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.
@ghdprentice I’d say I usually listen around 60dB or less (if measured at the listening position anyway - it’s 70dB if I put the SPL right next to the speaker). New apartment is on a busy street so I assume there’s going to be a relatively high noise floor for the neighbors. |
@curiousjim That’s a great idea. I could get a thick rug big enough that both the speakers and couch are on it, and then put granite under the Gaia’s, on top of the carpet. |
Horn-based systems and dome other high efficiency systems tend to sound more lively when played at low volume. Some also do a better job st focusing the sound energy at the listening position so that, they don’t have to played as loud. Many of these systems don’t deliver very deep bass, and that is a plus in your setup. An example of a good manufacturer of horn-based systems is Volti Audio. High efficiency systems with great sounding speakers include the likes of Charney Audio and Songer Audio speakers. Dipole speakers are also quite good in apartments because the front and back waves are out of phase and cancel at the sides; this becomes more pronounced as frequency drops so deep bass is attenuated the most. The difference in sound that bleeds into other rooms between dipoles and othe types of speakers is substantial. The dipole speakers I particularly like are the open baffle speakers made by Pure Audio Project. They sound pretty at lower volume. Loudness drops off quite a bit with increasing distance from the speaker; if you sit fairly close to the speaker it will sound louder. Nearfield listening also reduces the impact of room acoustics on the sound. |
