Has he tried having the landlord intervene? I've recently been dealing with a roommate/landlord/neighbor surround sound dispute. :P

Interestingly, though it bothers the woman who lives OVER us, it doesn't bother me at all. I wear earplugs, which don't block out all noise, but obscure it enough that I don't find myself following the plot of stupid horror movies being played in the other room at 2:00 am.

That's my solution at night- during appropriate hours I retaliate by playing My Bloody Valentine or Tom Waits or something vaguely annoying, loudly.

As I understand it, these would have to be placed in the noise-offender's apartment, not the person's who is annoyed by the noise.

A good white noise generator might help some. I worked for a company that put them in our shared offices, and it is amazing how much sound they cut out. Not all of it, but enough to make a difference. And you can't hear any of the white noise. It has a similar effect to the sound-deadening properties of falling snow.

I just moved out of an apartment with a thoughtless surround-sound downstairs neighbor. His crime? Video games. He was terrible and apparently never made it past Level Two.

I had this problem. It's a three step process to cure it.

1. Get a good AV system. I use a Marantz AV receiver with a Denon amp and B&W speakers. Place the subwoofer along the wall you share with your neighbor.

2. Find a track with a lot of bass. I suggest Cloudburn by Feed Me & Tasha Baxter. Put it about 70%

3. Leave for a couple hours.

Work it out so that it doesn't also annoy your other neighbors. Either clue them in, or pick a volume that doesn't reach them. You'll find that your requests for late night silence are met with a more agreeable outcome.

I read this a bass - as in the fish - traps. Also, I now have "Come on feel the noise" in my head.

Noise levels are always difficult to deal with. My husband is a drummer (and a rather...erm...enthusiastic one at that), and our policy is to alert all neighbors within hearing range that he will only play during certain hours of the day. If someone has any problem with the noise levels during those daytime hours, we made it explicitly clear that our door is open for them to come ask us to keep it down.

Same goes for playing music. We like loud music, like a lot of people. We just try to keep it at reasonable volumes, and never after 8 or 9 p.m.

Sometimes talking to the person directly is better than going over their head to the landlord - if they know someone is bothered, they MAY be willing to switch things up.

Like the other commenters, I fail to see how these bass traps will do any good outside of the offenders apartment. My suggestion would be to grow some cojones, talk to the person directly, document noise if the problem persists, and THEN go the landlord (or police, if the volume is high enough).

I should be the perfect person to answer this b/c I went to music school as a double bassist and we had a row of tiny practice rooms all lined with this stuff.

Thinking back to being in a room next to a bassist or tuba player.... my answer is yes and no. It will probably take away the guttural "umph" of bass but you will still hear it. It will probably turn it into light music. But the thing is, you will literally have to line your wall with it to get results. That might be expensive.

And I just realized you were talking about the bass trap in the corner... that changes things. I don't know then...

I also read this as fish traps. Have lived with a fly fishing enthusiast too long. I wondered how those things could possibly catch bass.

That bass trap won't do anything to silence the bass from your neighbors music, they're used to control how music sounds within the room it's being playing. In situations like this the bass basically turns your wall into it's own speaker by vibrating it. Really the only way to get around this is to decouple the wall from your neighbor's by building a room within a room like recording studios do. http://www.soundproofingcompany.com/library/articles/room_within_a_room/

You could try asking the neighbor if he or she would mind putting a soft mat under the woofer (or whatever is generating the bass). That can absorb much of the noise compared to putting the woofer directly on the floor. You might also just try asking the neighbor to turn down the music a little bit.

I've been dealing with this problem for a while, too. My neighbors are usually pretty considerate and only play loud music/movies/whatever during the day, but the problem is that loud bass gives me migraines, so I'm pretty much forced out of my apartment whenever the music starts :-(

It's not the worst thing in the world, though - I've gotten to know the Public Library a lot better than I probably would have!

Break into the neighbor's place; install bass traps.

it's not an annoyance, but more a hilarious thing for me...but our kitchen is right next to shared stairs for the neighbors in our building.

when the door to our floor opens and shuts, it sounds like that sound at the beginning of 'Survivor' shows. no joke! i laugh my ass off everytime i'm doing dishes.

