Do room modes annoy neighbours?

[Shorty]

You are the nightmare I continually dread moving next door to me.

Exactly. And of course it’s all the neighbour’s fault. He’s either ‘over sensitive’ or ‘hyper sensitive’.

 

[FireEmblem]

You are the nightmare I continually dread moving next door to me.

I said "louder", not "too loud" or "so loud that my neighbours can't live in peace". Just a volume that allows you to somewhat enjoy life and not act like you're a prisoner, but still considering the neighbourhood. Obviously I'm caring about not pushing volumes and sub-energy to far, otherwise this thread wouldn't exist. And I've already talked to my neighbours, and I don't listen to too loud music for any of them. Even with this one particular neighbour everything is fine, we just had a few talks about that when he moved in.

Exactly. And of course it’s all the neighbour’s fault. He’s either ‘over sensitive’ or ‘hyper sensitive’.

He is. He complained about a volume as low that I though he was kidding first. Noone ever has complained about such a volume, it was basically your usual room listening volume, not even "louder". I asked to come over to hear what it sounds like from his side, and the rest of the bass that you could hear was merely an ambience far in the back, not louder than the usual noise from neighbours in our house, and that was why his apartment was dead quiet without any sound source. If he played back music or the TV even on a moderate volume, that would've been completely inaudible.

Ironically, he's my loudest neighbour. He's often gone for 1-2 months due to his job, and it's so calm when he's not here. When he's at home, you'll constantly hear noise from his side because he's always throwing around stuff in his apartment, dropping things, slamming the doors and such. I had two other neighbours living in his apartment before him and I was never able to hear them, so it's definitely on him. I think he's listening to music a lot with earbuds so he doesn't realise how loud he is.

 

[FireEmblem]

I cannot place bass traps in any except one corner due to furniture,
would 2-3 big absorber just on the wall behind me potentially tame the modes too? In that case I could consider getting the 7" Adams and just add 2-3 absorber for the wall, if modes turn out to somehow boost the amount of bass that leaves the apartment.

 

[posvibes]

and the rest of the bass that you could hear was merely an ambience far in the back, not louder than the usual noise from neighbours in our house,

A continuous rhythmic bass riff, if it is penetrating the neighbors space even at "ambient sound" levels once it is heard you cannot un-hear it. If it is penetrating the neighbors space as remnants of what you are listening to, it is in my opinion too loud. As you are the generator of the noise it is only you who can control it.

What in effect you are saying is that your requirement for deep bass trumps everybody else's needs regardless of circumstances.

Give and take in your terms is that you give and everyone else simply has to take it.

And civility takes it up the ass....again.

 

[FireEmblem]

If it is penetrating the neighbors space as remnants of what you are listening to, it is in my opinion too loud.

If that's the metrics you work with everybody in this house is too loud. Because if I would, just like him at this day, sit in my dead quiet empty room without any music, I'd hear all my neighbours noise too. There's always someone clacking with dishes, another slams the door, someone is dropping something, dog's barking, cat's are using their running wheel, family with a kid is, I don't know, playing bowling in their apartment perhaps?

So it's much more convenient to work with comparing it to the usual noise level of the house rather than saying "if I can hear it, it's too loud". I use music to protect myself a bit from all the noise around me, just like many people do. And I won't wear headphones 24/7. All of the noise I just described above, which sounds like a horrible place to live in, is gone when music is played at even just moderate levels.

I grant my neighbour freedom in return too. He invited over friends on a sunday, they drank beer, laughed and talked loudly, slammed the beer bottles onto the table many times and as well were loud on the balcony, until 1 am at night. So if I listen to louder music every then and when or watch a movie, I want to have that freedom as well.

We can either all live in silence, which isn't possible unless everyone in the house plays along, or we can all tolerate a bit from each other so everybody can have a bit more fun in their lives. That doesn't mean being absolutely relentless. If I was, I wouldn't have made this thread and I wouldn't care about whether or not the modes bother other people. In fact, this one neighbour who I called "hypersensitive" is the one I don't want to annoy with the bass.

So please don't make it look like I'm some sort of asshole. You don't live here, you don't know how loud or quiet my music played and how loud the house is in comparison. You don't know how loud my neighbour is, him who complained.

I asked him to be understanding about the noisy house and that I like the music to distract me from that, but in the same time that he can ring my bell and let me know if it ever bothers him too much. Until to date, he didn't have to.

When we live with others in a house yes, we have to be respectful and considerate, but we as well have to allow a bit of living. Personally, I find a little bit of music from the neighbour much less annoying that the constant loud slamming of doors and dropping things onto the floor. And there's really not a single day where this stuff doesn't happen multiple times.

 

[FireEmblem]

Small update for everyone interested: I've got my Adam T5V now, funnily they have more low-end than I remember and some tracks can really create pretty loud modes in my room. So I tried to listen to it from the other room of my apartment, the mode wasn't really audible, just the overall low end. Tried in the in front of my apartmen in the stairway, nothing. Then I asked the neighbour who's living below me if I can check it in his apartment, I stood exactly at the spot where the mode is in my room (our apartments are shaped exactly the same), we turned down any music/noise in his room and closed the window:

Nothing, and I mean really nothing. Not even the slightest rumble.

So I think it's save to say that modes don't leave the room and are really just a local phenomenom. Because I double tested this with my 2.1 system and sub (not in his apartment but in front of my apartment's door from the stairway) and the low end was much more audible, because it was "real energy", not just the leftovers of reflections building up inside the apartment.

Also cool: The Adam T5V go a bit lower than Adam Audio is stating, they say 45Hz but even 40Hz in the sinus wave generator is really audible.

