Hi All,

I apologize in advance b/c i'm sure this same rant has been discussed to some degree before. I am looking for some advice.

I am nearly complete with my living room home theater setup. I just bought a condo, I am on the top floor, and have a decently sized and shaped living room to use as the home theater.

I'm very happy with the speaker layout, tv location... still tweaking some settings and recalibrating to make sure I have optimized what I have. I love my speakers and receiver (although at some point need to upgrade my receiver). I am running deftec prosat 800's for all satellite speakers in a 7.1 setup, the center is a procenter 1000. I have the Deftec prosub 800 as well. The receiver is the yamaha rx-v1700.

My frustrations are bass levels, and travel. Any apartment dweller or condo owner share this frustration, and I think my issue is just, not knowing how much the people below me can hear. I don't like to disturb people, but i'd really like to not have everything so low either. I don't mind having minimal bass, but I want to make sure i'm not completely shaking their ceiling. The bass levels are low, and I have the sub on a subdude, and have installed bass shakers into my theater seats. With the bass low I still get an awesome rumble type feeling and love how it feels at that leve, but I stil get paranoid that it might be too much.

So I went and introduced myself to my neighbor below, and she seemed nice but mentioned.." so your the one making all the noise" I was kinda shocked, b/c at this point I thought I had everything toned down quite a bit, and was going to ask her ot listen to see how high I can get it without over-doing it. So I asked her how bad it was, and she said, it's pretty loud, but it's ok we are rarely here. At that point I could tell she was just being nice. A part of me said ok just tone it down a tiny notch, and b/c she sqaid it was ok, and I made good rapport, then all is done :-) But the better half of me still didn't want to know I could be disturbing them.

I'm a bit shocked that she could hear that much as she was talking about, but I noticed her next door neighbor has been remodeling... so it could in fact be their noise that has been disturbing her. If I run into her again i'll ask if she can hear the noise from above in the evening or during the day. Kind of tough b/c there is a language barrier.

So for my own re-assurance, I want to try to reduce the amount of bass travel while still having enough and feeling enough to enjoy a movie. I put a decent amount of money into the speakers, receiver, tv, and chairs to not be able to enjoy what this setup can do!

Any tips on what I can do to reduce the noise? The floor is actually cement and has decent padding and carpeting that I just re-did. I was contemplating building a small riser to put the chairs on and the sub to add additional distance and hopefully more insulation, to isolate some of the bass, esp. from the shakers. I love the feel of the shakers, and even though they are built into the seat I feel it travels heavily to the ground.

Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Luke

Is your sub downfiring or front firing? If it's downfiring turn it on its side perhaps?

Also, any chance you can place it nearfield and use it as an endtable or something similar?

Best suggestion: Move.

As you have already learned subwoofers are not compatible with apartment or condo living when use properly.

Kip... I beleive it's front firing... when you say nearfield... do you mean closer to the seats?

Stereodude... would be great if I could do that now, but unfortunately I just purchased and will have to make do until I can purchase a single family home where I can crank it with no worries

Do people use risers as a form of isolation? it's something I can do, I just need to research the insulation materials so it's not hollow. Or is that just as close to the same?

Luke

Honestly, when sharing common walls with people even the slightest amount of bass can travel. Even bass from a cheap boombox travels, let alone any decent home subwoofer. Aside from moving the best you can do is try to make the best of the situation - try to limit use of the sub to when you know they are out, etc.

Kip... I beleive it's front firing... when you say nearfield... do you mean closer to the seats?

Stereodude... would be great if I could do that now, but unfortunately I just purchased and will have to make do until I can purchase a single family home where I can crank it with no worries

Do people use risers as a form of isolation? it's something I can do, I just need to research the insulation materials so it's not hollow. Or is that just as close to the same?

Luke

Yes by nearfield I mean place it right next to your couch/listening position and turn down the volume accordingly.

I know exactly how you feel. I have a next door neighbor with whom I share a wall--except that my living room wall is their bedroom wall! They've knocked on my door 3 times in 3 years to ask us to tone things down. I feel really badly about this because they are great neighbors. I'm now on the verge of ditching the sub altogether.

Best suggestion: Move.

As you have already learned subwoofers are not compatible with apartment or condo living when use properly.

And as I have learned sub are compatible with apt living when properly calibrated and set up.

I don't know?
Frequencies above say 120Hz don't have the same effect.
So you can have the volume loud with no bass or very little and wont get complaints.
A properly calibrated sub will follow the speakers output as the volume rises which in turn gets you in trouble.

And as I have learned sub are compatible with apt living when properly calibrated and set up.Maybe if you listen at 30dB below reference with Night Mode turned on and the maximum possible dynamic range compression enabled. :rolleyes:

Luke,
A couple of things...
1. Check how your bass shakers are installed, shakers are notorious for transfering low energy through your floor. I'm dealing with the same issue now, my theater is upstairs over kids bedroom. I'm looking into somekind of isolation mats to place under the chairs to stop.

2. If you are really looking to have bass in your theater their are EQ's you can buy to x out the sub-sub hrz, anything in the 40 & below range you really don't need and that sub range is what really travels through anything.

Hope this helps,

Andrew

Thanks for all the info and suggestions everyone!

I was also thinking of some type of isolation mat, and almost as far as to building a small riser with good insulation. If you try the mat let me know how that goes, and if I try something i'll do the same!

Could you break down the EQ's a bit more...that sounds very interesting, but i'm not familiar with them, and am a decent noobie to all of this :-) Where can you buy one and is it difficult to calibrate?

I'm fortunate with my place that my neighbor to the right is the only neighbor on my level that could have been an issue but I have the kitchen/dining room in between and that wall connects with their kitchen and dining... so the only real issue is the neighbor below.

Once I get a decent solution i'm going to play at desired volume, and maybe up a notch and see if that disturbs them, and if they can hear or feel it. That way I really know. Hopefully they are welcoming and kind :-P

Thanks again all!

Luke