Rasing/isolating my subwoofer?

[jrod1986]

Hey guys,

I have a nice 5.1 system with a (equally unfortunate) subwoofer, haha. Everything sounds great, but the subwoofer disturbs the natives with shaking and what not. Anyway, the only solution I've found so far is relatively expensive:



Based on the reviews, it sounds like what I would want/need.

Anyway, thoughts/questions/opinions?

[Frag Mortuus]

I understand what you are wanting, but I would assume that a product that stops the resonance of sound would be counter productive to the point of a subwoofer (or any speaker for that matter). I cant imagine that you would be able to get great lows from a sub with something that is going to prevent the sound from resonating. Because that is pretty much all a subwoofer is used for. It is just a box with a big speaker used for nothing more than low, often long winded, resonating sound.

My advice is to not use the subwoofer. You can (usually) go into your receiver's speaker settings and pick whether your speakers are large or small. If they are listed as small your receiver routes all sound below a certain decibel level to the sub so that all bass comes from it. If they are listed as large then your surrounds will share some of the bass load. If you list them as large (and of course if your speakers can handle it) you will still get some bass resonance but not enough to disturb neighbors.

This is what I had to do when I lived in an apartment building because I always had neighbors pounding on the floor and ceiling at me . It took a little getting used to but I actually came to enjoy my system without the sub because I could turn the volume up higher and not have to worry about my neighbors as much because the lows (bass) is really all they could hear anyway!

Hope that helps!

[Niode]

A well ported and well made sub isn't going to lose a lot from the sound by being de-coupled from the floor. All the floor is doing is resonating the sound, obviously, straight to the neighbours.

Those auralex pads are hideously overpriced on Amazon. I'd go to a Pro-audio/studio equipment seller and get em from there. I have a set of auralex pads that decouple my studio monitors from my console in my studio. They cost me £20 for a set of 4. You don't have to get a specific sub-woofer one. Any auralex speaker de-couplers will work.

If your sub is near a wall or touching it then move it away from it, if you're still getting complaints then get some more acoustic foam and place it between the sub and the wall. The added benefit from doing all this is you'll get much tighter bass response and less rumble. Contrary to popular belief, rumbly fuddy bass is not good bass sound. It should be a smooth tight response and not rumbly in the slightest.

[jrod1986]

I appreciate the responses, guys. As I would like to keep using the sub if possible, I'm gonna look into your suggestions, Niode. I'm glad to know that the Auralex pads can be found cheaper elsewhere.

[fastbilly1]

So a bit of foam glued to a board on top of two other boards is worth $50. I am in the wrong industry.

[Niode]

Bear in mind that $50 for auralex foam is way overpriced. If you know where to go in this country you're looking at £8 per 0.5m board. The specific speaker isolators should cost you £20 for a stereo kit. $50 for 1 piece specifically for a sub is ridiculous.

Unfortunately I can't recommend anywhere in your country to go for this kind of thing, you're going to have to do your own research, unless somebody else wants to chip in of course.