[narticus]

I live in an apt. building and was wondering if there's some kind of material I could put on the floor of my room to prevent sound from pissing my neighbor off. Or maybe some kind of specialized stand for my speakers? They're KEF Q55's by the way.

 

[jefemeister]

most of the sound is probably traveling through the walls and the actual floor boards. Without ripping everything apart and putting soundproofing actually into the floor, there's not a whole lot you can do except listen more quietly, turn down the bass, or get some nice headphones.

 

[DarkAngel]

90% of what your neighbor hears is bass, for apts/condos best to only use small 2 way monitor 6" speakers that don't go much lower than 50hz.

You can also buy large area rug (persian, oriental, or even remnants) place layer of foam carpet padding underneath, place speakers/stand on this in front of listening seat, will help somewhat but again real problem is bass response.

For late night and morning listening use headphones.

 

[narticus]

cool thanks for the advice

 

[ilikemonkeys]

i should print this page and leave it under my neighbor's door.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Go to the local car subwoofer installer and buy enough square footage of Dynamat to coat your entire apartment.

 

[DarkAngel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkAngel 90% of what your neighbor hears is bass, for apts/condos best to only use small 2 way monitor 6" speakers that don't go much lower than 50hz. You can also buy large area rug (persian, oriental, or even remnants) place layer of foam carpet padding underneath, place speakers/stand on this in front of listening seat, will help somewhat but again real problem is bass response. For late night and morning listening use headphones.

If you have bigger monitor speakers or floorstanding speakers you could also just insert an equalizer or adjustable crossover etc in signal line to just block any frequencies below 50hz and keep existing speakers till you move.

 

[iancraig10]

In my place, I put Garden paving stones on the floor where the speakers go (With a cover over them) and put spikes underneath them. Then I put the speakers onto stands, also with spikes and placed them onto the paving slabs.

It seems to help and also improves the sound of the speakers.

Ian

 

[narticus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iancraig10 In my place, I put Garden paving stones on the floor where the speakers go (With a cover over them) and put spikes underneath them. Then I put the speakers onto stands, also with spikes and placed them onto the paving slabs. It seems to help and also improves the sound of the speakers. Ian

Interesting. Could you be more specific though? I'm completely new to all of this. I've been listening to music through harmon/kardon computer speakers for the past five years.
What kind of cover do you put over the paving stones? Did you just use one stone per speaker? And what kind of spikes are we talking about here?

 

[jefemeister]

you could go to a kitchen supply type place and get some granite or marble slabs too. They may have some scraps left over from someone's kitchen intallation even.

 

[Anders]

Carpets, stones etc. will only marginally improve sound isolation, although decopuling the speaker from direct contact with the floor can help but you still have an airborne transmission of sound to the housing construction. Cutting the deep bass as DarkAngel suggests should be more effective.
Building an inner wall (floor) and fill the gap (4 - 10 inch) with mineral fiber can be effective but you will probably need to cover more than the floor and then ends up in building an interior room to get isolation in all directions.

 

[iancraig10]

The paving slab idea gives a tighter bass; less flabby and so transmits less. There is also no direct contact with the floor.

Basically, you can buy spikes for speaker stands and also flat backed spikes that you can blu tak to the bottom of the speakers .... so with all of these spikes...

The speakers (with blu tak'd spikes) go onto the speaker stands. The speaker stands should have their own set of spikes which contact the Paving slab. (Cover it with something if you don't like the look of paving slabs in your front room) Put flat backed spikes underneath the slabs so that the slabs only contact the floor with spikes. (So everything has spikes underneath - speakers, speaker stands and slabs)

The result will be a more focussed sound and a tighter sounding bass. Less flabby in many cases. Therefore, less bass is going through the floor.

Airborn bass can only be cut down by making very expensive room alterations. One awful looking solution that I have seen is a guy who stuck egg cartons all over the wall and painted them so he had a bubbly wall. That helped sound isolation.

Other alternatives - a) turn it down. b) Turn down the bass content. c) Buy a very expensive set of headphones and headamp (cos it's cheaper than changing your room) and get an even better sound as loud as you like!!!

The spike idea helps ....

Ian

 

[raisin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefemeister most of the sound is probably traveling through the walls and the actual floor boards. Without ripping everything apart and putting soundproofing actually into the floor, there's not a whole lot you can do except listen more quietly, turn down the bass, or get some nice headphones.

Jeff"s got the word here, any wall the sound bounces off of turns into one end of one of those kids phones (two cups and a string), with the other end being all the drywall in your neighbors apartment.
The only solution is massive isolation (pad the floors, drape the walls, and suspend a ceiling), or to comprimise the sound with an equalizer.
Or headphones