I think that if you live in an apartment complex it is never acceptable to blast your music. If your neighbors can hear it clearly, even if it's the middle of the day, it is a disturbance and thus in violation of most leasing agreements. If you enjoy loud music and are renting, invest in high quality headphones, otherwise learn to get along with music that is loud enough to hear, but not so loud that you piss off your neighbors.

I tend to turn it up during the afternoons but from 7 pm to 10pm I turn it down. Once 11pm hits the state law requires that all sound is turned down to avoid disturbing the peace so I turn it even lower but still loud enough to enjoy the quality sound.

I really try not to blast my music anymore. As I find it irritating when I have to listen to a neighbor's loud music (especially when I don't like it) I try not to be 'that guy' to them. If I do crank my music up a little louder, it's in the middle of the day and my windows will be closed to muffle the sound a bit. Or I'll simply put my shure headphones and listen to music that way.

Cheers,
M

since i work from home, i have my music on all day through a pretty sweet surround sound system with subwoofer (also for lots o' movie watching) i think we're probably louder than most folks, but it's never extreme hours of the day/night. no complaints yet and we own in a big building, have been here 20 years, etc. not going to change any time soon!

plus, i don't complain when my neighbors are loud in their own space... let them do their thing! i can deal with it. however, neighbors that make a ton of noise in the hall or outside the building? drives me batty!

I will admit that I have a huge sound system and like my sound quite loud. Using some basic physics concepts can keep both you and other tenants happier. When I used to live in an apartment I kept a few things in mind.

1) Until certain room pressures are met, sound follows the inverse square law. In effect - doubling the distance from the speaker to your ear requires 4 times the volume at the speaker. By placing your speakers closer to your seating area (especially important with subs) you can reduce the overall volume without lessening your experience. Keep this in mind with your sub. It's sound is omni-directional not limited to line-of-sight as mids and tweeters are. It can be hidden right next to your seating area vs. 15 feet away (i.e. you can turn the overall volume down by 8 or 16 times on the sub with no loss of sound at your seat).

2) Ports on the back side of the speaker tend to radiate sounds that more easily penetrate walls. I never placed any speakers on shared walls...especially rear ported or dipole. Again, going back to number 1...speakers closer to shared walls are going to transmit more sound.

3) Di-polar speakers have a speaker on the front and back which move in out of phase to one another. This creates wide sound fields (some people appreciate this). Additionally, by being out of phase there is a net effect of sound waves being cancelled out, which means less radiation into other rooms. Personally, I love the sound of my dipoles. On stereo recordings they envelope the room in sound.

Another solution that I always wanted to try was to use carpeting on the shared walls. However, my most often used route was the social one. I just invited my neighbors over for dinner and movies. I found that my system was less of an annoyance if they got the opportunity to enjoy it as well.

Hope this was useful!

I don't crank up the music but my banjo is pretty loud.

Man, some people here *really* need to lighten up.

Apparently the first commentator's neighbors have a new type of speaker that will allow you to hear the music "clearly", through the wall. Can you post a link? Because I am interested in purchasing those speakers.

Otherwise, you can't really here it clearly, and are just overreacting. Chill out.

I live in an apartment complex. My bedroom is above my garage, so turning up music in the morning/night isn't usually an issue, but I tend to use the following rules for music/movie volume.

Weekdays/night: volume down before 10am and after 10pm.

Weekend, Holidays: volume down before noon (some people like to sleep in!) and after midnight.

Let's also keep in mind that some buildings just have dinky walls. There are some buildings that allow even small flat-screen TV speakers (at moderate volumes) to be heard by the neighbors. It especially sucks if you and your neighbor are in a co-op or condo (in other words, no one's going anywhere).

My suggestion: BUILD. Investing in a more stout wall (double sheet rock, Green Glue, staggered studs, etc) will help reduce the transmitted sound. The cost isn't that bad if you're talking about a single wall and both parties are willing.

If not - well, I hear Grado makes good headphones...

"Apparently the first commentator's neighbors have a new type of speaker that will allow you to hear the music "clearly", through the wall. Can you post a link? Because I am interested in purchasing those speakers.

