[dchow1981]

Hi everyone,


I live in an condo apartment in New York. Share a wall with my neighbor who have been complaining about noise already.


The walls are made with cement and I am not going to build another wall etc. I have carpet on my floor.


I saw on a website - foamorder.com that acoustic foam is a good way to insulate sound.. is this a good idea? To put it on the whole wall it would cost me almost $200!


I'm a newbie to this soundproofing thing so bear with me!


Thanks!

 

[BIGmouthinDC]

There is a lot of information on this thread about sound proofing try a search to locate it.


As for your situation it might help to do a little detective work before you start spending money.


Tell your neighbors that you want to maintain the peace and are undertaking efforts to reduce the sound. Ask if you can come into their apartment to identify what kind of sound is coming over. Is it the bass, or a full spectrum of sound. Is it coming from the wall, ceiling, floor, ceiling air vents from the outlets, or maybe even out your door and in theirs. Don't assume that it is coming through the wall.


Once you identify the potential source and type of sound transfer you could attack the problem more specifically.


For starters are your speakers sitting on the floor which may be sending vibrations into the neighbors apartment. If you have a concrete wall you have a lot of mass I'd look for ways the sound might escape, You might have outlet boxes mounted back to back for example, a heating vent might connect both units etc.


Before you spend the money for the accoustical foam you might take all of your blankets and all of your friends and their friend blankets and hang on the walls. If you get a desired result then the foam will probably help.

 

[EC]

Generally speaking, I don't think the foam will help. I use Auralex Acoustic foam to better the sound in the room. If you go to the Auralex site they basically state that acoustic foam won't help with neighbours but they do provide some non-acoutic suggestions.

 

[CV63]

Unless you plan on putting up a layer of foam 20 feet thick (not even a joke), it wont help the low bass freqs. Those are the ones your neighbor will hear. High freqs are easy to tame. Even the foam your thinking of using will control most of it. The bass however requires mass, or decoupling to stop it. Big gave you very good advice. Think of your room like it was a fish tank. Any small leak will let water(sound) out. If your walls are cement, and your neighbor hears high freqs, then your sound is likely getting there through another venue. Plug up all of the holes and then go from there.