for this stuff. It's really effective. Just a great all around product. Don't limit yourself to only using this in your car, truck, or SUV. Trust me, you can do a lot more with this fantastic product.”

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You could use this sound dampening sheetrock like material on the common wall.

Roxul insulation.

Or, double drywall on both walls. Won't take up much space, but will serve you well.

Especially if you go with bookshelves as mentioned earlier.

Short of the room within a room, you can also use resilient channel with clips and then a double layer of drywall on top of that. I did something similar for my office and it worked great.

Decades ago, but I remember talking to a musician about this. He said you can get a room to be pretty much completely soundproof, even for blasting music, but you won't get enough air in there and it becomes uncomfortable pretty quickly. Once you start adding ventilation you start leaking sound.

But a pain cave with insufficient ventilation? That really doesn't sound very appealing.

The KK Road Machine isn't too loud compared to most other "dumb trainers", but I switched from that to a Neo 2T and it's much quieter. The KK resistance unit certainly made some noise, but the fact it's wheel on and has a tyre/roller interface also adds noise, especially if you have any tyre slip on the roller or imbalance in the wheel which cause squeaking or vibration respectively. The Tacx eliminates these issues and the magnetically applied resistance is also quieter than the fluid resistance unit. However, the trainer isn't the only source of noise. Fans and drive train also create noise. Fortunately a well set up drive train isn't terribly loud, but fans sufficient to keep me comfortable at threshold power are a bit noisy, certainly the most significant source of noise from my training.
I currently train next door to my 2.5 year old son's bedroom. Only a gypsum plasterboard stud wall separates the rooms. I usually don't train while he's in bed, but have done several times without any problems. I'd have heard all about it from my partner if I'd been too noisy, but the only comment was about the clunk when clipping out my Speedplay Zeros at the end of the session. Now I try to remember to leave the shoes on the bike when I'm finished at time sensitive times....
I should mention that I also have my Neo sitting on a 3cm thick foam gym mat which provides very good vibration absorption - it also provides a little movement in addition to the slight side to side provided by the trainer itself which is nice and it protects the floor from sweat. Works well on all fronts.


Edit: Bear in mind that a small high speed fan will likely be louder, and less effective, than a larger fan or fans at lower rpm.

I finished my basement a few years ago. I looked at soundproofing with denim insulation or other stuff and it was pretty pricey.

The best bang for your buck is to insulate the walls and ceiling with regular pink fiberglass insulation. Invest in a Bluetooth transmitter and wireless headphones for the TV and then a smart trainer.

Is this perfect? Nope, but you can barely hear the treadmill on the 1st floor of my house and you can't hear anything on the 2nd floor.

This is important.
I think what you really want to do is isolate the sound so that is goes away from the living room.
There is a guy on youtube, I think it is homerenovision he has a couple videos on soundproofing and sound reducing that you can check out. But what he repeats numerous times is "if you are going to do this, you have to do it all"