Townhouse - reducing noise to neighbors...

[AintBaroque]

I would like advice on speaker positioning along with any non-invasive treatments I can do to minimize the amount of sound leaving my townhouse and going into adjacent units.

I want to be a good neighbor and avoid any issues.

I am one of the middle units in a 4-row townhouse, the construction is wood frame, 2 story with a non-usable attic space (typical triangular roof dead space with blown in cellulose insulation is on the other side of 2nd floor ceiling)


Equipment:

Luxman R113 receiver about 35wpc, various music sources
1 pair DCM TimeWindows 1 resting on the carpet
Jamo 210 8" subwoofer roughly in the middle between the two and about 18 inches further in to the room

Room:

carpeted bedroom, queen bed, large armoire, dresser etc.

width 12.5 feet
length 16 feet
height 8 feet floor to ceiling

(Is the fact that the length is exactly double the height something that would be known to cause acoustic problems?)

Position of rig is on the short wall on a shelving unit, DCM TWs in the corner of the short wall

Given that this 2nd floor master bedroom is basically a suspended "box" I am sure it is resonating some sound into the other spaces.

What calculations can I do? Are there any wall treatments or other measures I can take? Should I move the speakers away from the wall and/or put them on stands to avoid them turning the floor into a resonator?

Approximate layout is in attached picture.

 

[Sir.Byrd]

Do you listen in your bed? I would avoid placing the speakers like you currently have them if you will listen facing the dresser. Try rearranging your room and putting them on the bed wall or on the dresser wall.

 

[AintBaroque]

I do have some freedom to move things around ... I was considering placing a chair somewhere to serve for listening and reading purposes only.

 

[Blast]

I agree with Byrd. But, even so... dude... you're so overpowered for multi-family living. Unless, maybe, you've got some open-minded rockin' twenty-somethings next door.

Then again, if they sense that YOU'RE open-minded by how loud you play YOUR stereo they may think they can get away with doing the same thing, It could be 'stereo wars'.

I don't know you or your listening habits. Maybe you don't play an amplifier over 3-5 watts a channel. Based on the time I spent in a multi-family environment in the 70's that's what I see as your upper limit for reasonable volume levels.

It may just be me, something psychological, but I would more tolerate hearing loud sounds from the neighbors coming from side walls than I would from above or below. So, you should probably be glad you have a side-by-side multi-family dwelling rather than people above and below you.

Assuming neighbors units are laid out like yours how about moving the stereo to the living level on the first floor? You might piss me off less if you bothered my living space than my sleeping space. You didn't say if you had a basement, or not. Is that a possibility to move down there?

Sell the home stereo and invest it all in a really nice car audio system! That's what I did in the nineties when we had kids and my home rockin' days were over.

Any way to move to an end unit? You may cut your chances in half of making someone mad.

Good luck with that!

 

[AintBaroque]

For one, assuming the volume knob on the Luxman is linear, I am never putting it above "3" on the scale, which I assume means 30% of power, or about 10 watts into 2 channels.

I do appreciate the thoughts about putting the speakers on the other wall, I may do that.

As well, it has occurred to me that possibly the wide dispersion field of the DCMs is putting sound everywhere; I may put in some Technics SB6000a's which hopefully will sound as good but are more directional.

Am hoping to hear from those who have treated the walls or put sound traps on them, and their experiences with that.

 

[similost]

It's gonna be easier of you to move, than it's going to be to keep the neighbors happy if you turn it up much at all..

 

[RevMen]

Low frequencies are what gets through walls and disturbs neighbors, so the direction you point your speakers isn't going to matter. You should try to keep them away from party walls at least a few feet. You should also try to keep them away from other walls a few feet if you can, because sound can still transmit through structural flanking paths. But if you have to choose one, keep them away from party walls.

Decoupling your speakers from floors and walls will help keep down structural transmission. Don't let your speakers or any furniture they're sitting on touch the walls. If they're floor-standing speakers, put spikes on them or set them on some kind of stand with skinny legs or small feet. Or you can get some neoprene pads to set them on.

If the demising partitions of your townhouse were built well, you might not need to worry about anything (unless you have a habit of really cranking things up). The older the building is, the more likely you are to have good walls. In some of those old buildings, they have completely separate stud rows and multiple layers of wallboard per side. If that's the case you probably won't have anything to worry about.

Newer construction has a lot of cut corners, so you might have a problem there. New stuff often has a single layer of gyp per side and resilient channel subbed for any kind of useful structural decoupling. Not so good. This new loft trend is even worse. Lofts are notoriously horrible at separating neighbors acoustically. If you have a trendy new loft prepare to do a lot of work to make things tolerable.

If you're on good terms with your neighbors, I suggest just doing a simple test. Put a bass-heavy song on repeat, crank it up to your maximum anticipated listening level, then go to your neighbor's space to see if you or they can hear it. If it's audible, then you need to be conscious of listening times and volumes. Or you need to move your rig down to a level that's not adjacent to your neighbor's sleeping space.

 

[RevMen]

Am hoping to hear from those who have treated the walls or put sound traps on them, and their experiences with that.

This affects the way sound reflects and sounds inside your room. It does not affect the amount of sound that transmits through the walls or structure.

 

[PioneerGuy75]

:beer:

 

[tcdriver]

RevMen has offered a lot of good advice. My experience is to just keep the volume down and invest in a good set of headphones for those times when you want to hear the music a little louder.

