Isolating the sounds

I'm moving into an appartment with my girlfriend this summer. Problem is : it's an old building and it lacks sound isolation. The propretary lives right under me.

Although she is pretty open to musicians and loud sounds, there is a difference between a guitar or a keyboard, and the incessant BOUM BOUM BOUM of a subwoofer.

I'm searching different means of isolating the sound. The ideal goal would be to reach a satisfying level of loudness while the bass does not travel to my propretary living quarter.

Any ideas ?

 

... go to the basement

There's not much to do in an appartment.. you can put your Monotors on Damping feets. ALso keep them away from all stuff going thru the whole building (water distribution pipes etc).

if your floor is made of wood... you're screwed and condemend to no loud mix when the landlord's in

 

Try stacking on a huge pile of audio isolation foam, dont let it touch anything other than the foam (no walls, floors, doors, windows, meerkats, etc, XD) and dont turn it up too loud when the LL is in! Also, turn the sub down, but keep the speakers up and you will still hear most of the music without so much bass.

Sadly there is not much you can do in an old building....

 

Get the guy next door to practice the bagpipes as often as possible. Then your LL will ask you to play your music louder to drown out the noise. HAHAHA

 

+1

 

I had already thought about that. Still, there might be some other cues.

 

use headphones then you're safe.
Really there is not much you can do in an old building. Even if you completely isolte the speakers (housings) from the floor, the sound will reach one floor down.

 

There could be a solution.. A mate of mine really into HIFI used to have his speakers Hanging off the ceiling... but in that case, you can forget about the Subwoofer. But if the speaker's height matches your size, you'll get a good and bassy sound without making the floor shake.

 

Sound insulation with the intention of reducing the noise heard by neighbors is TOTALLY POINTLESS in an apartment building.

It doesn't matter much if the building is new or old. Basically, you will neither have the budget nor sufficient physical space to do it effectively. Low frequencies are the problem. (On the other hand, soundproofing to improve the acoustics of a room can make sense even in an apartment building.)

 

I'll guess I'll stick to playing it low and reducing the bass. Still, trying to get the sub over the floor could be an idea,

 

Do what I did. Move into an empty council building. Three years ago the council and municipality services in my area vacated their building for a bigger better property. Now I stay here for cheap-cheap in return for looking after the old building.

I have the bliss of cranking up to 11 without anyone hearing a thing.

 

This is what have i done also But on top of that i did some sound improvments in the room with the speakers.

 

I didn't need to soundproof, no need, hell I throw parties and the neighbours still think the building is abbandoned. They regularly give me the squatter eye, even though I've been here for 3years.

But I did implement a custom sound dampening technique. The building was strewn with these office cubical dividers when I moved in - I found them to be very effective at dampening acoustic reflections etc, so I placed a few in strategic spots, worked like a charm!

 

I say GODA**N ! This is awesome. Once my new home will be set, I'll open an eye, this could be very tempting !