I live two doors down (in separate houses) from a drummer. Nothing is audible except the bass, which I literally feel through the floor - it apparently is transmitted through the ground, not just through connected walls. I really feel for people who have a shared wall with inconsiderate people.

And the problem with bass is, that's usually ALL you hear. I don't mind listening to someone practice piano, or sing, or play tuba, and I don't care how "bad" they are. But when someone's electronci bass is turned up so disproportionately that all you hear is thump boom pound ad infinitum, -- NO.

What compounds the problem is that these drum beats are too often not even human-generated, they're lifeless, artless technology.

Anyone who's practicing or listening plugged-in (i.e. not using acoustic instruments) needs to either use headphones or rent studio space if they want to go loud enough that neighbors are forced to hear it.

We need legislation to enforce this, night OR day, especially with so many people working at home now; and we need education to help people begin to realize that on this crowded earth we must take into consideration how our actions affect others!

Easier solution: if the slacker actually has a JOB, figure out their sleeping hours, then make really horrifying noise during that time. Trust me, they'll call a truce really fast.

I agree with Annie-O. As a society, we need to establish rules for these electronic nuisances, as it is really too much to expect that people will alter their behavior based purely on a sense of good manners or neighborliness.

Ha...perfect timing coincidence! Last night we had somebody drive down our street with the bass in their car tuned astronomically high. The result: our second floor apartment was shaking for about two minutes [while they drove down the street and were stopped at the traffic light]. I don’t think there is any product on the market that can keep that from happening, discounting murder related items of course.

Isolation is not the same as sound conditioning. Bass traps are used to dampen low frequencies within a room so they do not resonate and cancel each other, creating both standing waves and nulls. If your neighbor makes noise you need isolation, not a solution to improve your listening experience. Best sound isolation is any material heavy enough not to be made to vibrate by the bass fequencies energy. Lead and granite are excellent, but since you are not going to build a crypt at home, and lead has some environmental issues, there are high density isolation mats in the market that might help. You have to keep in mind that sound proofing a room means treating every part of it, and that a perfectly isolated room is practically airtight. With neighbors my own experience is that it is better to make them realize that you have more soundpower than them, watt for watt, and that you mean to use it in the most annoying way until they behave.

The worst part about bass is how most of these people just crank it up drowning out everything else. The best thing you can do to cut down on annoying your neighbors, apart from headphones, is to get decent enough speakers that you can set them at a reasonable volume and still hear, and to not crank the subwoofer up so your entire apartment sounds like you are at some crappy bar with a blown audio system.

Don't kid yourself - 'only during the day' assumes that everyone else keeps the same hours as you. And by the time they have to come talk to you about it? They're already p***ed. That's what makes some revenge blasting desirable at times.

Sometimes, all it takes is moving a subwoofer away from a wall and using the equalizer to balance it better. Getting a bass freak to suddenly hear better is nigh unto impossible, but you can try...

Ugh, I had one of those "only during the day" neighbors. Yeah. Works REAL well when you're studying, or when you have a newborn baby. How about this: If you live in a shared space like an apartment/condo complex, recognize that one of the things you give up is the right to be obnoxiously loud in your space. Like bass? Go to a club. No matter what, recognize that what may be "normal hours" to you, may be awful for someone else. Rather than demanding that your neighbors come address it with you, how about if you're doing something you openly recognize may piss neighbors off, you just don't do it! :) Novel!

My downstairs neighbor is pounding his bass right now. Excuse me while I go vacuum my hardwood floors.

".........he will only play during certain hours of the day."

Did you ask your neighbors if they mind listening to drumming EVERY. DAY.??

Besides MsTiggy who gets migraines, bummer :( I think people have a lot less patience with sounds than they could. I'm not talking about the extreme cases. But some people just get so mad over this. I guess I just have more patience with stuff like that (I have kids, lol).

Even if there was a product that you could buy, why is that YOUR responsibility to buy it?

Unfortunately, the only thing that will really work is more mass in between you and the source. Double-layer of filled cinder blocks, not touching and isolated from floor & ceiling would help. Landlord might not let you install that though. :)