Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Neighbor problem

Few months ago i bought a semi-detached, my first time home owner. Excited to be able to built my dedicated HT room, look like my neighbor are not able to handle more. They were advise from the first day that i was someone who like music and movies and report me if anything is too loud or watever you know. So like i said, yesterday after watching with my brother Avatar... look like that was too loud for them. My semi-detached is brand new so i tough the isolation would be good but look like not. So it seem i will have to be carefull and lower the bass comming from my EP350.
I actually have a wide space behind my couch like you can see from my gallery.
Do you think placing my subwoofer there, lower the volume, would give me a decent bass without disturbing the neighbor ?
Or placing only one subwoofer behind a couch isn't recommend ?
I only trying right now to find a solution at this problem (yes it is a big one for me)
Thank to Axiom selling those so powerfull subwoofer !

Gallery : http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showgallery&Number=319368#comments

The buttkicker promoter should be around soon. lol. A buttkicker is attached to your chairs/seating and it provides the tactile feel of deep bass without having to sonically output it. This looks like it could work out well for you.

I take it that a simi-detached is the same thing as a duplex?

I'd hate to like a quiet life and have a duplex neighbor be playing 2012 at full blast during my afternoon tea.

What is a semi-detached? Is that a Semi Tactor trailer?

It's not entirely unlike dual-ported subs.

Now, of course, in case the question was actually serious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-detached.

Hi Philippe,

Like you, I once lived in a "semi-detached" row house in Toronto and I had two large subwoofers. There was brick between each housing unit, but it wasn't enough, sadly, to prevent the deep subwoofer bass from occasionally annoying the ladies next door. Deep bass travels horizontally through the structual units of a dwelling, so unless offset studs and other building ploys when the building was constructed are used to prevent transmission to your neighbor, there's no way to kill it.

Your only option that wouldn't be ridiculously expensive (like building a room within a room) is to lower the subwoofer volume. I suppose you could try butt-kickers but I find those kind of gimmicky. Users like them, however, and they do give the impression of powerful deep bass reverberations.

Regards,
Alan

lower the subwoofer volume.

Yeah, thats what i feared.

Alternative: Invite the neighbor over and leave the volume where it's at.

Scott

Alternative number two...



A few years back my ex-neighbor suggested I needed to sound proof my house better whenever we were watching 'War of the Worlds' at 6 PM on a Saturday evening so a day or two later I bought him a case of these...

for $42 and told him that was about all I was going to further spend on sound proofing.



He has since moved () and now all is well with the world.

Interesting... I always thought "semi-detached" implied "detached above ground, but not below ground", essentially what the Wikipedia article called "linked" homes.

Do you actually have a common wall between the houses above ground ?

Excellent story Rick. We think in very similar ways, I think. At least when it comes to sarcastic solutions to everyday issues.

Semi-detached isn't correct ? I mean i am not bilingual so i tough that was the word At least i hope we understand each other

Semi-detached is correct, or "semi". Some people call them "side-split".

So they're funny?

I've always called the duplexes.

I suspect that semi-detached is correct, and that my understanding of the term was wrong. Until we get more confident on the definitions, however, I was thinking that it would be good to ask more specific questions such as "is there an air gap between your house and the neighbors house ?".

"An air gap which could be packed with absorbent material ?"

Hi bridgman,

Odd, I'd never really thought about the term "semi-detached" although I've been using it for years. Yes, in my experience there is a common wall between the units, and there was between mine and the neighbor's place. I guess "row house" better defines that. "Duplex" in Canada can certainly mean adjoining places but in my mind, I usually think it's one atop the other.

Cheers,
Alan

I think I'm wrong on the "side-split", that's just a house with different opposing levels...carry on.

This is what I've always considered to be a typical duplex....

Who owns the palm tree, Rick?

I live in a town house and i keep waiting for the neighbors to come banging on my door but nothing as of yet .

Also i am conscious of what time i do watch movies , nothing after 1030ish

Maybe Green Glue can help? At least help it enough to not annoy the neighbors so much? Just search for the "green glue" thread at AVS forum. I haven't used it myself, but the folks there (albeit the seller) are pretty helpful.

My first home I bought when I was 18 was a "mobile Home, trailer on a lot" ... the retired folks in the "mobile home" behind me didn't like my parties, no stop every night, 1974 lots of zepplin and whatever .. after many "incidents" and the big one where he came over and busted in my door and walked in my bedroom at 3:30 am while I was "entertaining" ... he finally gave up!

I got a lot of money for that house! He bought it! Well now that I'am older I see both sides ..... glad for the money worked out for me at 18!

Well i do not listing movies/music pass 10pm. Anyway to be honnest i am surprise how they can feel so much bass. I did myself few test upstairs and it's not that bad. But like he said he think he's like the sound box of the floating bass.
For now i did not got answer to my previous questions :

Do you think placing my subwoofer there, lower the volume, would give me a decent bass without disturbing the neighbor ?
Or placing only one subwoofer behind a couch isn't recommend ?

It's really hard to answer that question without trying. So give it a try. It's not going to cause any physical harm putting the sub behind the couch. It just may ruin the illusion of the bass coming from the screen, and localize it behind you. Only one way to know.

