big deal–
Good point re: the flooring.
I neglected to mention that other sites also mentioned “floating” flooring as an effective component in vibration absorption and noise blocking.
I am assuming that this is an already finished house, where a ceiling is easier to work on and add stuff to than a floor would be.
On one of the threads I read on this subject, people were discussing running a separate trunk line for the central heat & a/c in the basement, just to avoid having noise from other rooms travel thru the vents. I can also think of some ways of avoiding fixtures and their boxes create pathways for the noise to travel thru, the most extreme being to use wiremold (or conduit) – but I would look into it to see if that made sense or was too extreme.
getzel1–
You probably also saw this, but “Roxul stone wool” is something like insulation which is also (according to several people) effective in dampening noise.
“…the problem is when talking to people that did either each person has very varied opinions.“
Hopefully, they had success stories using different methods, which means there’s more than one way to approach this, as opposed to contradictory info as to what works and what doesn’t.
It seems that there isn’t only one “right way” of going about this; there are several different methods that can be used, some together, and each one will help.