Hi Todd,
I own an EP500 and live in a top floor corner apartment. Not only will your nearest neighbors hear/feel it so will most of the building if you turn it up to nice levels. So I only play it loud when I get a weekday off and no one is around. Well I did crank it once when someone was playing their music loud enough to disrupt a movie. They lost that battle real quick.
The best compromise I found was to get a Buttkicker and attach it to my futon which is sitting on a carpeted floor. It’s not nearly as good as the EP500 turned up but it does help a lot when I have the subwoofer turned down.
I test this and found that when I had the EP500 turned up to where I liked it I could clearly hear/feel it through the walls in the next room and in the floor of the bathroom. With the EP500 turned down a little and the Buttkicker on I got a very good effect without hearing/feeling it in the next room or in the floor of the bathroom. No complaints yet from anyone in the 5 months since I got my HT up and running.
I know that some people hate them but I think when used judiciously to back up a good subwoofer a Buttkicker or other tactile transducer is a great compromise when you can’t play the sub loud enough to really enjoy it. If you can find one from someplace that allows returns (got mine at Fry’s Electronics) try it out. If you have an old amp laying around you wouldn’t even have to buy theirs.
Let me be clear about a couple things. It’s not as good as nor a replacement for a subwoofer so I would get an EP500 first. Also, it works well for movies, great for some games and sucks for music so it depends what you will use your system for if it’s worth having.
Dean