Otherwise, you can't really here it clearly, and are just overreacting. Chill out."

i've lived i many apartments where if you turn up the music loud enough, you can "clearly" hear it... I've had a lot of neighbors do this. If i can hear the words to someone else's music, and could sing along. That is "clear" enough for me. Don't know what your definition is...

If you live in an apartment, you have agreed to live with the rest of society and therefore don't get to annoy your neighbors with your music. Yes i know what the people who love to turn their music up will say next "If you don't like living near other people, you should move" Right...

Guess what, don't turn your music up so loud that others can hear it. Also, don't just turn your bass way up. First of all because you're an idiot and probably don't know what actual good audio sounds like. But your neighbords also don't want to hear a low hum all the time or just feel their floor, walls, whatever vibrating.

Respect the others around you.

10am-8pm, whatever volume i like (though i'm not a huge blasting-loud guy)
8-10pm, quieter.
past 10, headphones.

But the main thing is this: Get your speakers off the ground. Don't stick them on furniture. Don't put them in your bookcase. Don't press them up against the wall. Put them on good heavy speaker stands, which will keep them from vibrating the floor and walls. You can have a LOT more volume without bothering people if the sound isn't being transmitted through the vibration of the floor.

Frankly, I get tired of the whole "you live in an apt building so you have to deal with noise" argument. I don't expect it to be completely quiet 100% of the time. But if it's noise you can control, then control it. If your stereo is in the front but you are sitting in the back, don't turn it up loud enough so you can hear it in the back... buy another stereo. Crying baby at 3am when you know the neighbors are in the room right next door? Take the kid to another room. It all has to do with respect for others. You want to do whatever the hell you want? Move to your own ten acres of land and have at it.

If you know you're loud, live somewhere with loud neighbors who will understand your ways.

Because "too loud" is whatever bothers your neighbors.

I know the way I am, so I chose to live someplace where my expectations regarding noise levels are shared b the people around me.

That's just common sense and decency.

NEVER. Get some freakin' headphones. Because if you choose to live in an apartment, you have to respect those around you.

Do I sound bitter? Yeah, a bit, because I just had to move because of a "musician" who was always home, either playing her own music and screeching, er, singing, or blasting the stereo.

When we first moved into our current apartment, the neighbor upstairs would play, on repeat, for at least an hour every morning the same creepy song about being cut open and keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding.

First of all, it takes some kind of creepy freak to be so obsessed what that godawful song. Second, it takes a horrifically obnoxious freak to play that song on endless repeat for an hour or more at a crack. EVERY MORNING. Third, it takes a masochistic freak show from hell to do that at 7:30 in the morning so loud that the shared airshaft vibrated to that song.

I thought I was going to commit suicide before that weirdo moved out. I guess I could have talked to him about it, but anyone who obsessed with a song about being cut open and perpetually bleeding was not someone with whom I wanted to have any interaction.

I don't care how loud your music is until it shakes stuff off my walls. But don't ever, ever play the same song over a hundred times. I will find you, and I will make you hurt.

i don't want to hear you and i don't want you to hear me. plain and simple.

Just play a lot of death metal. I my case, the neighbours thought I was some kind of psycho, so they were too scared to complain! :D

@ Chester Shoeshine. My mum told me a story once about an apartment she lived in. The neighbours upstairs would play Hey Jude from the Beatles over and over and over again. One day, their was a fight up there and the sound of the record player being smashed.

The first poster is correct. Blasting one's music under communal living (apartment buildings, etc.) is never acceptable. Parties and such, are fine within limits and notification.

Suggesting people "lighten up" is more a reflection of immaturity than anything else.

I'm firmly in the quiet camp. You don't NEED to blast your music. Your neighbors may NEED to put a baby to sleep, work a night shift and sleep during the day, work from home, write a thesis, etc.

Sometimes, no matter how low your volume is, the low frequency kick from your sub can be heard through walls and floors. The lower the frequency, the more power needs to goto the sub, the more it is heard and felt. Unfortunately, that gets the surfaces of your home vibrating as well, acting like a huge resonating chamber that will actually sound louder in the room next door than the room you are in.

