Subwoofers in apartments (1 Viewer)

[Doug Smith]

A friend of mine has a problem in that he lives in the second floor of an apartment and has a sub. He is worried that it disturbs the neighbours below him, so he often turns it way down. I'm wondering if someone out ther knows a soloution for his problem? Perhaps something he can put on the floor under the sub? I told him he's missing our on some fine LFE.

 

[John A. Casler]

The best place to put your sub in an apartment is right beside or behind your seating position. This allows the loudest perception of bass with the least output.

The ideal is to have two subs with one on each side of the sofa. Try both in and out of phase and see which gives you the best result.

This set up also reduces the wall vibrations of corner loading which transmit lots of bass, up down and all around in apartment buildings.

It also would also reduce the floor/ceiling vibration transmission if the sub is set on a 4'x4' piece of carpeted plywood to spread the impact over a greater area as well as an extra layer of "sound muffling" (is that a word?) material.

Even with this set up, your friend should develop a communication between himself and the neighbors who may be affected with exchanged phone numbers to either see if they are home or allow them to call and ask for "sound releif: with no questions ask.

John Casler

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I guess i'm very lucky, my neighbors don't give a crap what I do.
I'm freinds with the guy upstairs, so he's cool, and although I don't know the neighbors next to me, my theater room is right next to their kitchen, so it doesn't really disturb them. Although I KNOW they can hear me as I let my theater rip!
My philosophy is this, in this day and age, it's unreasonable at best, to expect your neighbors to be as quiet as church mice ALL the time, especially in a semi urban neighborhood like mine.

 

[Vasanth B]

God, I wish I was as lucky as John. My upstair neighbors are seemingly very sensitive to my home theater although I never play it loud during unreasonable hours (I consider reasonable before 10p.m. on a Sunday night). I should probably go up and talk to them about it but I find it's easier to just activate the D.Comp HIGH setting on my Denon 1802. :frowning: You may suggest that your friend do the same after calibrating his system.
I can't wait until the day when I have a house where I can listen to DVDs at reference volume. D.Comp, while being a useful feature, does not work with DTS and also takes away from the immersive experience.

 

[Chih Jieh Chang]

I have a similar situation (2nd floor apt of 3 floors). However, I can't place the sub next to the sofa since the coax cable is only ~10ft long. I do have it in the middle of the left wall pointing at the sofa. It's also sitting on my Take2.2 box along with bubble wrap under it. Even with all that and taking the SW channel down 5dB the bass still transmits some.

All the more incentive to get a townhouse, huh.

 

[Mike Matheson]

Another common technique (trick? ploy?) is to invite the neighbors over for movies. Once they've heard/seen the impact subs add to the experience, they seem to be more understanding.