I have been living in the same house for almost ten years and a few years back the house next door home sold and turned into a section 8 (subsidised housing). Every evening without interruption they play basketball in the driveway that is about 15 feet from the side of our house.

I researched using white noise pumped into my office at work to eliminate sound carrying from one cube to another. I had this ingenious idea this weekend to download some white noise / pink noise of the Internet, increase the length to 50 minutes and burned to a CD. I placed it in my cd player and turned on the outdoor speakers. The problem is that they face towards the backyard and not the side.

I was considering placing a few speakers under the overhang on the side of our home and each time the kids go crazy next door, we can turn on the white noise and cancel the disrupting noise.

From a physics perspective is this possible? How would I calculate volume level of the cancelling noise? I was thinking I would need to sample volume levels using a direction microphone and then take measurements and adjust volume accordingly.

Please someone tell me to go out and buy a set of out door speakers, a crown amp!

There is no noise cancellation.
Th idea is that you hear the white noise instead of the basketball.

I am not sure the constant hiss of white noise would be any better at the volume levels needed to drown out kids playing basketball.

So what does section 8 housing have to do with people playing basketball? There are people living in million dollar homes that also play basketball every evening.

Noise cancelling headphones. Assuming there's no zoning ordinances against playing bball after a certain hour, not only will your approach not work, but it'll be guaranteed to piss off the neighbors. You could just go out and see if you can get into the game!

So what does section 8 housing have to do with people playing basketball? There are people living in million dollar homes that also play basketball every evening.
Yeah. And it's curious you'd want to battle them with white noise. Hmm...

Yeah. And it's curious you'd want to battle them with white noise. Hmm...

LOL :p Try cranking up some Metalica, thats about as white and noisy as you can get. :D

LOL :p Try cranking up some Metalica, thats about as white and noisy as you can get. :D

I LOL'd.

You can mask any sound with a competing noise. With the peak levels that you would see from the basketball your white noise levels would need to be pretty loud. If you wanted to be more efficient about it you could find the average long term spectrum for the noise next door and filter a noise to match it. Either way it's really not an efficient solution. ;)

Noise masking is often used to decrease speech understandability, in open space offices for example. To be effective the noise is usually some form of pink noise or frequency shaped in some way. White noise is not normally used. Volume and sometimes frequency balance must be changed from time to time to prevent the brain from accommodating. People working in noise masked environments often do not like it, perhaps because the noise level is significantly higher all of the time.

Impact noise such as the thump of a basketball is not going to be masked.

I notice a certain liberal or progressive cast in some of the replies. I wonder how many of these are from people who have lived next to subsidized housing? Here is a factoid from the recent news. A city in Northern California, east of where I live, recently discovered that a subsidized housing locations (a relatively small percentage of the total housing) were responsible for over 60% of the police activity. One of the groups complaining about the residents of this housing was a local Black organization-- it is not always about race.

Back to the noise. Talk to your neighbors first. Try visiting or phoning when there is a problem. See if your town has an anti-noise ordinance. Call the police if appropriate.

Great responses. Thank you!

My house is damn near a million dollars and I do play basketball, not sure of the relevance.

Looks like Mettalica wins! LOL

You all just saved me a weekend of installation and $$$$

Love this place!

If that doesn't work, give it about 4 months and the Illinois weather will fix the problem for you.

..Doyle

I notice a certain liberal or progressive cast in some of the replies. I wonder how many of these are from people who have lived next to subsidized housing? Here is a factoid from the recent news. A city in Northern California, east of where I live, recently discovered that a subsidized housing locations (a relatively small percentage of the total housing) were responsible for over 60% of the police activity. One of the groups complaining about the residents of this housing was a local Black organization-- it is not always about race.



"it is not always about race"

Right on the money. I live in a relatively small town and the population of non-white people is almost non-existent.

However, in addition to a bunch of stereo/HT gear, I own a scanner radio. Guess where most of the action is?

Buy one of those superdirectional speaker-weapons and use them on the basketball players...... and videotape it.