Floorstanding Speaker Dampening (Klipsch KG4.5)

Afternoon All, this is more of a; can you give me your stoke of genius, than one I am offering myself so hopefully I'm in the right?

I live in a 1st floor flat and I own a pair of hefty Klipsch KG4.5's. If you're not aware of these speakers they are floorstanders with a 10" woofer and they produce deep bass when the music calls for it. Each enclosure sits on four flat bottomed stumpy wooden feet with no spikes and are sitting directly onto an underlayed carpet which in turn sits on a concrete floor.

Most of the time I listen at reasonable levels and I'm happy with the sound they produce but there are times (and there are always times) when I really want to hear what my system is capable of. At these times I worry for my downstairs neighbours :)

Will raising the speakers off the floor either on spikes or a stone plinth help with dampening the bass transfer to my floor / their ceiling or is the whole room acting as a boom box. If doing this also tightens the bass up as a consequence then that would also be an added bonus.

Your carpet provides a little bit of decoupling from the floor beneath. The extra mass of stone plinths is likely to reduce the existing limited decoupling, but will raise the speakers which may help a bit.

Using spikes will couple the speakers directly to the floor and may just make things worse.

If it was me, I'd try short wood plinths with isolating pads on top (sorbothane?). Bass frequencies are difficult to control, but some isolation from the floor may help.

Thanks Geoff, I'll give that a go. I'm guessing any type of hard wood would be best? I'll look into the sorbothane pads too!

I've used 10mm EDPM sheet between the speaker bottom and granite plinths to decouple the speakers from the floor.

I doubt that the plinth principle will have much effect with your concrete floor, but the rubber might well help decouple.

Does a concrete floor really reverb that much? What can you hear from their side?

My brother lives in a stone semi-detached cottage with a wooden floor and he can have his gear really loud and you can't hear a thing next door (we didn't believe it at first). Stuff, like walls and floor have to move to transmit sound. At least, that was my conclusion after the experiment at my Bros house. His walls are about 20 inches thick.

Maybe go round the neighbours for a coffee and test it (while they are still friendly :)).

Even if the plinth is sitting on say 40cm square of carpet? At the mo 4 small wooden feet are taking the load into the carpet/underlay and then onto the concrete floor so if this can be spread wouldn't that help with the low frequency transfer to below? I dunno it hurts my head thinking about it :)

Chris , this is the real crux of the matter. It's just one of them conversations that will either make my day or make me turn around with tears in my eyes. At least now I don't know if they are cursing my existance every time I crank the volume and as they say igonorance is bliss.

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Originally Posted by Pepperamip

Chris , this is the real crux of the matter. It's just one of them conversations that will either make my day or make me turn around with tears in my eyes. At least now I don't know if they are cursing my existance every time I crank the volume and as they say igonorance is bliss.

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LOl. Can you hear anyone else's noise? I have lived with the same problem for years.

I should've said ealier; I hear every footstep from above (but being an impact sound rather than a musical sound I've sort of discounted that) Never hear any muscial bass notes from above but maybe they haven't got anything that can produce such things!

On the occasional Fri or Sat night I do get a bass thud from the very people I am worried about below but this is few and far between and from music that is played at much louder volumes than I am talking about. Would love to know how my system transfers to below but just don't have the guts to front it out.

Could always pretend I'm from noise polution dept at the council and see how they react to that? Gotta be almost legal hasn't it!

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Originally Posted by Pepperamip

Could always pretend I'm from noise polution dept at the council and see how they react to that? Gotta be almost legal hasn't it!

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It's 15 years imprisonment for impersonation of a government official, but in my view worth the chance of capture and torture - you need to know, Paul

You should ask. I did that once, as the neighbour was an elderly lady who had form in complaining about noise. I said if the music gets too loud bang on the wall. 'I've never heard you play any music' says she. Fuckin' A! After that I could bang it all the way up without a care in the world.

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Originally Posted by Lerxst

It's 15 years imprisonment for impersonation of a government official, but in my view worth the chance of capture and torture - you need to know, Paul

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:lol: I'm off to buy a white chemistry coat and clipboard. I'll report back in due course.

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Originally Posted by Macca

You should ask. I did that once, as the neighbour was an elderly lady who had form in complaining about noise. I said if the music gets too loud bang on the wall. 'I've never heard you play any music' says she. Fuckin' A! After that I could bang it all the way up without a care in the world.

