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Subwoofer and the neighbors

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Buggy Loop

Buggy Loop

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So after a full day of watching LOTR TTT and ROTK, with the volume quite loud (what use is a home theater if you cant enjoy it?). I get a little call from the neighbor, asking me if i could turn down the bass. Now normally i would say STFU (it was only 8pm on weekend afterall), but i know him and i dont want to be a jackass.

So im wondering, is there anything that can absorb sound/vibration? I think its mostly going throught the floor, as he never hear any sound from my other speakers so the wall's sound isolation is perfect, but the bass goes throught the floor and travels to his apartment. A piece of plastic? foam? carpet under the sub to absorb the sound? Anyone know an effective solution for this?
 
d00d, your avatar is Se-Ra Kim :O That picture hasn't been on the site in ages, where did you find it? Sorry I can't help with the question. Maybe some carpet or eggshells?
 
Fuck that, if I have to listen to Steppenwolf Born to be Wild every fuckin weekend while my neighbor is fuckin with his car, it will sound like 106 & park from time to time in my house
 
Agent Icebeezy said:
Fuck that, if I have to listen to Steppenwolf Born to be Wild every fuckin weekend while my neighbor is fuckin with his car, it will sound like 106 & park from time to time in my house
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I have a surround sound in my apartment as well. No one is below me, so I don't get any complaints. But I do have a neighbor next door who has to be hearing all the bass. But she has never said anything. Come to think of it, she has never said anything to me period, lol. One day I was walking down the hallway and walked by her door. Her TV or surround sound was PUMPING!!! I couldn't hear anything in my apartment from her TV. So I doubt I will hear anything from her.
 
belgurdo said:
carpet covered Styrofoam blocks on the walls
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Will do NOTHING at all for absorbtion of sound...

123rl said:
www.auralex.com
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...and neither will this. (Auralex is usually used to "treat" or "flatten" a rooms sound to make it more neutral and allow for more accurate mixes, treatment is not the same as soundproofing.



Miroku has it right, you need mass.

The cheapest and best "bang for your buck" you can get is mineral wool cavity slabs such as Owen Cornings, or Rocksil (used to be called Rockwool) - provided there is space underneath your floorboards, then take them up and fill in the space with these slabs.

Note this is a heck of an irritant material, so use a mask and gloves when handling. (Even a hazmat suit may be advised, the dust that comes of this stuff will give you one hell of a rash.)
 
I use a customised version of the Gramma platform, which sits under my sub (same idea, but mine is made out of wood and styrofoam). It makes a MASSIVE difference to the amount of sound leaking out of my room. It's a bedroom setup so I had to stop LFE leaking through the floor and disturbing my folks. Outside of my room, I can't hear any bass at all because the platform stops all unwanted vibration leaking through to downstairs

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_gramma/sound_isolation_gramma.asp

Ignoring the improvement in sound, it was completely worth doing because there is now almost zero LFE leaking out of my room (either through floorboards or out the door)
 
You don't listen to your music loud enough then ;)

Seriously though, yeah products like that can help, but risers such as that are only rated to minimize "Impact STL" (Sound Transmission Loss) - They don't help with airbourne STL much, if at all, so are not helpful in all cases.

Mineral wool however is one of the highest rated forms of sound absorbtion you can get, and is used in many commercial studios for broadband absorbtion, and it's cheaper to boot.
 
Manabanana said:
d00d, your avatar is Se-Ra Kim :O That picture hasn't been on the site in ages, where did you find it? Sorry I can't help with the question. Maybe some carpet or eggshells?
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Se-ra kim who? I found it on the killingifrit forums, web site for FFXI.

Anyway, i aint going to open up the floor to put some mineral insulation or whatever, its an apartment and i dont want to put $$$ on something that will remain there permanently. Auralex seems to have some neat stuffs. My problem's not airborne sound transmission, im 100% sure its the vibrations on the floor. Would that auralex platform be good for stopping that?
 
The problem is that bass is low frequency, so most of the sound absorbtion technologies can't help much.

Does your sub sit on the floor? Do you position it in a corner? There are ways to make a sub sound louder simply by positioning it right.

By having it sit on the floor, it can use the floor to amplify the sound. If you sit it on a table there is less contact with the floor but it will use the table. Now if there was some carpet on it, it would absorb some vibration.
 
Vennt said:
You don't listen to your music loud enough then ;)

Seriously though, yeah products like that can help, but risers such as that are only rated to minimize "Impact STL" (Sound Transmission Loss) - They don't help with airbourne STL much, if at all, so are not helpful in all cases.

Mineral wool however is one of the highest rated forms of sound absorbtion you can get, and is used in many commercial studios for broadband absorbtion, and it's cheaper to boot.
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Usually about -20dB on my amplifier which isn't that loud, but it's plenty loud in my room (about 15ft x 13ft, roughly)

Products like that are only useful for bass, I admit. What you need to do (as someone has said) is to add mass to your room...bookshelves, rugs etc. Whatever is going to absorb soundwaves
 
if your subwoofer is very good then it will be putting out these really long fucking waves that are pretty hard to dampen...

you know how if you sit outside a well isolated club/venue during a clubby dance night/show all you hear is the bass notes? yah.

maybe you could turn it down? do you really need it so high that others can hear it?
 
what kind of boards or wall materials can be used to make my garage made into a home theater somewhat soundproof?
 
fart said:
maybe you could turn it down? do you really need it so high that others can hear it?
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QFT

Currently I have a problem with a neighboring family whose son feels it is his civic duty to listen to his music loud enough for me to hear it inside my house with the windows and dors closed. I've had plates rattle it's been so loud.
 