Here we call them duplexes as well.

I'd say talk to the guy and try and make friends. Invite him over for movies if interested and find out his schedule so you can watch movies loud when he is away or out of town.

Give him your number and ask him to call u if things are too loud and you will turn it down.

I've known them as duplexes all my life and more recently as semi-detached; my neice in Toronto now owns one.

Phillipe, the low bass the EP350 plays, as Alan recently pointed out, travels horizontally more so than vertically, this would be why it doesn't sound as loud upstairs.

If the bass is so loud over at the neighbor's house maybe you should be putting your sub over there so it'll be loud in your house instead

Hi Philippe, I’m the Buttkicker promoter you were warned about. I lived in an apartment for 3 years with a full up HT in the living room and never once got a noise complaint despite having my neighbor arrested (yes taken to county lockup) for playing his crappy music to loud at night.

Yup the trick was to turn the subwoofer down, even off very late at night, and using the Buttkicker to give the feel of deep bass, which is how we actually experience it anyway.

Alan is not the only one to think they are gimmicky but IMO if it’s level is tuned in with the rest of my system the low bass feeling is indistinguishable from having my sub turned way up only w/o also shaking the walls. I think most people who have Buttkickers probably run them “hot” so they feel over-the-top. If Sean reads this he can vouch for how it’s worked when he’s been over.

I’ve never really used it for music though that was it’s original purpose, to give bass feedback to stage musicians, though it’s evolved since then. The reason I don’t use it for music is that I’m usually looking for the midbass punch in the chest in music which the Buttkicker doesn’t do.

Otherwise there is really isn’t much you can do that will help to attenuate the very low bass. Placing it directly behind your couch very close may help you a little by having some of the sound absorbed into the couch before it can start bouncing around the room thus allowing you to lower the volume a little. But the reality is that the very low bass is going to pass right through the walls with little trouble.

Hi Grunt,

Thanks for the detailed feedback on the buttkicker. I've never used one. My impression was from a demo at a show, and usually those demoes are over the top.

A buttkicker might be the solution to Philippe's neighbor problem.

Regards,
Alan

I shall take a look.

Hi Alan, my guess is that they were running the BK hot at the demo probably intentionally but possibly by accident since I’ve found that the performance of the BK is more sensitive to changes in power (SPL) than regular speakers/subwoofers. The plus the huge variation in the mixing of LFE in movie tracks can make the BK a little of a pain to keep “tuned” in with the rest of your system.

For integrating a BK into an HT having a second customizable subwoofer out can be a great help as it allows for a different distance setting (very helpful with a DSP controlled sub) and for tweaking the “volume” independent of the subwoofer w/o having to walk over to the BK amp itself.

Just to be clear to anyone reading this IMO a Buttkicker is not a substitute for a good subwoofer. Rather in certain situations like apartments, townhouses, houses where the rest of the family doesn’t want to “feel” your movies and gaming a BK can augment a good subwoofer or set of full range speakers so you can have the SPL for the higher frequencies turned up a little higher than the low frequencies would otherwise allow. A BK can also help give more low bass feel w/o exciting room modes that might make low LFE from the subwoofer seem to powerful.

Also not that a BK or other types of tactile transducers won't play higher frequencies than the low base IMO those don’t normally feel right since they wouldn’t normally shake your seating. On the plus side of this there are many movies that have scenes which one would think deserve some very low LFE but all the bass is up in the midbass region. Here a BK can turn that midbass into the feeling of low bass by giving you the rumble you might expect from what you’ve seeing on screen. For reasons of tweaking to get the most out of a BK I do recommend using there purpose built amp since it has high and low pass filters the low being variable which allows for the best integration into an HT system. However, any amp powerful enough can technically run a BK though some of the other brands are better suited for that.

In short a Buttkicker is a useful tool for some situations but not a substitute for a good subwoofer. While I still use my BK in my house since leaving the apartment I find that the utility value of something like this goes down in proportion to how “loud” you can turn your subwoofer up.

Cheers,
Dean

Watch out for the crazy guy with the leather helmet and the buttkickers. Nod grin and back away slowly. Only dangerous when provoked.

Wondering if buttkickers plus a good set of headphones would be the ideal "late night" system ?

When I scaled down my apartment HT in preparation to move I thought about that but couldn’t figure out how to get output from the headphone jack on my receiver and the subwoofer out at the same time, though I really didn’t spend to much time trying to figure it out.

Guess I will have to go the same way as the OP. Heard my neighbor complaining to another one the noise coming from the EP350. Weird thing is that the acoustics of my room sucks so bad that for me the bass does not sound so loud as my neighbor is complaining about.

I constantly have my music cranked. When I have the windows open, you can hear it down the street and across the parking lot at the mall, 100-150 feet from my house. I've had the security guard and others give me a thumbs up etc., but never any complaints from neighbors et. al.

