Right folks,

I am in the process of relocating & setting up the system in the new place. However, I am now in a first floor flat. Obviously my Cona isn't going to make me the most popular person with the neighbours what with pushing out the sound straight down. Anyone any ideas of anything I can set up under the Cona to reflect the sound into the room? I've several ideas as to deadening it but I don't want to lose out on the sound!

Thanks,

PD

In a domestic situation, it's nearly impossible to do such a thing. Here's why:

To reflect a wave (in this case, sound), the reflecting object needs to be at least the same size as the wavelength of the sound you're trying to reflect. A Cona will make sounds down to about 35 Hz, which means you'll need a reflector 5m in size! Make it any smaller, and the bass will just 'wrap around' it.

Even then if you do get an object 5m in size, you'll need to make sure it actually reflects the sound, rather than just passing it on to whatever it's sat on (the floor, which will in turn vibrate and take you back to square one). Therefore, it'll need to be very heavy and solid.

The best way to isolate sound between rooms is to literally build a room within a room, and physically disconnect the inner room from the outer room. This is obviously something you think of at the building stage, and is how studios manage to isolate sound between rooms so well.

I would say I hope this clears things up for you, but it's probably given you a headache!

Hmmm, so really unless I get a paving slab of 5 square metres, the neighbours are going to have to learn to love explosions & John Boecklin.

Thanks for the insight dude, looks like it's the neighbours who are getting the headache. Unless I shell out a tenner & buy them earplugs...

From my experience many years ago you need plenty of mass to absorb the sound energy. It's much easier (but still difficult) to stop noise leaving a room  than for your neighbours to stop the noise entering. Acoustic surfaces mostly just change the way the sound is heard within the room itself.

If you are in a flat the least you can do is to place a very heavy "acoustic" underlay beneath the carpeting although the properties of these underlays have more to do with impact sound than anything else. Concrete floors will help a lot, but timber floor construction in a house/ flat conversion will be difficult to upgrade. Take a look at the Building Regulations (online at <www.planningportal.gov.uk> to get some idea of sound reduction standards in new construction and how they are achieved.

As Alex says, the room within a room (with very careful detailing to ensure that there are no direct hard points of contact anywhere) is the only real answer if you want to use high volumes without disturbing others.

Graham

Have you any upstairs neighbours?  How about hanging it from the ceiling!?  Has anyone ever tried this with a Cona?  They aren't that heavy and I wonder what it would sound like?  Off the wall idea maybe but has anyone tried it?  I feel an experiment coming on!.

Otherwise, as has been said, give them earplugs.

Dave.