Subwoofer's @ minimum db setting, i cant simply unplug it, its an active subwoofer, all my speakers are connected to it.

The walls and ceiling in my apartment are covered with 2 layers of sonopan and a 1/4" gap between it and the gyprock made by resillent channels. And thats on each side of the wall, his and mine. It really isnt a problem of airbourne soundwaves, he never ever hear my surround sound even when its to the point where its hurting my ears, but as soon as there's bass, it easily travel. The sub is sitting on a floating wood floor with no particular insulation, thats where the problem comes from im pretty sure.

What about this?

http://www.asc-home-theater.com/subtrap.htm
 
Yeah you could cutoff lower frequencies but then it hurts the bass for you. But it's a solution that will help your neighbor.

If it's on a wooden floor, yeah that's not good. Dense materials can carry the vibrations and they themselves vibrate the air. Again, even try a rug or carpet underneath and it will help in that regard. The issue is, this is just one of the problems...the other being that bass is so low frequency it can easily go through walls and such.

I read some of that stuff about the Subtrap and the design already looks like it would help because of the simple fact that it's on legs.
 
I'm worried of the same thing, the neighbors and stuff, i have someone who lives next to me and under me, the lady under is older and has never said anything, and i have played Madden late night early morning with the sound on my receiver around 50 level which is pretty high, it's the level i hear my TV on, i usually play my games at 40-45, music at 45 and DVDs at 55. And no complaints from anyone. I ask the lady next door and she says she doesn't hear anything unless she is in the bathroom. So, i'm good, thank god because i love my audio :)

DCX
 
My next-door neighbor is actually a good friend, so I'm sure to let him know if the cock rock bass is getting a little too loud. If it were any other person, I'd try to talk to them first and then wouldn't hesitate to let the landlord know if he/she didn't listen after that point. If you live in an apartment, I think it's just fricken' common courtesy to respect your neighbor and keep the bass at a minimal. You wouldn't want to hear that shit while you were trying to take a nap and neither would they. I have a decent little Onkyo home theater in my living room and 3 8" JLs in my car's boot - I like a little bass as much as the next guy, but I can't stand people that would conscious utilize such stuff past like 9PM.
 
we had bass problems with college dorms (walls literally shaking, stuff falling off shelves) and we just shoved a couple of text books under the sub woofer and that fixed it :o
 
Moving the subwoofer onto bricks, installing feet/spikes on the bottom, etc., will only help resonating sounds ever so slightly. You're still going to be making low frequencies that will travel through the floors with ease. Bottom line is, you're not going to be able to do anything to remedy the problem short of turning the bass down/off. Unless somehow you're able to rip up the floors and pour concrete in there, nothing is going to work.
 
fart said:
maybe you could turn it down? do you really need it so high that others can hear it?
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Seriously. Do all you bass-pumping fuckers really need the low frequency sounds of your DVDs and your shitty techno so fucking loud that everyone else around you feels like someone's taking a sledge hammer to their walls? Just turn it the hell down, you're not running a dance club for shit's sake.
 
demon said:
Seriously. Do all you bass-pumping fuckers really need the low frequency sounds of your DVDs and your shitty techno so fucking loud that everyone else around you feels like someone's taking a sledge hammer to their walls? Just turn it the hell down, you're not running a dance club for shit's sake.
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Exactly. There'd be times I would walk into my buddy's apartment and barely hear myself think. I can understand wanting a nice sound setup, but it doesn't always have to be eardrum-rupturing loud, especially when you're sharing a wall with someone else. An iota of consideration goes a long way.
 
=_=


My sub's @ minimum settings, i put volume when watching movies at reasonable levels, nobody ever entered my apartment and said "Damn, way too fucking loud", i can sit next to someone and talk without raising voice at all. Problem with DD5.1 is that sound range is immense, what sounds normal when a character is talking can suddently turn to massive loud sounds with an explosion. Its not something you can really control. Thats when he hears it.

And demon, just stfu, i dont even play music on this setup for one, i put volume low when playing games and even use headphones when its getting late, and when watching TV its in stereo channels so no subs on. So no, im not a bass pumping fucker.
 
well some receivers are very smart.... the have something like a night setting(it is actually called that on my yamaha receiver), it will cut any low frequency and loud noise as soon as it detects it. Pretty handy as you can hear the dialogues just fine but as soon as you hear that explosion it wtill automatically lower it... I know this wont fix your problem, but atleast the manufacturors are working on it.
 
Buggy Loop said:
And demon, just stfu, i dont even play music on this setup for one, i put volume low when playing games and even use headphones when its getting late, and when watching TV its in stereo channels so no subs on. So no, im not a bass pumping fucker.
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That wasn't necessarily aimed at you but apartment/dorm-dwelling bass pumping fuckers in general. If you have a nice subwoofer and don't go overboard with it, then god bless you.
 
demon said:
Do all you bass-pumping fuckers really need the low frequency sounds of your DVDs and your wicked techno so fucking loud that everyone else around you feels like someone's taking a sledge hammer to their walls?QUOTE]

Yes.

I just choose the right times to do it.

When I make music I do it with headphones for the most part, but test it over the speakers to see if my mastering was appropriate. When making stuff, it'd be far more annoying because my neighbors would be essentially listening to the same song for 2-3 hours.
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Shompola said:
well some receivers are very smart.... the have something like a night setting(it is actually called that on my yamaha receiver), it will cut any low frequency and loud noise as soon as it detects it. Pretty handy as you can hear the dialogues just fine but as soon as you hear that explosion it wtill automatically lower it... I know this wont fix your problem, but atleast the manufacturors are working on it.
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Damn, thats exactly what i would need :(
 
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