So tonight i talked with my neighbor about this situation. Btw i have a good relationship with him since the beginning. I did a few test at his home and indeed the bass is loud ... i mean very loud. So i maybe end up with a conclusion. I can't have a subwoofer anymore (yes it suck but i dont want piss my neighbor, they have a 3months old baby too).
So what about sell my M3, my EP350 and my VP150 and get a pair of M60 and VP180 center ?
That could give me a decent amout of bass and better frontstage (not close to a sub but understand what i mean) and without disturbing the neighbor.

What you guys think ?

Weird thing is that the bass does not sound so loud while we use the HT, but maybe the sound going through the wall might be kinda loud though. I was thinking about getting some bass traps covering the whole wall we share, this might reflect the sound to the other wall which I don´t have any neighbor. I will ask other people about this. I was thinking the same thing as you, selling my EP350 but I will use it when my neighbor isn´t at home since I know his schedule. Hope things work for you too. Why don´t you consider the buttkicker?

One of the forum members, Tharkun, had a wierd experience with bass... he was running twin EP600s but never seemed to be getting as much bass from them as you would expect. Part of the problem was a big glass wall (so not much room reinforcement) but it turned out that the bass was really loud in the computer room down the hall from his listening area.

We (semi-jokingly) suggested that he move the subwoofers into the computer room so that the bass would be loud in his listening area, not sure if he ever had a chance to try that.

Well actually i wonder how it could be whithout a sub and adding a pair of m60 instead of my M3 as front.

When I first got my EP500 in my apartment I asked a sound engineer friend what I could do keep it from bothering neighbors and his answer was to leave it off. He also said that just going into the next room of my apartment to gauge how loud it was “next door” might not be sufficient since some of the frequencies might actually excite room modes two rooms or even two apartments away thus sounding louder than even in the adjacent or same room at certain frequencies.

My suggestion is to play something that is to loud in his house but just through your M3s and see if that bothers him. Then play a test tone of about 30-40Hz through your subwoofer (simulating the bass extension of the M60s) and see how loud that is for him. My bet it the M60s will be loud enough in his house to still be bothersome.

One reason I often suggest bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer for people in apartments is that you can always turn the subwoofer off at times it’s bothering them, but still occasionally use it like when they are gone.

Late at night in my apartment I often switched to headphones if I was listening to something like a movie or video game I wanted really loud.

My concrete bunker doesn't seem so bad now. Serenity playing at 1:30am with the windows rattling: no complaints from the neighbours.

I guess Grunt is right...

Hi Philippe,

Grunt's engineer friend is correct about leaving the subwoofer off. I hate to see you give up your EP350, but deep bass and its ability to be bothersome to neighbors is a function of two factors---low-frequency extension (how low the speaker or subwoofer will play) and the output at those frequencies.

The M60v3 speakers have very good bass output, but it does not go as deep as the M80s or a subwoofer. Nor is the M60's output at those frequencies nearly as great as a subwoofer or the M80s. So a pair of M60s might be the solution for you.

Regards,

Alan

There is obviously an opportunity for further research into noise cancelling, this time at the lower frequencies. You put a big sub in your house, a smaller sub in your neighbors house, and use the smaller sub to cancel out leaked bass from your place.

If only someone made a subwoofer with a built-in DSP. Oh wait...

I found out that my Honda Odyssey has a sub under that passenger seat that is a noise-canceler for the rumble I guess I would hear when the Variable Cylinder Management shuts down engine cylinders.

I think if your neighbor had a good mic, a preamp and a sub with a phase switch, he could quiet his place right down!

So today i have spend my entire afternoon doing some test and trying to tune my subwoofer. My goal was to lower the volume of course. From the beginning it was tune for movies only (been trying to set the sub for music too but movies require higher volume) So for now my subwoofer it well tune for music or 2.1 mode. I have to say it give me a way better soundstage for stereo listening and at my surprise it still give good bass from movies when it need to. The impact from an explosion or the sound from a chopper still very deep and present but witout blowing the house. In some way it's better.
Anyway it look like i am changing my mind everyday. Now i consider looking for the VP180 instead of my 150...

Philippe, can you not make a compromise with your neighbour that gives you certain hours where you CAN crank it up a couple of times here or there according to peoples schedules?

It's like parties - rule #1 if you are going to be loud and unruly is to make sure your neighbor is invited. Even if they don't attend (and they usually won't) they feel better about the noise

Phillipe. It sounds like you had your sub running hot before. I think we all do that at first.

Fred thrust me it was perfectly balanced

Wow.

That's AFTER you edited?

You guys rooming together at the get together? Care to share something? It's perfectly okay.......

I think I'm the only person at this gig that DOESN'T have a roommate!

I foresee Murph crawling in donning my Pimp hat .

That reminds me. You bringing your camera Mark? Just in case there is interesting stuff we want to capture forever...

Oh yeah......

Selling the files to the drunks the morning after is how I make my REAL money.

Haha. I truly did just laugh out loud at that!!

Just make sure there is no water in the bathtub and I'll be fine.

BAHAHAHAHA!

Are you laughing because he didn't say anything about putting acid in the tub?

Note to self. Back out slowly if the room smells of acid, alligators or there is a Medusa head tote bag staring back at me.

Must repeat 1000 times so I'll remember this in my drunken stupor.