Is it acceptable to run a subwoofer/subwoofers in an apartment building?

[MattHooper]

Nah. This is a subwoofer!

Apparently that's an actual consumer item for home theater.

(Abandoning the sympathetic half of my brain...)

WTF is wrong with people?

Who on gawd's earth needs that?

Reminds me of those absurd "boom car" battles or food eating contests or any other excess-for-excess sake endeavour. "Because We Can" isn't always a good reason.

 

[Commish]

I moved to a condo with heavy concrete between the units so I thought that adding my relatively small (10" REL) sub would be fine. Not exactly. The fellow downstairs was not a happy camper.
FreddyLost is exactly right. It helps if you are on good terms with your neighbors so they can tell you politely what they are experiencing. And, when they might be on a trip!

 

[HammersRocco]

I think the post with the monster subwoofer kind of sums it up - I have had problems with my neighbours back when I had little experience in apartment living ( grew up in a detached house) AND indeed it was with Home Theatre and Video Gaming sub-woofing...

Now? And addition to not gaming and very little HT, For music, I have a properly calibrated Hi-Fi subwoofer, calibrated to extend, not to blast and flap shorts or move bowels...

IMHO that the way it should be. And yes still living in an attached home (not really an apartment IMO, but I am told technically it is). I respect reasonable music times - break out the headphones after 7:00 PM to be safe - and have had no problems for many years...


v

 

[Sokel]

Ok,I did a little experiment.
To start,I already said that my gear are in the basement,specially made for... fun.Anyway.
4 meters down the ground,just above is my parking place and the rest of the house is the floors above.

Note that the construction of the building is Zoellner type as we didn't want any piles inside the living space.
That means that the whole thing is made of double reinforced concrete,etc (engineers may know more).

At this time the only sub in the house is a passive one that I don't even remember where it came from,it must has come as a gift with a SUV I got some time ago.Wood and plexi for enclosure,10"? driver.
So.
Connected with 1200as2 as mono,put a soundtrack play list i have along with some Pan Sonic,etc closed everything and run out.
On the first floor of the house it was clearly audible and sincerely very annoying.
On the second floor a little less.On the third I could only feel some kind of audible vibration.Not physical.

Outside the house was super audible all around.Next time I'll go to neighbor to listen.


I think that people living in the same building must fool themselves if they think they don't bother the others using loud subs.

 

[Keened]

Subs with DSP and physical isolation can work, but you really need both.

Without DSP my dual 10" subwoofers will have a peak 20db+ above the front monitors, they'll also pump a lot of energy into resonant room modes which couple with the structure, and they will directly resonate everything via the floor. Once you level match and EQ the peaks out the perceived sound is much more reasonable (both in room and outside it). DSP to handle the room modes means less energy pumped into resonant frequencies that will transmit to your neighbors. Physical isolation means while the acoustic vibrations will still penetrate, at least you aren't physically shaking the floor/substrate on top of it which is far more annoying on a day to day basis.

Then if it's still an issue you can hi-pass the sub-bass and use physical transducers.

 

[digital_av]

Guys just in case you are looking to upgrade the subwoofer in your apartment it seems that Ascendo has a new 80" one. I wonder why they use only one in the demo instead of two or even better, a double bass array.

 

[ryanosaur]

Guys just in case you are looking to upgrade the subwoofer in your apartment it seems that Ascendo has a new 80" one. I wonder why they use only one in the demo instead of two or even better, a double bass array.

LMAO!

Might as well just sacrifice a neighboring room and install a Rotary Sub.

 

[MattHooper]

Guys just in case you are looking to upgrade the subwoofer in your apartment it seems that Ascendo has a new 80" one. I wonder why they use only one in the demo instead of two or even better, a double bass array.

The dude in that first video mentions listening to levels hitting 130dB. Sorry, but that is just f*cking moronic - in to “play stupid games” territory with people’s hearing.

 

[Andretti60]

No.
Music (mostly LF) coming from subs and floor standing speakers propagates through solid floors and walls. If you want them, keep the volume at a reasonable level, and check with your neighbors. Also, check the regulation of the HOA (homeowner association), they can have restrictions on noise, sound, and enforce “quite hours”. If you plan to have loud noise (a big party or remodeling job) you must notify your neighbors in advance. Where I live, only units at the first floor are allowed to have hardwood floors, otherwise we must have floor carpet (with the exception of kitchen and bathrooms).
Follow the rules and you have happy neighbors (and eventually good friends)
Do not start a noise war, nothing good comes out from it.

 

[tomtan]

I live in an apartment in a 60 floor skyscrapper which means all the walls are steel reinforced concrete. So far, I've never heard my neighbors except when they drill something or use a jackhammer
I'm now considering buying a sub but do wonder if it'll propagate with this kind of structure or not...

 

[krabapple]

I live in a modern 6 story building with a foot or more of concrete between levels. No neighbors have ever complained about my dual subs. (The listening room does not abut any other apartments, so that helps too)

 

[Mnyb]

Depends apartments I lived in has been decently insulated. And I never heard complaints .

The biggest offender in bass are movies . The spectral content of music is not that sub bass heavy, more midbass heavy. It would not always be the sub that upset the neighbours more like everything about the music ...

Some sci-FI action can shake the room for sure .

 

[Scrappy]

Voted no. I’ve never lived in an apartment building after college, thank God. But when I was a young’in, I had some sh*t sub in my dorm room. Buddy who lived floor up IM’d me asking if I was playing Slow Cheetah by RHCP, haha. I should have just bought nice headphones..

 

[CrazyCatHusband]

Get a sub that matches your speakers for listening volume levels. Let your direct neighbors know you listen to music at reasonable levels at reasonable hours. Turn it off at 8, 9, 10, or whatever time you've worked out. My neighbors have my number in case it's a bad time or too loud, and I encourage them to call or text if it bothers them. A passive-aggressive loudness war never ends well. If we required complete isolation from neighbors, we'd live in detached housing. I hear their dogs, they hear my sub.

 

[Waxx]

Get a sub that matches your speakers for listening volume levels. Let your direct neighbors know you listen to music at reasonable levels at reasonable hours. Turn it off at 8, 9, 10, or whatever time you've worked out. My neighbors have my number in case it's a bad time or too loud, and I encourage them to call or text if it bothers them. A passive-aggressive loudness war never ends well. If we required complete isolation from neighbors, we'd live in detached housing. I hear their dogs, they hear my sub.

I have a similar agreement with my neighbours, and some of them also like it loud. But only between 8am and 10pm and we call each other when it's too loud. And in worst case we go ring the door, but friendly...

And that works very well. Both neighbours know i'll put it down when needed, and that it's rare they hear my music because mostly i play on low level, and got subs that can give a defined bass on relative low level.

In modern appartments, at least down here, the walls are to thin and not acoustic treated or isolated a lot. So a lot of noise is comming trough. Also the airco/airvent system is transmitting a lot of sounds. That's why i don't wanted to live in those when i was still living in the city. Now i live in the countryside in a centuries old (former fortified) farm that is transformed in several houses, but with massive (and heavy isolated) stone walls. So i can go fairly loud before it goes through those walls.

 

[ahofer]

I’m also in NYC, in a 1911 apartment building. I can hear the kids upstairs running around at bedtime (they have a trampoline!), but otherwise never hear the neighbors from my apartment. I’ve had no complaints at all. No subs yet. According to my iPhone decibel meter I have peaks in the 80-90db area when listening at higher volumes (for me)