There are a few steps you can take if you want the sound of a big sub (like that SVS above) but minimize annoyance. One is to do the sub crawl to find the best place for it. That way your sub will be more efficient, and you won't need as much power to get better punch. Next, you may want to "decouple" the sub from the floor. If vibrations from the sub can't get to the floor, the they won't telegraph through. I bought and use an Auralex Subdude to get this done.

Not to say that you'll be able to crank your music without annoying your neighbors; given enough energy no measures will be effective. However this should raise that threshold for you quite a bit.

This guy's inconsiderate. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness do not refer to some perceived right to make as much noise as is felt "necessary" for you to be truly happy. You can't always get what you want, and blasting music is never okay for an apartment-dweller. Have people never heard of the golden rule? Not everyone's an audiophile, and this guy's neighbors are not to blame for his proclivities. Dude needs to suck it up, keep the volume reasonable, and save, save, save for a house with good soundproofing, because noisy neighbors aren't an apartment-only thing. Bottom line is that if you choose to live among people, the only decent thing is to do your best to be considerate of others. If this guy really wants to be able to blast whatever he likes, he needs to move way out to the country.

I wonder what the average age of AT readers is? I feel like I see an inordinate number of rowdy, self-centered young people around here. (Before anybody gets offended, I'm 29 -- I just have manners.)

Headphones. See http://head-fi.org/.

Like one of the above posters, I just had to move due to music related noise issues.

It's never okay to blast music. Rude, rude, rude.

My daughter’s boyfriend is a musician. They purchased “sound blankets” from the music store. They hung them up, and then went to their neighbor's apartment and, while talking to him on the cell phone, she stood there listening as he cranked up the sound, when she could hear it through the walls, not the cell phone, she let him know. They then knew how safely they could crank it up without disturbing the neighbors. They were able to have it surprising loud.

I blast the stereo every time I drive alone. In my car, that is :)

pre-war (WWII) buildings are much better in general imho. Usually their walls, beams, EVERYTHING is constructed better and thicker. I've only ever lived in pre-war buildings as an adult and noise has never been an issue (own a detached home now...which is also pre-war). Most of the time I don't even know my neighbors are home and vice versa.

I've stayed overnight at a few buildings built in the 60s and 70s. The walls sound like they are cardboard thin.

Btw, rugs and carpeting (yuck!) help a lot as they decouple sound waves from hard surfaces like wood floors.

I agree with most of the other posters. I think in general it's okay to turn things up *a bit* in the middle of the day, but you really should ask your neighbors (on the sides, above you, and below you) if they have schedules that would make this a problem. If they work the night shift, your afternoon rockin' out might wake them in the middle of a blessed slumber. And it all depends on the building you live in. Especially if you have a lot of quiet neighbors, you might have no idea how noise travels through the building. Most people are pretty forgiving if you ask first and make an upfront effort to be conscientious.

Another thing to note, from my current experience. If you're a musician and plan on practicing the same damn thing over and over and over again, USE YOUR HEADPHONES. Even though my upstairs neighbor no longer practices the one song he knows on his bass in the middle of the night, when I work at home it's incredibly irritating to endure the same bass line vibrating through the apartment for 2-3 hours at a go. I dated a bassist a while back and he was very considerate of his neighbors and simply never used his amp at home. If you are committed enough to practice a couple hours a day you can rent shared studio space for a handful of cash a month. Rock out a few hours a week, then when you're at home use your headphones.

I alway laughed whenever I heard peoples bass, especially when th ebass would just play longer than the rest of the music. Seriously, can you afford a stereo thats at least decent enough to not go BLOOOOFFFFF when playing a bassline, a proper subwoofer would play the bass line without playing that SAME bass note endlessly. Return that thing back to the store, and spend an extra $100.00 on a decent subwoofer. you got ripped off!

Playing your stereo, or your tv so loud that your neighbors can hear it through the walls or floors is NEVER appropriate! Only immature and selfish people do that. If you insist on living in a noise impacted apartment, plan on having your neighbors, the LL, or the police knocking on your door until you grow up and turn down the noise.