Post
by macc » Sat Mar 13, 2010 6:40 pm
Sorry man - despite the everything everyone has said there's really very very little you can do.
If they are downstairs you have precisely zero chance of doing anything effective/meaningful, unless you can rip the floor up and rebuild it out of solid concrete/lead/titanium. You need MASS to isolate/soundproof, not acoustic treatment. Don't get me wrong, some absorption will help a bit, but that's a tiny little bit of a bit. Problem being that at the wavelengths/freqs causing the trouble (bass), you'd need a preposterous amount of treatment to make any significant difference at all, to the point where you might not even fit in the room. It will just go right through it. Even if it is attenuated, it won't be enough to stop your neighbours getting pissed off.
Speaker stand spikes will not help and serve only to couple the stand to the floor, NOT to isolate it. You'll put MORE energy into the floor, not less. To copy a post from someone else, on Gearslutz;
'Rest a 75lb speaker on your palm without a spike, then place the same speaker on your palm with the spike.
Which feels more "coupled?"
Hint: Stigmata hand wins.'
Always makes me laugh, that post. The point of speaker stand spikes is to couple the stand to the floor, in order to lower the resonant frequency of the system/transmit energy away into the floor which is made out of something of heavy mass. Except yours isn't. You'd do better to get something to isolate (sorbothane is best) but even then you're only dealing with the tiny %ge of energy being transmitted directly by conduction through the stand, and nothing about the bass flying around - and out of - the room.
My suggestion would be to speak directly to them, in a friendly way, find out what times are cool for them and stick to them. Give them your phone number so they call you before the police, and get some headphones (watch your ears).
Once again, sorry man, but you're pissing in the wind unless you have means of getting a brand new and extremely heavy/solid floor.