Have to move to an apartment ;(( Need help!!!

My answer is simple. It's not possible. Get over it and embrace headphones until your situation changes.

 

Lean into it and enjoy the opportunity to acquire a really sweet headphone setup. When life hands you lemons…

 

Great sound in an apartment is perfectly possible - just look to Japan!

How about a pair of quality used minimonitors listening nearfield? Sell them on when your circumstances change again...

 

“This from the internet:”

That’s a phrase for the ages. Well, I have to inform you that your “typical” concrete is not used in the construction of mid-rise and high-rise buildings.

Plus, you don’t read carefully. I posted that concrete buildings can be quite quiet, but only until some audiophile inadvertently couples something (speakers, usually) to a floor or sheer wall. Then, remarkable noise/sound transmission takes place because reinforced concrete resonates like a bell in large buildings @allied333 despite what your inexperienced mind has read on the internet. The same thing will happen when, in an otherwise quiet concrete building, an audiophile raises the listening volume to a level sufficient to activate a resonance frequency of the concrete.

If you live in a quiet concrete building, you’re enjoying your own good listening habits (not foolishly loud, speakers not coupled to floor or wall) and your neighbors are also behaving.

 

I'm an apartment dweller here in the UK (suspended wood floors). I do have speakers but don't play them often or very loud. I've focussed most of my spend on a good headphone system.

I have wondered about concrete - my adjoining walls are concrete and I wouldn't say the noise isolation is exceptional from those. While I suspect footfall from above would be reduced with it (my neighbour upstairs has plyboard carpeted sub-floor), I'm not sure if that would necessarily feed into noise transmission being reduced with music. Agitater seems to suggest otherwise?

Regardless, forcing your noise onto others is not reasonable and it's a recipe for domestic disputes. Having someone with a sub-woofer upstairs (as I had in the past) is seriously annoying. If you sign up to live in an apartment, you are expected to obey covenants regarding noise - it's not a free-for-all.

 

I've been and lived in many buildings in many countries. Never been in the building that doesn't transmit sound through the walls.
I will disturb your neighbors unless they like your music. The best advice you got here is to find a corner unit on the first floor. That way you just improve your chances of having fewer complains.

 

Did the dead worry about volume?
Rock on!

 

It all depends on construction type. Many concrete structures use floors/ceilings made of metal pan with concrete poured on it. This does not isolate well.

a sound wave is comprised of 3 parts
The incident wave from the source
The reflected wave
The refracted wave that passes thru, not the original but a new one generated by the vibrating surface

The reflected and refracted = incident minus losses of absorption.

from the table:
Concrete is good if left corse, but seldom is, and often is panted. Gypsum is not bad, glass is pretty good too. The issue in buildings most walls are not block, but poured , so no air break.

A corner unit, top or bottom floor, plenty of glass. Adjacent to a stairwell may help. Wall to wall carpet and reasonable volumes during reasonable hours. No sub, isolate, not couple the speakers.

Also a preemptive strike, lol: go talk to your neighbors, tell them you like music, if annoying tell them to call/text. You can also do a test, tell them you will turn it up until it bothers them and have them call, then you know the limits.

 

As a structural engineer, I have to clarify your "concrete is very flexible" statement. Concrete is superb in compression, but terrible in tension (that's where the reinforcement is usually placed, and sometimes in the compression zone as well if the tension zone is over a certain % of cross section).
In Europe we have 2 limits - a serviceability limit state, which relates to how much deflection a beam can take and only experience cosmetic cracks, and an ultimate limit state which is deflection related to safety (i.e. potential failure). Whilst you can load concrete and it will "sag" within its serviceable state, that doesn't mean it's flexible - it's the steel reinforcement that's preventing failure. We often "pre-hog" beams so they curve upwards. That way, when they are loaded they are flattened and operate adequately. You really don't want saggy beams or floors!

I do agree with you though that noise transfer through any attached elements (regardless of material) WILL happen. It's vibration and unavoidable unless entirely decoupled/disconnected - very expensive to do well, and unlikely to be achieved without professional help.