 

[HamDog]

I can offer some advice on subwoofer placement. Low frequency wavelength can be tricky. I live in an apartment too. I had my subwoofer near a corner originally. In my listening position, I didn't hear the low bass to well. But when I walked near a side wall (where neighbors were on the other side), the bass was much louder. I could just place my hand on the wall and feel the vibrations. My neighbor (a very nice lady and we have good relations) sometimes complained that the pictures on her wall rattled.

After some time of frustration, I moved my subwoofer behind the couch (behind my listening position). Bass significantly improved in my listening position, so now I don't have to turn it up as much. Also, there is no bass near the adjoining wall and I don't feel any vibrations when putting my hand on the wall.

It was amazing to see the difference by just changing the location of the subwoofer. My neighbor doesn't complain anymore and says there is no more rattling of anything in her place.

Here's a little trick: Get some long cables and place your subwoofer in your listening position. Walk around the room and see where the bass sounds the best. Where you hear the bass the best is usually the best place to put your sub. By placing it there, you don't necessarily need to turn the sub louder to compensate.

Apartment living is tough for us folks who love audio systems! Good luck.

 

[Guest101]

I would like advice on speaker positioning along with any non-invasive treatments I can do to minimize the amount of sound leaving my townhouse and going into adjacent units.

I want to be a good neighbor and avoid any issues.

I am one of the middle units in a 4-row townhouse, the construction is wood frame, 2 story with a non-usable attic space (typical triangular roof dead space with blown in cellulose insulation is on the other side of 2nd floor ceiling)

I likewise live in a 2 story framed middle unit town home. The only time my good neighbors have had issues with our 2 systems was from the bass, not highs and loud volumes.

Removing the subwoofer from our 2.1 system on the first floor in favor of balanced full range speakers was one solution. And secondly in our spare room 2 channel music system (which is across from their master bedroom), when I was using speakers w/ high energy, tight/dynamic bass. Speakers with a gentler and less predominate bass or mid/bass will not carry through the framing structure of the building.

Therefore, bass traps are probably the biggest improvement you could make to keep your neighbors happy, as well as speakers that don't produce that driving mid/bass or bass.:yes:

 

[Ghog]

Townhouse means you own your unit, right. If so, you would be free to do some minor modding of the walls. Simply doubling the sheetrock can significantly cut down on the transmitted sound.

 

[luddite]

It's all about mass. Sound is is physical disturbance of mass. The more layers of drywall you put in your sound room the less mechancial energy will be transferred to the studs, which in turn reverberate your neighbour's wall. Also. those stud cavities will act like drums if there is no proper batting and a lot of multifamily units are built on the cheap. If you really want to go the distance, add another stud wall an inch off the existing, fill that new one with wool batts, and then double drywall it with 5/8". That's good for townhouses (where there is nobody above or below).

 

[luvvinvinyl]

If you are going to the trouble of doubling up the drywall, then use QuietRock. It actually converts the sound energy to heat, and acts as a sink or trap. There is a downside, though, as it can greatly deaden a room that otherwise was a good listening space.

 

[RevMen]

Adding additional mass with another layer of gyp-board (or mass-damping-mass with QuietRock) is a good solution if the pathway of disturbing sound is directly through the walls. There are other pathways besides direct transmission through walls and it would be best to analyze the problem before committing to that level of renovation. It would be very wasteful to add additional layers to the walls if the main propagation path was through the floor, through vents, through the ceiling, etc.

 

[quiet]

It's all about mass. Sound is is physical disturbance of mass. The more layers of drywall you put in your sound room the less mechancial energy will be transferred to the studs, which in turn reverberate your neighbour's wall. Also. those stud cavities will act like drums if there is no proper batting and a lot of multifamily units are built on the cheap. If you really want to go the distance, add another stud wall an inch off the existing, fill that new one with wool batts, and then double drywall it with 5/8". That's good for townhouses (where there is nobody above or below).

Yes, the new dry wall must be decoupled from the old. Biggest single factor.

 

[nedseg]

What they said. But. Have you asked your neighbor if they can hear your system?
"Don't Know? Don't Guess. ASK."
Easier than trying to suss out how it's built, or getting a copy of the as-builts, and you might get lucky and find appreciative neighbors who will help you test things out!
My dad built townhomes in the 70s and included separated (doubled) walls between the units, drywalled & insulated on both sides with a 4" air pocket (also fiberglassed) in between... the sound transmission was nil, but what did get thru was just the deepest bass.
(I tested it hard with my JBLs! And usually found new tenants were more than happy to help me assess it.)

I don't recall what he did about how the walls were tied into framing at the tops and bottoms...but could find out.
I do recall that he researched it quite a bit as these were considered premium townhomes (still are).

Transmission to units below (all wood framing) was, uh, less successful.
Good luck!

 

[quiet]

Music has become so important to me now that if I moved from my sfh on one acre I would get another sfh on at least one acre.
Wish everyone had it, you too.

 

[Quadman2]

You are prob not gonna like my two suggestions but will offer them anyways.

You could dump the sub, and go with some speakers with a lower base response. That really low freq might be avoided this way, and you might be able to better control the sound.

Secondly, get yourself a great pair of headphones wherein you can really appreciate what your system can share.

Q