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Moving into an apartment with wood joist floors - worried about neighbors hearing

Hey all,

So during the pandemic I bought a pair of very Manhattan-unfriendly Egglestonworks Kivas. They sound amazing! 

However I recently decided to move and found an amazing old loft. While signing the lease I saw a bunch of language about noise and playing music loud - and now I’m starting to wonder if I’ve made a huge mistake.

I’ve lived in places with concrete floors the last 15 years, so i didn’t even think about it when taking the place, but this old building has wood joist floors. 

While I don’t listen loud - I’ve always been a low- to medium-volume listener - I’m worried that even then the Kiva’s will have too much bass energy.

The opposite pressure is that the room is huge with high ceilings. So in a vacuum, the Kiva’s would be the perfect speaker for the space.

The way I see it I have two options:

1) Try to move in with the Kiva’s and do everything I can to contain their energy (bass traps / panels / thick rugs / Isoacoustics Gaia pucks - some of which I already have). If there are complaints, then get different speakers or use equalization to lower the bass on my digital sources (not an option for vinyl though)

Or:

2) Get different speakers proactively. If I do this, I could consider a pair of bookshelf speakers with limited LF (SF Amati’s or those WIlson bookshelves?)

Anyone have any experience with this? If I go route #2, what about planar ribbon speakers like Maggie 3.7? Seems like the dispersion on them might solve a lot of the problem here, but not sure if they’ll still resonate the floor.

hudsonhawk

Showing 3 responses by jbuhl

jbuhl's avatar
jbuhl
1,009 posts
 

Got a buddy who lives in a nearly 100 year old building with wood floors.  He is very careful about sound because it is so easy to disturb the unit below. He uses bookshelf speakers.

If it were me I would set up first and contact the people in the lower unit and run a test. See what they can hear. 

I got a good deal on a Velodyne sub from a person who moved into and apartment where it could no longer be tolerated. 

jbuhl's avatar
jbuhl
1,009 posts
 

Yep, show up on front door of lower unit with a bottle of good wine.  Explain how you love this building/unit , want to be a good neighbor but you suffer from Audiophilia....😎

jbuhl's avatar
jbuhl
1,009 posts
 

This a bit of a tangent, on neighbor relations, and sappy but I’ma tell it anyway. When I bought my current place 25 years ago my neighbor marched right over , 1st day, extended his hand and introduced himself. He was retired and proly in his 70’s. My house was a bit of a fixer upper and the grass was hammered due to derelict sprinkler system. Neighbor’s lawn was well kept. After he saw me working on the sprinkler and the rest of the house, he came over and offered to help. Both front and back control valve manifolds were trashed. While I was at work he went to a pipe fitter and had copper manifold sweated up and installed them, never ask for dime. That forged the foundation of a friendship with a family that lasted until his passing. Since then I have repaired heads, lines and valves over the years but I have never had to touch that copper manifold and we get zub zero here in the Rockies. So every late fall when I winterize the system and I look at that manifold all incrusted with grime and dirt , I think of him.

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