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In Reply to: Blankets behind speakers? posted by eddie on February 8, 2007 at 11:32:06:
You identified that you have a common wall with the neighbour but if you can tell us a few other things, you may get som additional suggestions?Is there a problem now or are you trying to prevent one?
What is the wall construction? Brick? Studs & Drywall? Other?
Is adding to the wall construction an option? (eg You own the place and are planning to stay?)
What kind of speakers do you have?
What kind of music do you play and how loud do you want to play it?
Follow Ups:
Sorry for not getting back sooner."Is there a problem now or are you trying to prevent one?"
No problem yet. Just trying to be a good neighbor."What is the wall construction? Brick? Studs & Drywall? Other?"
I'm going to guess Drywall /w studs.
"Is adding to the wall construction an option? (eg You own the place and are planning to stay?)"
Actually that's a tough question. I don't own as of now, but I may buy it. So I can't really do anything serious as of right now."What kind of speakers do you have"
I'm a little embarrassed to tell you after seeing some of the other equipment people have stated that they own, but they're just little Paradigm Mini Monitors placed on 30" speaker stands about a foot out from the wall. They're connected to a Rotel Pre Amp (RB-985) and Rotel (RSP-970) Amp. My computer also runs through the Rotels with a 24" flat panel monitor that also doubles as my TV/DVD player. What can I say... I like to connect all kinds of things together. It's not a very big place and has a terrible layout so that's why I bought the Mini Monitors."What kind of music do you play and how loud do you want to play it?"
I listen to all kinds of music and I'm not kidding. I have probably 35 John Coltrane releases, but I also have probably 20 Sonic Youth releases. The point is that my Listening tastes are all over the place. We have a pretty good Library with thousands of CDs and I often pick out random cds from every catagory to bring home and listen to.
Some music demands to be listened to loud so I'd like to listen to it as loud as I can without disturbing my neighbors.Now seeing that since they are just little Paradigms I believe there are things I can do to lessen the sound to neighbors.
Thanks.
That is good news. Take a look at the panels from RealTraps, GIK Acoustics, ASC, ATS Acoustics, etc. Visit the Room Acoustics/Rives forum here and make use of their expertise. You probably should look at Jon Risch's website for his DIY absorption plans too.
Since you aren't dealing with extended bass response you should be able to attenuate any leakage into the adjoining dwelling to a considerable extent. Good luck!
plantsman, thanks for the mention, but....Sound absorption in the room isn't going to help the neighbors a lot, it might do a little, but it would be a fractrion of what properly addressing the problem could do.
Sound isolation is different than sound absorption, and what matters most has already been pointed out here below:
sheer mass
vibration path isolation
and one other thing not often mentioned:
air leaks.By that last, I mean that if your place shares a common air conditioning/heating system, then an air vent might be leaking a surprising amount of sound from one room into the next.
Open windows are a huge amount of sound leakage, both in and out.
Closing them, and making sure that they are air tight can work wonders.Finally, isolating the vibration path will probably be your most cost efective thing you can do, as well as being of the non-wall altering persuasion.
By this, I mean, keep the vibrations from the speaker from getting into the floor (I assume your speakers are on stands out in the room, and the stands couple to the floor) and traveling into the other room via their floor. You can't do much about their floor, but you CAN isolate the speakers from your floor.
Build a platform consisting of a piece of paving stone, or patio squares, or even granite if you have access to a cheap source, place this on a rubber mat on the floor, and then place your speaker stand on the stone. This will create a local reference point for the speaker, and help isolate the vibrations from the floor, without leaving the speaker too loose and floating about.If you are already using a concrete block or two for a speaker stand, then place some rubber sheet (or a cheap door mat made from springy material) under the bottom one that contacts the floor.
Of course, acoustically treating your room could also provide a wealth of benefits for YOUR listening pleasure, but in and of itself, will not fix your neighbor sound leakage problems that much.
I'm embarrassed that I left out speaker decoupling.
Why thank you.
Yours and a few others are exactly the type of creative answers I was looking for. Logically I knew that there was something I could do, but I wasn't sure of the exact thing or the best thing to do.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
If you decide to buy the place you could open the common wall and if there is a direct mechanical path, i.e. a single set of studs between your dry wall and the neighbors, you can decouple it. I know ASC and Acoustic Surfaces offer products for that and no doubt other companies do as well. Just resist that urge to buy a subwoofer.
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