Not so cool: I believe the Adam T5V create more mode-energy in my listening position, which the TV7 didn't! Maybe the waves that came from the TV7 created modes more advantageous for me, further away. However, it's easy to tell apart what's actually from the speakers and what is the rumbling from the room in the back, since it's only subtle in the background.

Now I'm thinking about whether or not the T7V would be a better fit if I want to go subwoofer-less.. I will add the subwoofer (T10s) now and see if I can get a more controlled lowend by dialing down the sub than with the T5V alone and report back.

 

[FireEmblem]

Cannot edit my OP, so for everyoneone coming across this through google or the forum search function, this is what I found, posted over there in my other thread:

"Small update for everyone interested: I've got my Adam T5V now, funnily they have more low-end than I remember and some tracks can really create pretty loud modes in my room. So I tried to listen to it from the other room of my apartment, the mode wasn't really audible, just the overall low end. Tried in the in front of my apartmen in the stairway, nothing. Then I asked the neighbour who's living below me if I can check it in his apartment, I stood exactly at the spot where the mode is in my room (our apartments are shaped exactly the same), we turned down any music/noise in his room and closed the window:

Nothing, and I mean really nothing. Not even the slightest rumble.

So I think it's save to say that modes don't leave the room and are really just a local phenomenom. Because I double tested this with my 2.1 system and sub (not in his apartment but in front of my apartment's door from the stairway) and the low end was much more audible, because it was "real energy", not just the leftovers of reflections building up inside the apartment.

Also cool: The Adam T5V go a bit lower than Adam Audio is stating, they say 45Hz but even 40Hz in the sinus wave generator is really audible.

Not so cool: I believe the Adam T5V create more mode-energy in my listening position, which the TV7 didn't! Maybe the waves that came from the TV7 created modes more advantageous for me, further away. However, it's easy to tell apart what's actually from the speakers and what is the rumbling from the room in the back, since it's only subtle in the background.

Now I'm thinking about whether or not the T7V would be a better fit if I want to go subwoofer-less.. I will add the subwoofer (T10s) now and see if I can get a more controlled lowend by dialing down the sub than with the T5V alone and report back."

 

[DaveBoswell]

my 2 cents on this topic and the original question, even though the OP has tested it: the answer to "do room modes annoy neighbors" is a solid: "yes and no".

- room modes in the room where the speakers and listener are located are speaker location and listener location specific - i.e. if there is a peak at say 45Hz at one seating location from one speaker, it may be non existent only a few meters away at another seating location and/or from another speaker
- this is because the room modes themselves are a result of the reflected sound waves off (usually but not always) parallel wall surfaces at just the right frequency and location to cause multiple wave superposition - you have to be in the room where the reflections are happening to hear this room mode effect
- that said, bass frequencies can certainly transmit through a wall if the wall is poorly constructed for sound transmission and could very well cause their own room modes in the neighbor's room if there is enough transmission through the wall and the neighbor gets unlucky with their room dimensions
- so the actual room modes you hear at your particular listening position in your room will not be heard by your neighbor at the same frequency or amplitude, but they could hear room modes generated in their own room because of the bass transmitted through the walls and the shape of their own room - this is a matter of luck as to whether they are bothersome or not


So if you happen to have a particularly strong and wide room mode peak at your listening position, you can use this peak to your advantage in your own room because if you use DSP or simply reduce overall bass levels to reduce a peak in your room at your listening position, that sound energy will also not be transmitted to your neighbor's (or other rooms in your house for that matter)

An even better option to reduce bass sound transmission to the neighbors is to use multiple subs in multiple locations located as close as possible to the seating position with proper DSP - this will create a cocoon of smooth strong bass for the listener possibly with nice tactile feel, but avoid/dramatically reduce the likelihood of "renegade" room modes being generated in other rooms in your house of the neighbors inadvertently as the modes will tend to even out with multiple sources.

 

[FireEmblem]

- that said, bass frequencies can certainly transmit through a wall if the wall is poorly constructed for sound transmission and could very well cause their own room modes in the neighbor's room if there is enough transmission through the wall and the neighbor gets unlucky with their room dimensions
- so the actual room modes you hear at your particular listening position in your room will not be heard by your neighbor at the same frequency or amplitude, but they could hear room modes generated in their own room because of the bass transmitted through the walls and the shape of their own room - this is a matter of luck as to whether they are bothersome or not

Yes to the first point, but actual bass frequencies - the energy coming from the speaker or sub - is not what modes are. Modes are just the leftovers, a stacking of frequencies after (!) the main energy already passed through the wall.

So in my case, the modes are like 2-3x as loud as the actual low end that comes from the speaker. But when you're outside of the apartment, you'll not hear the mode at all, but the actual low end from the speaker only.

I've ordered the T7V for comparison, I might test this again. I assume that although it will introduce more modes due to the extended low end, that's even less audible outside of the room because lower frequencies need much more energy to be perceived equally loud compared to higher frequencies.

 

[dannut]

Wall thickness to one neighbour is 27cm, 38cm to the other. I just measured one from the stairwell and the other from the balcony wall that's separating our windows. Don't know about the floor though..

Material seems to be concrete or brickwork, knocking test on the walls is very hard without any shallow sound.

Wall stiffness is good for low-frequency containment. So is mass at higher frequencies. But depending on construction, your wall could have a high Q 'short-circuit' at the resonance and coincidence frequency. A narrow band EQ mitigates both. But you need to measure or listen at the other side of the wall to make correct adjustments.

As you found, your in-room modal response is not good indicator to the transmitted sound. (so is in-room basstrapping useless wrt transmitted sound) Better to have the speakers isolated from construction - to not excite floor-walls mechanically (think of a resonating box placed directly on the floor and how it transmits energy directly to the construction). Assuming that your walls don't have poorly placed receptacles and pipework, that short-circuits the sound transmission mitigation efforts.