 

Lots of pessimists in this thread. It is entirely dependent on the building. There are very many of us in New York City that enjoy music in our apartments at moderate to high volumes. No one has ever complained about me where I am now, which is a well-constructed high rise built in the 1940s. I lived in a 19th century brownstone when I was in college and got complaints, because the floors and walls were so thin that you could hear your neighbors speaking even at low volumes. I will not live somewhere like that again.

In any case, I reasonably expect some level of noise to be audible from my neighbors, and they expect the same. But this is New York. There are musicians, singers, actors, etc. everywhere--not the place to live if you want your apartment to be a silent sanctuary. There are some things you can do to help, but the biggest tips are to know your neighbors, and not to be a jerk about it. It is much more difficult to complain about being able to hear your music at 7pm than 1am. Also, perhaps look at younger neighborhoods where your neighbors are less likely to be bothered.

Logistically, as someone else said, make sure your stereo is set against an internal wall. You don't want your neighbor on the other side of it. Also, buy isolation pads if you use subs (which I do, and again, no complaints). Anti-vibration feet for your speakers if using floorstanders are a good idea too. And I second the suggestion to use headphones. Ultimately, if I wanna crank Nirvana at midnight on a Tuesday while I read, there is no polite way to do it. Buy a great pair of headphones and you're set. My headphones are not better or worse than my speakers--they offer a very different presentation of the music, one that I personally appreciate. Learn to love them.

 

You can try all of this but bottom line is bass frequencies are quite tough to lessen and will invariably travel everywhere else. I know of what I speak. You may run into a situation where the building is made with thick walls, therefore allowing you to have mids and highs at a reasonable volume but bass frequencies will be the main concern.

Forget about using a subwoofer. Hell, I wouldn't even suggest using anything else but bookshelf speakers that are decoupled as much as possible from whichever surface they'll reside on.

 

The only way to avoid low freq propagation is to decouple the full room using mass and making your inner walls flexible (a room within a room). And avoiding any point of contact with the outside.
Very expensive.

 

Why do you have to move?

 

My solution is not perfect but has worked for me.
I'm on the top floor on purpose with a neighbor adjacent as well. My floor is carpeted.
First, you can lessen bass boom by isolating your speakers and definitely your sub from the floor. Maybe not optimal but workable. That reduced that boom acceptably for me. Do it right and you'll be rewarded with better low volume spl and even tighter bass.
I use a small bit of eq based on my rew samples. I'd paste pics but have been having a difficult go at it lately.
I save loud days, maybe 60-70ish dbs, for weekends early when most people are up and about or out. And for short periods of time. I certainly anticipate loud weekends from time to time from my neighbors.
Summertime is rolling up. My neighbor below likes to entertain. Soooo....
Week days are perfect because almost no one is home and I can light it up about 12-1 without feeling guilty. lol.
The rest of the time I'm listening at an average of 40-50db which I'm reasonably certain can be barely heard if at all outside my apt or through the floor.
And most importantly, speaker placement. Did I say speaker placement?

 

The I find the bass of open-baffles and planars tends to be less disturbing to adjacent rooms for whatever reason. If I were confined to a small apartment, the first speaker I’d try is the Maggie LRS.

 

I would simply go near field listening and skip the sub.

 

Do what I did and become the manager ! LOL. Best wishes.

 

Some good advice here. Some of my experiences:
1. I lived for a couple of years in a very small 1 bedroom apartment in an old building, built for poor people around 1900 (no bathroom, toilet on each floor shared with the neighbor). By some miracle, there was very little sound transmission between floors. At one point, the neighbor two floors up had warned us that they were throwing a party. I didn't hear a thing until one of partygoers and I went to the toilet in the back stairways at the same time. So you might want to investigate how well a prospective apartment building isolates noise.

2. I have an audiophile colleague who lives in a newer (concrete) apartment. She says that one of the perks of that it is so soundproof that she doesn't disturb the neighbors when playing loud. I can't go into the arguments about concrete's properties but the bottom line is that in her building from approximately 2005, sound proofing is pretty good. So going for newer buildings may make it easier to find a soundproofed one. And if you do, get something to decouple your speakers from the floor.

