Soundproofing, neighbours complaining.

Homersimpson

sonypc100 wrote: »

ok - might have given you a duff reading above!

I just tried the iphone decibel reader with the room silent and it was reading at 40 decibels!

...so I dont think 70 was an accurate reading.

Thats proably about right, sound pressure levels work on a logarithmic scale so 40dBa is not just over half of 70dBA its about 10%

sonypc100

Homersimpson wrote: »

A commercial fire alarm system emits a minimum noise level of 60-65dBA. In areas where a persion is sleeping its 75dBA. A difference of 3dBA doubles or halfs the noise.

At 70dBA with an uninsulated floor it must sound terrible below you, how about some thick underlay and lifting any speakers off the floor?

The floors are original oak flooring from many moons ago, not the modern day fad of putting laminate or wood flooring down in place of carpet but that means we cannot go down the underlay route.

Happy to lift the speakers if that is likely to help.

Norman_Castle

Try insulating your speakers from your floor. Speakers standing directly on a hard floor will be much worse than speakers standing on carpet. If your surround system has a sub try unplugging this. If this is a big improvement put your efforts into isolating the sub from the floor.

sonypc100

Thanks for all the advice - the speakers are on metal stands that are on the floor, im guessing the stands will not soften the blow at all. Maybe if they were rubber?!! or something that would help?

Also when I say surround sound, its nothing overly fancy its just that our (like most) LCD tv's own speakers are not great so we feed it into the hifi then out to the 2 hifi speakers, nothing fancy like one of those 6 speaker surround sound systems.

Just found some old squares of chunky carpet and put these between the speaker stands and the floor, but if anyone knows of any rubber mats specifically designed to dull sound through wooden floors - speaker stands are about 12cm square, then please let me know.

Yorkie1

You could perhaps try some decent carpet underlay (edit to clarify: I mean, cut into pads on which the speakers stand - I realise you don't have carpet itself down)

TEDDYRUKSPIN

If your reading are correct, you will be going deaf soon. So I suggest you to turn the sound surround speakers off. Do you actually need them on all the time?

People forget that new builds including flats, don't have the necessary sound proofing. It is crazy. You can even sometimes hear people talking through the walls if you concentrate hard.

As for you, the vibrations and sound are just penetrating through below. This means they can hear everything including when you are arguing.

So, in nice term, you are considered the person who is the nuisance. Horrible to digest but you should put the tv sound much lower than you would like. How about getting some nice headphones.

sonypc100

Teddy

The peak of 70 decibels was the other day when watching a blu ray dvd, we also have similar volume for x factor, but thats it, the regular things like soaps, dramas, news, series are much much lower. its more just occasional tv where we like to crank up the sound for the experience.

Although we are classed as a flat, its actually a 5 bedroom residence which would swallow about 7 Barratt house new builds, so we do feel that as there are only 2 of us our neighbours underneath have had a very lucky escape as there could quite easily be 3 teenage kids in here making an absolute racket, but they have chosen to rent a flat underneath a 5 bedroom house with no soundproofing.

We would never buy a ground floor flat due to noise issues.

Norman_Castle

we also have similar volume for x factor,

You force your neighbours to listen to X Factor. You're heartless.

forgotmyname

Small 2 stroke petrol generators are 70db. Not surprised the neighbours complain.

sunshinetours

sonypc100 wrote: »

Teddy

The peak of 70 decibels was the other day when watching a blu ray dvd, we also have similar volume for x factor, but thats it, the regular things like soaps, dramas, news, series are much much lower. its more just occasional tv where we like to crank up the sound for the experience.

Although we are classed as a flat, its actually a 5 bedroom residence which would swallow about 7 Barratt house new builds, so we do feel that as there are only 2 of us our neighbours underneath have had a very lucky escape as there could quite easily be 3 teenage kids in here making an absolute racket, but they have chosen to rent a flat underneath a 5 bedroom house with no soundproofing.

We would never buy a ground floor flat due to noise issues.

Not actually sure if you are now taking the mic, especially on your last comment

As long as you are enjoying your "experience" then sod everyone else yeah? Its the modern British way don't you know......

Call your "flat" whatever you want but you and your neighbours live in the same house/building so a modicum of self policing is generally rquired for all to get on. If you don't like that then save for that detached property