Using Surround Sound in a Terrace Houses

Crumble2018

Just don't. My life is miserable at the moment because my upstairs neighbours are running some sort of appliance that is putting a low pitched drone throughout our entire flat.



Just accept that if you can't afford a detatched house, you need to respect those that live around you. We have never used the sub-woofer that came with our sound bar for this reason - it's just a pity not everyone thinks like us.

Crumble2018

Lioness_Twinkletoes wrote: »

That's nice for you, but some of us live in terraced houses where both walls in the living room are adjoining. I also have a surround sound (improves the sound, clue is in the title) and no issues with the neighbours.

You either live in an abnormally well sound-proofed house, or your neighbours are too polite/scared to tell you.

elsien

I live in a 1900 ish terrace.
Day to day nouse is fine - the occasional phone ringing, loud laughter and next doors kid having tantrums are quite clear but liveable with.
Their rap music particularly the bass and the beat coming through the wall quite frankly makes me want to kill someone. When they have it cranked up, the vibrations carry through to next door but one and I can't hear to talk on my phone even when there's very little noise heard from outside.

Unless you're going to soundproof properly, on behalf of your neighbours I urge you to reconsider.

mundibananas

I had surround sound in my first floor regency apartment - no-one ever complained. Just make sure the bass levels aren't too ridiculous !

I now live in a terrace house, and have the same setup - again no worries.

VincentVincent

mundibananas wrote: »

I had surround sound in my first floor regency apartment - no-one ever complained. Just make sure the bass levels aren't too ridiculous !

I now live in a terrace house, and have the same setup - again no worries.

Just because nobody has complained (to your knowledge), doesn't necessarily mean it isn't an issue.

EmKnox

I currently rent an early 1900's terraced and I can hear my neighbour going up the stairs so clearly that it sometimes sounds like he's in my house, lol. I can occasionally hear my other neighbours TV, too.


We also had a complaint once from when my boyfriend was playing guitar on a small portable low watt amp.


I personally wouldn't say older terrace's would be ideal for surround sound.

mundibananas

I used to ask my neighbours if they could hear it .... but I did make sure the bass wasn't ridiculous - and I go to bed around 9:30pm so it's possible that other ambient household sounds covered up my noise!

coffeehound

I thought this flat with concrete floors would give good sound isolation, but the downstairs neighbour shouts if I have even an old 14" TV with its tiny speaker on at 10pm.

Some places are better soundproofed than others though. A friend had a flat in an old 1930s art-deco building, and that was built like a . . very well-built building.

SensibleSarah

I live in a 1930s terrace and can hear my neighbours with adjoining staircase going up their stairs, their toddler having daily tantrums and loud talking/shouting. On the other side, I used to hear the neighbour getting jiggy with his very loud and enthusiastic girlfriend, and now (they've since split up - thank goodness) I hear him coughing in his bedroom (not ajoining mine).

I'm sure they hear me telling off my cat and shouting at the telly when football is on. I wouldn't dream of getting a big speaker system.

That said, I previously lived in a georgian terraced house that had crazy-thick walls and I never heard the neighbours once - so depends very much on the constuction of your house I'd say.

getmore4less

A surround system makes no difference they don't have to be any louder than any sound system in use, surround can actually be used at lower levels as you are more immersed.

If wall mounting rears you can use sound isolation mounts or floor stands or ceiling mounts.
The base unit can go anywhere so picking somewhere effective for the seating position can keep volume down.