Neighbour Knock door - Home Theatre

Home Theater Lobby
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Hey guys,

Just sharing an encountered experience 2 weeks ago.
First time in 12 years a neighbour came knock door and it’s at 430pm noon lol.
( I only did a ARC calibration and tested 2 quick scenes lol)
or maybe he’s a new neighbour whom just moved in loll.

Neighbour: Hey did u know how loud u play then HA HA HA attitude
me : me straight away apologise said sorry then ask where u stay
Neighbour : he stay somewhere upstairs then he made a move
me : me off the HT system straight away

I believe some of u encountered same concern haha.
For me i will always be considerate when watching movies.
Mutual respect is important, if talk nicely ok lah we can adust.

I guess below should be fine right?

  1. Day time whack any level no issue? lol
  2. OFF Subs, on Tranducers to watch heavy bass movies night b4 10pm.

Any input or sharing will be appreciated.
Thanks guys!

PS : Just got a bro advice put steel shots on top of subs ( prevent energy travel upwards)

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My advice is to be courteous and considerate. How loud did you play at that time? What movies your playing?

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Totally agree bro need to be polite and easy talk for harmony :slight_smile:
Alita demo only 5mins lol. haha. Straight After the recalibration ARC 1.6.10 for 45mins.
-20MV Anthem. :slight_smile: Not super loud bro.

Or maybe he suffered for quite some time buay tahan then came loll.

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Whatever the case. If this is the first time, then you have to consider lowering the listening level from here onwards. The last thing you want is an angry neighbour. Never cross that threshold where police has to come and intervene and mediation follows. Living in HDB has it problems, chief amongst which is playing loud.

Have a chat with him and find out if he has an infant or elderly at home etc and see whether can come to some consensus and let him know your hobby. If he’s the unreason type (you should know by now). Then the only way is to play softer.

By law, don’t play loud past 10.30pm. Be considerate as some people have to work tmr and kids going to school.

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If I not wrong their stuff are rattling up there if not won’t bother. Bro Bryan shared a very useful solution :smiley:

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What’s the solution? Pls share.

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A significant portion of the disturbance to neighbor seems to be due to structural borne vibrations. This is transmitted from the subwoofer cabinets onto the floor and building structure, and can really travel far.
This can be reduced by using isolation products, platforms, footers etc. The steel shots placed onto the subs are remarkably effective at dissipation cabinet vibration energy. Together with suitable footers and platforms, it significantly reduces the structural borne vibrations.

Edit : wanted to add that a quick and easy way to test this effect is using a 5kg bag of raw rice. Fun and easy experiment.

The other source is airborne transmission - pressure waves from the subwoofer output. From personal experience, having the subwoofer bass calibrated to reduce any excessive modal peaks (which can be up to 20dB above average listening levels) significantly reduces the airborne noise factor, even for within own household. The modal peaks are very intense and boomy type of noise disturbance.
For airborne noise, the good news is any efforts done in sealing doors and windows gaps to reduce outside noise is also effective at reducing noise leakage out from the HT.
Lastly, from personal experience I found that having acoustic treatment within the HT also helps a lot with energy dissipation. It just sounds lower volume outside, as some energy is dissipated and managed by the treatment. As opposed to sound energy bouncing around endlessly in the room.

I found this YouTube clip very informative to illustrate the effects of absorption. . Listen with earphones. Enjoy!

PS: notice that at the end with the blankets installed and door closed, the low end thumps is still quite obvious if you listen for it. This shows how low bass energy penetrates structure and is very difficult to stop.

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Exactly…despite all the necessary soundproofing materials used…there is still some low-end LFE energy. One of the reasons why I still lived in old HDB estate is also because of the concrete slab used in the construction as opposed to the newer flats built. Of course, another aspect is also the generous space of older flats compared to newer ones.

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You referring to these? Interesting…not that I needed in my home theater room. I have a subdude platform riser for my subwoofers and a wooden platform riser for my 2 front subwoofers and my room is fully carpeted.

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Yes, steel shots in 25kg bags from an industrial supplier.

I find 4-5kg per sub is more than sufficient to do the job. Bigger monster subs that tend to walk may need more.

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Where do you place it, on top of the subwoofers? And what kind of container to use?

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Spot on. Bro Gavin appreciate this sharing :slight_smile: useful sharing information thanks a lot.

I leave it to the guys to comment more.

Ya i remember it’s share in earlier post below.
Post 30

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Yes i had the same issue in the past.

It happened some years ago, when i stacked the seaton pairs. Back then the false ceiling didnt have any rockwool stuffed inside, and it was rattling like mad. So it was very annoying.

Then one fine day, by chance, i placed a bag of bean bag on top the subwoofers, as the cleaner was doing some vacuum work. Later i played some movie, then i realise, Eh, how come the false ceiling stopped rattling ?" i wondered. Then i saw oh, the bean bag is on the subs!! after that i got some steel shots, and placed it on the seatons pair, and it worked like magic.

Later, i built the line array. But i didnt place any steel shots above it. In one of the demos, the neighbour from eight floor came knocking on my door : “Sir, can you please lower down your bass? My windows are rattling. (sulking)”. I said sorry sorry, didnt know the bass is travelling all the way to 8th floor. (in my heart i was thinking, u need to change your windows :blush: ) But of course i didnt tell him that la. So immediately i lowered the volume.

My first solution was to get the steel shots and placed it on the line array, the rest is history, no more neighbours come knocking on the door, even with the same spls from the subs. (or maybe he eventually changed his window?) not sure. but no more knocking on the door…

that is my experience…

Happened only once with the line array…

I think the most annoying freq is 25 to 35hz… if you have a peak at MLP , its ok, you can eq it. But if this peak is at another location, then u have a lot of energy in other parts of the room. thats why i always advocate the timing alignment of the subwoofers and not amplitude response focused

if the start stop from the woofer is at the same time, there is a nicer balance of flow of energy in the room, instead of just MLP having a balanced energy…

definitely try the steel shots, it might work in your favour. at least these energy will be dissipated by the steel shots before moving upwards to your neighbour… helps for sure…

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oh ya, i shared this story before, in the thread vibration control… now i recall…

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Appreciate it bro sharing this :+1::+1::+1:
Big thanks.

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That’s good to know…yesterday when I was at your place, I knew instantly that your bass is not going to be a concern. But I’m surprised to learn that from 5th floor, the low bass energy can travel up to 8th floor and how did your 8th floor neighbour knew it was you? I bet he must have doing some sleuth work by going floor to floor to find the root cause.

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Try it out and play Alita again to see whether your neighbour will come knocking again. But before that, I would advise you to pay him a visit to tell him about your experiment and he’ll appreciate the kind gesture shown.

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haha that also exactly my doubt. how can the neighour spotted us lol. It must be some groundwork check unit by unit by floor and check if there’s anybody playing a movie at that particular time? lolllllllllll

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Yeah…partly the time slot is very “isolated”…hence it is also easier to catch the culprit.

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ya, so happen there was delivery, so i paused the system, opened the door, and took delivery … then i saw him coming from downstairs up… so he was actually from downstairs… and he had that “oh you are the one” kinda look… lol

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