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Martin i think that's the sensible approach.

Maybe play my music quietly for a week or two to guarantee the answer I want :)

Too late to ask my neighbours if they can hear my music, they once asked if I'd let my kids have a party the previous night, apparently it was banging!! I don't have kids:cool:

Many years ago in a house I lived in for 25 years, one fine Spring morning I was blasting the stereo with the front door standing open. The stereo I had then played loud well. After a few hours I looked out the door, and every kid in the neighborhood was playing in my street! And all my neighbors setting in their porch swings, like it was a free concert or something. Personally I’ve always been of the mind that as long as the cops don’t come, you’re Ok.


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Well I've gotta say the general consensus is that even if they can hear my music they're probably having a great time listening to it anyway. That most definitely puts my mind at rest. Thanks all.

May try the tweaks for personal preference but from now on they will listen and they will enjoy it.

Anyone drinkers notice that you seem to become a bit deafer with every drink consumed. Not sure why but it must be a diagnosable condition.

I have had grumbly neighbours since I got here 4 years ago. Cheap-build rented house. The guy next door is violent however. Also nuts. He doesn't have the alarm in his head that says "if you carry on you are going to get arrested". He has been terrorising the people round here for a few years now. And has also been arrested a few times.

Well, I had more trouble with their arguing that they had with my music. In the end she kicked him out, he's now living somewhere else, presumably still paying her rent and she is now shagging the guy accross the road! She has 90% moved in with him.

So it is rock and roll at the moment.

Always a silver lining!

:lol:

Bloke I knew many years ago now, he's a student renting a terrace house. He's just moved in. He gets in from college, about tea-time, goes up to his room to get changed as he is going out for the evening. He puts a bit of music on while he gets changed. System is an Arcam alpha and wharfedale diamonds.

10 minutes later he is done, switches music off, is about to leave the house when there is a knock at the door. Opens door, it's the rozzers: 'The music's too loud, the neighbours have complained.'

He reckoned that given the response time the old dear next door must have called them literally the second the music started playing.

That was some decades ago now though, I doubt the cops are interested in coming out for that sort of nonsense nowadays.

Not musically related, but I live next door to a nutter who in '07 phoned the RSPCA and stated that I was raping the cat.
Inspector Ward called, and cautioned me saying that she could not reveal who had made the accusation, and in discussion I asked just how I could do such a thing without killing the cat.

The cat then came downstairs from my bedroom, he loves voices, and rolled on the carpet waving his arms, and the RSPCA woman, said "She can take a running jump" and left, No apology of course.

These anecdotes are immense, up there with the best I've heard. Brilliant.

Anyone tried these things under floor standing speakers? Good reviews but by people using them for all sorts of different reasons......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Set-AudioSe...s&pageNumber=2

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Originally Posted by Pharos

...I live next door to a nutter who in '07 phoned the RSPCA and stated that I was raping the cat.

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Were you playing that avant-garde music again? :lol:

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Originally Posted by Pepperamip

These anecdotes are immense, up there with the best I've heard. Brilliant.

Anyone tried these things under floor standing speakers? Good reviews but by people using them for all sorts of different reasons......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Set-AudioSe...s&pageNumber=2

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I've got some speakers sat on a brick plinth. It has a pretty solid plywood lid but is a void beneath which can be used for storage. This caused some boominess. I made 2 sandwiches of corrugated cardboard and bubble wrap (the big bubble version),put one under each speaker, works perfectly and cost me nothing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pepperamip

These anecdotes are immense, up there with the best I've heard. Brilliant.

Anyone tried these things under floor standing speakers? Good reviews but by people using them for all sorts of different reasons......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Set-AudioSe...s&pageNumber=2

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Those pucks look very interesting, and are affordable.

I was thinking about a company called Cloud 9, they make isolation platforms for record players. The concept is they have a board, plywood or particle board, with round dimples in it. Then they put small rubber balls in those dimples and a top board over them, with the parameter having an overlapping band to keep the motion strictly up and down. Perhaps a larger version could be made, using hand balls, or some such rubber ball 50 to 70mm or so? Nothing too soft like tennis balls, one could experiment with different types of balls to find the ones with the best resonant frequency?

It may be hard to tell exactly what you have accomplished if you can’t go downstairs to listen. Perhaps if you explain to them you are trying to invent something to help them, they will be on board to help?

Russell