3. I current live in a two-story apartment, the top two floors that is. The top floor is an old attic that has been converted to living space, and there are no immediate neighbors. This is a blessing. While I can't blast outrageous SLs at all times, I don't really think about the neighbors, and I have never had a complaint. So getting an end apartment may indeed be the way to go.

 

Floor unit/end unit. Don't place the speakers on a common wall. Bring the speakers into the middle of the room. You'll figure it out when you get there. Good luck on which new neighbors you get. Introduce yourself and let them know you like to listen at normal hours! Who knows, they might have stereo systems too and will be glad you moved in so they don't get complaints!

 

Talk with your prospective neighbors to see if you can come to a compromise as to loudness, and time of day. I did that with mine, and not only did they appreciate my communicating with them, but they were also quite accomodating as well! My compromise was to turn it down after 9:00PM, and as one of my neighbors sometimes appreciates a quiet evening from time to time due to work driving her nuts, she can text me whenever she needs it quiet, and I'm more than willing to accomodate her. We get along very well, and I have no issues cranking it to 80 - 90 dba when the mood strikes! Of course, YMMV.

I'm sorry to hear of your family's circumstances. Good luck in your negotiations with the new neighbors!

 

I’ve had to live in several apts while trying to crank rock n roll. You wont be able to turn up volume as before. Buy some nice headphones. And maybe hp amp. It helps. Preempt your neighbors before complaints. Tell them abt your hobby, give them cell # & ask to txt if music too loud. Bake them cookies. .

 

There are building Code requirements, a newer building will be better.

2015 INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTIAL CODE (IRC) - APPENDIX K

http://media.iccsafe.org/store/2015Handbook/ICC_G2-2010.pdf

 

I would agree to the near listening and skip the sub. Keep speakers away from the neighbors walls and put your speakers away from the wall and into the room. The closer you are to the speakers are the less you have to have the volume up. Good luck and always the option of headphone listening especially at night time.

 

Sound propagates much more easily through some materials than others.

I lived in a (1960s era) high rise once. The floors were concrete slab. I could not hear a thing coming from above or below me. The concrete did not allow sound to propagate easily through it.

Conversely, the walls between units on the same floor (made of gypsum board and wood construction) allowed sound to pass easily. Thus I could hear my neighbors on the same floor but not my neighbors on the floors above and below me.

Right now I live in a (1920s) era three story walk up with wood and gypsum board construction and I can hear my neighbors talking on the phone (the wood beams that run through the floor connecting apartments act like telephone wires, transmitting every detail of a conversation). I can hear the dog next door running around (in circles) in his unit and occasionally barking. I can hear the toilet flushing next door! There is no sound insulation whatsoever.

I do not play my system very loudly (out of respect for my neighbors) though they occasionally play their systems very loudly. Also mid-range sounds like voices and many instruments do not have as long wavelengths and reach, as bass frequencies and thus will not transmit as far from their source. Since 90% of my listening is classical, I have had few complaints but I am sure this would be different if I listened to more contemporary stuff with thumping bass!

 

I once lived in an apartment like the one you describe. I hated being able to hear every little thing from above, below and next to me. At least the unit above was occupied by the owners and they seldom used the space above mine, but the guy below me went out of his way to be obnoxious. He was a bartender and would come home after closing and blast his music. After threat of eviction due to my complaints about his noise, he started harassing me by repeatedly calling taxis to my unit in the middle of the night. I had to disconnect my doorbell because of that. Unfortunately the next building I lived in wasn't much better in terms of sound isolation. I would recommend that anyone who cares about this issue look for buildings with different construction. I currently live in a high rise and can only hear a neighbor's stereo if they are playing it really loud, and I don't hear routine things like footsteps or conversation at all. So not only can I listen to my music at a reasonable volume without disturbing anyone but I'm also not constantly annoyed by neighbor noise. Tips: Thump on a wall that's adjacent to another unit and look for a solid thud. Have someone talk in a normal voice outside the door and see how much you can hear. If possible, try to look at a place when it's likely that the neighbors are at home and then listen to what hopefully is relative quiet.

The bottom line is that it's important to be respectful of one's neighbors when living in multifamily dwellings and it's much easier to do this when living in a solidly constructed building.