Wish me luck! Testing whether a sub will disturb neighbors before buying

[deadchip12]

I live in an apartment. There are families living above and below me. Never heard any sound coming out from them unless people from above move furniture, drop something hard on the floor or talk in the hallway. That said, I’m still worried about the sound insulation capability of the apartment, and I read horror stories of having a sub in the apartment. I’m thinking of purchasing a 5.1.4 dolby atmos setup with the svs pb-1000 sub. I need to find a way to test whether the sub will bother the neighbors before investing good money in a set of speakers only to receive noise complaints later, and I hate turning down volume just for that. Currently I own a small sub from the Logitech z506 package. The sub can only go down to about 40hz but that’s all I have for testing anyway. I start playing this bass boosted song from Youtube:

, turn volume all the way up and to my surprise the bass is damn deep and loud. Some glass windows in my room are shaking. I’m gonna keep playing this for hours everyday till 10-11pm and see if anyone knocks on my door (or tries to kill me). If someone does, I’m not gonna buy speakers and stick with my headphones.

 

[BDWoody]

I live in an apartment. There are families living above and below me. Never heard any sound coming out from them unless people from above move furniture, drop something hard on the floor or talk in the hallway. That said, I’m still worried about the sound insulation capability of the apartment, and I read horror stories of having a sub in the apartment. I’m thinking of purchasing a 5.1.4 dolby atmos setup with the svs pb-1000 sub. I need to find a way to test whether the sub will bother the neighbors before investing good money in a set of speakers only to receive noise complaints later, and I hate turning down volume just for that. Currently I own a small sub from the Logitech z506 package. The sub can only go down to about 40hz but that’s all I have for testing anyway. I start playing this bass boosted song from Youtube:

, turn volume all the way up and to my surprise the bass is damn deep and loud. Some glass windows in my room are shaking. I’m gonna keep playing this for hours everyday till 10-11pm and see if anyone knocks on my door (or tries to kill me). If someone does, I’m not gonna buy speakers and stick with my headphones.

Good luck!

Maybe knock on their door, and work with them to figure out at what levels it may be obnoxious or intrusive.

With my son's bedroom downstairs, we worked together to figure out what levels made sense when he was staying with me. They might appreciate the effort... Never know.

 

[Hipper]

Transmission of sound through floors, ceilings and room is a peculiar thing.

I agree with BDWoody that if you can test it with the help of neighbours that would be best. Play something bassy but louder then you would normally and go listen.

I live in a first floor flat and not only did the above but also installed some floor insulation under the carpet. I also use copious amounts of bass traps which stops boomy bass by reducing the bass energy in the room. I assume that less energy in the room means less is likely to escape.

Both my neighbours above and below tell me they never hear my music. Of course they might be being polite!

 

[hex168]

If you are at all into DIY, you could build an open baffle sub. While open baffle subs lack the impact of a sub that can affect room pressure (vast oversimplification - sorry), they generally transmit less energy into adjoining areas. "Generally" because, as Hipper pointed out above, transmission occurs through varied mechanisms and while some are reduced, others are not. The main way transmission is reduced with an open baffle sub is that there are nulls to the sides, so that when the SPL at your listening position is the same as a monopole (normal box) sub, less total energy is being put into the room. If you were to use a more complicated design with paired woofers mounted to cancel vibrations, that is another transmission mechanism reduced (this technique could be applied to a normal box subwoofer as well). I believe (albeit with less certainty) that reduced presurization of the room with an open baffle sub leads to less wall movement and reduction of that transmission mechanism as well.