I was on vacation (stay-cation, actually) last week, so I'm just seeing
this now. I was really into all of this acoustic magic when I was in HS
and college, and even took "The Physics of Sound" as a tech. elective in
engineering school. And a few years ago, I started playing bass, which
renewed my interest in this sort of thing. Those are my credentials,
which hardly make me an expert, but here is my two cents:
1. Raising your subwoofer off the floor by way of an elastomeric
suspension should help reduce the couple with the floor, but it will
also reduce the base response. Most subwoofer are designed to go on the
floor, which means they were probably designed with floor coupling
taking into consideration. When I put one of my bass amps up on an amp
stand, A lot of the bottom end disappears. You probably want to use a
product specifically for decoupling speakers from floors like these:
Auralex SubDude: http://www.auralex.com/product/subdude-ht/
Auralex Gramma: http://www.auralex.com/product/gramma/
These two products are from the same company, but I'm sure there are
plenty of others out there.
In the book "Stuff! Good Bass Players Should Know" by Glenn Letsch
(http://www.amazon.com/Stuff-Good-Bass-Players-Should/dp/1423431383),
the author claims that Sorbothane is great for isolating tube (valve if
your British) amps from the bass amps they are resting on, you might
want to investigate that for isolating your subwoofer, too:
http://www.sorbothane.com/
2. It's important to differentiate between materials that prevent
acoustic reflections, and those that absorb acoustic energy. They're not
always the same. Not every material that reduces reflections will
necessary stop transmission. Acoustic ceiling tiles absorb reflections,
but I don't think they do much to stop transmission through them,
especially of the lower frequencies.
For absorbing bass frequencies, and preventing reflections, it seems
that the best material out there (certainly on a cost basis) is mineral
wool (aka rock wool) . After years of being absent from the US
marketplace, rock wool is making a comeback, and Roxul sells a version
called Safe 'n' Sound that is very dense specifically for fireproofing
and soundproofing. Not sure if it or something similar is available in
your part of the world, but I'm glad it's available here. I'm going to
use it in renovations I'm making to my house so I can play my bass at
all hours without disturbing my neighbors.
I've been doing a lot of research on rock wool recently, and it
apparently has been the go-to material for soundproofing music studios
for years, even when it wasn't available to the general public here in
the states.
http://www.roxul.com/products/residential/products/roxul+safe'n'sound
If you google 'rock wool' or 'mineral wool' and "bass trap"s, you should
find a lot of interesting 'how-tos' It seems the best solution is to put
triangular bass traps in the corners.
If you want to absorb bass in certain directions, you can also use rock
wool and some standard lumber to create 'gobos' to block the sound from
going in certain areas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobo_%28recording%29
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=how+to+make+a+gobo+with+mineral+wool&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
I've read some how-tos on this, and the authors who used Safe 'n' Sound
claim it makes a significant differences across the entire audio spectrum.
You could also by rock wool boards (denser, harder rock wool), put
acoustically transparent fabric over them, and just hang them on your
walls, so they look like wall decorations, but I think the board form is
much more expensive and harder to come by, at least here in the states
it is.
http://www.roxul.com/products/residential/products/roxul+comfortboard+is
I hope that information gives you a start.
If you plan on doing renovations, you might want to look at Homosote,
which would attach to the studs before you attach the drywall, but I'm
sure that's beyond your current scope.
http://www.homasote.com/
You could also put dense vinyl sheeting up against the studs before the
drywall, but ,again, that's probably beyond your current scope.
Prentice
On 03/14/2016 02:36 PM, C Bergström wrote:
This is the smartest list I subscribe to - I'm not sure if anyone has
the knowledge/time, but I'm trying to solve a general problem.
------------
Moving condos and new location is *very* noise sensitive. I feel
fairly confident I can spam absorbent material as needed to reduce the
db from high frequency sound going out the door, but bass is going to
be more of a challenge.
My crazy ideas
#1 Raise the subs 1-1.5 meter off the ground and decouple them from the floor
#2 Put some highly dense material directly under the subs.
#3 low pass filter so only dealing with 80Hz and not even more
problematic lower frequencies
I'm a little fuzzy on the details of if subwoofers typically produce a
directional sound and or if it depends on the box.
"bass traps" appear to be more marketing hype than actually
functionally useful for my case.
(lowering the volume to the subs and adding "buttkickers" is an
option, but that's more for fun and less about sound quality/general
problem)
----------
My walls are at least 150mm thick concrete fwiw.
Thanks
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