If you are someone who loves movies and partying, you will notice that one of the crucial elements that draw you closer to the real action is the profound bass brought about by your subwoofer or home theatre.
According to reports, subwoofer bass is one of the major contributors to sound pollution. It’s possible when you’re having fun with the low frequency generated by your subwoofer at the same time your neighbors may be cursing you, particularly if you live in an apartment, duplex a condo unit.
Some of the effective ways to fix the subwoofer through walls are; using subwoofer isolation pads, using a cinder block, adjusting the bass level in your subwoofer, and decoupling your subwoofer from the floor.
In this article, we will discuss this in detail and a few other methods to help you prevent your subwoofer vibrations through walls.
How to Reduce Subwoofer Vibration Through Walls
Understand How Low-Frequency Bass Work
Before you try to get rid of the issues of bass traveling through your entire house, you need to understand how bass creates vibrations. Generally, the subwoofer vibrations through walls occur at low-frequency bass.
The low-frequency bass is usually sound waves between 30 and 200Hz. At a lower frequency humans cannot detect pitch; H however, we experience the sounds in the form of vibrations through walls and our bodies.
Surprisingly higher frequencies don’t vibrate materials as much compared to lower frequencies. This is because lower frequencies can travel further than high frequencies. The surfaces easily reflect sounds at lower frequencies .they come in contact with.
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Place Your Subwoofer Closer to You
One of the first and easiest methods you can use to get rid of the subwoofer vibrations through the walls is to move your subwoofer closer to you. When your subwoofer is closer you can turn the volume down and enjoy an unadulterated waveform since the subwoofer is just in front of you. This is different when your subwoofer is placed in a corner of your room. Where you will hear corrupted bass that has been previously reflected by the walls.
Having your subwoofer closer to you means less volume, less sound, and fewer vibrations. This will significantly help cut down the number of vibrations that will leak to other rooms your walls, ceiling, and floors. with this method, you will still be able to feel the bass of your subwoofer but it is possible that your neighbors may not.
Use Subwoofer Isolation Pads
This is one of the easiest methods to stop your subwoofer from vibrating through your wall. You can get isolation pads or stand at a low cost in the market. If you can make your DIY isolation pads at home.
These isolation are designed to deaden and absorb the vibrations that audio devices make. This will help stop the vibrations from being passed down to the walls, floors, ceiling, and other surfaces your subwoofer may be sitting on.
The isolation pads have been the focus of most discussions recently and that alone makes them foolproof options we can’t skip. In some instances, people have bass issues due to the size and placement areas of the subwoofer in their rooms.
But sadly they try to remedy this problem by changing the volume. The best solution to get rid of this issue is the acoustic treatment and that is the use of bass traps.
The acoustic foams are installed in the corner walls of your living room to help take in most of the bass waves as possible. With about a thickness of six inches, the bass traps are usually fitted at the corners of the wall because these places amplify the vibration as it bounces if the wall. So placing the bass traps at the corners will soak up most of the bass waves.
Normally the bass decrease the number of bass tones trying to leak into other rooms With this, your total bass experience may be low. One downside of the bass trap is that they don’t handle much of the vibrations, so your neighbors living beneath or above you may still hear the vibrations. You can place more bass traps on the corners of the wall to help absorb strayed bass waves.
Decouple Your Subwoofer from the Floor
Another way to prevent your subwoofer from vibrating through walls is to decouple your speakers from the floor. This approach has to do with lifting your subwoofer at an inch above the floor to help reduce or deaden the random vibrations generated by your subwoofer that is transferred through the floor.
In recent times almost all the subwoofers produced come along with tiny fitted feet that raise the base above the floor. Even though the feet do a great job at protecting the cabinet of your sub from damage by moisture but it does nothing to prevent the vibration from coming out from the subwoofer. So to decouple your subwoofer from the floor it is always advisable to place it on an isolation pad to help dampen the vibrations emanated.
Alternatively, you can also replace the subwoofer’s pre-installed feet at the factory with your invented feet made with a rubberized material like an elastomer. One good thing about feet is that they deaden any vibration from the cabinet.
Adjust the Level of the Bass in Your Subwoofer
One of the crucial steps most people leave out when turning on their home theatre and another audio system mem is adjusting the bass
levels. Most people tend to leave it out because it seems complicated to them as they have little knowledge about how it works. Here are a few steps to help you just the bass in your subwoofer. These are simple settings anyone can learn to do with very little practice. These adjustments will significantly reduce your subwoofer vibrations through the wall.
Crossover
The crossover is the frequency at which your subwoofer begins to play bass notes. The settings of the crossover are usually re speakers begin to roll off. This information is available in the speaker specs. You can also continue turning the crossover until it runs out of sound from the speakers.
Gain
The gain also known as the volume is the critical component but it is also the easiest. To get going all you need to do is play a song and adjust your subwoofer down to nothing. Next, keep turning the gain until you realize it’s beginning to fill in the base.
Phase Switch
If your subwoofer has a phase switch, try tuning the switch from 0 to about 180 degrees and observe to see if you can hear the difference. Any of the sounds could feel better in turn but also depends on the dimensions of your room. So choose the one that you feel best about.
Use Cinder Blocks
The cider blocks are one of the best tools you can use to cut down your subwoofer vibrations through the walls. This block helps reduce the vibrations from escaping through the walls. It’s effective in limiting the vibrations as they don’t resonate with the sound like wood.
You can easily set up your subwoofer on the cinder block and create a little air space between the vibrations materials and the subwoofer. However, if you don’t like the look of the cinder block you can mask it up with a beautiful fabric cover.
Use Concrete Tubing
If the methods above don’t work for you, we’ve got another one for you. Put your speakers on top of the concrete tube. The tube should be cut to a considerable length and filled with sand. The sand in the tube will give it significant weight and also take in the vibrations before they get to the floor. Based on your choices you can either paint these concrete tubes or glue fabric on them, to help make them look attractive.
Use Green Glue
Another way you can eliminate your subwoofer vibrations through walls is the use of green. Even though this method has been around for a while, many people still don’t know about it. The green glue serves as a noise deadener and prevents low sounds from traveling between the rigid layers of your wall.
The green glue is a visco-elastic polymer that stays soft all the time and absorbs vibrations from your subwoofer. It, later on, changes the absorbed vibrations into heat. The green glue contains paste that you can easily apply to your drywall to soundproof your room. You can also use plywood on the floor with the help of green glue.
To make the soundproofing more effective you can set up channels. Make a disjointed wall and put a considerable amount of glue in between the old drywall and the new one.
Adjustment of the Equalizer Frequency
If you have ever hosted a party in your house and realized the bass quality was earsplitting. However, if you experience this is likely the vibrations could be twice annoying to your neighbors.
This could be a result of improper equalizer frequency adjustment. There is a way to make your sound better and also decrease the frequency of the vibration. To do all you need to do is adjust the equalizer frequency.
Even though this might not work for some speakers but it will redress the rasping and vibrations in most speakers.
To adjust the equalizer frequency turn the 125hz slider to a few dB downward until you begin to hear good sounds in your ears. The 125hz is usually the component where most of the boomy base rest.
Avoid using down-firing subwoofers
These types of subwoofers have their drivers facing. With this, they can induce more vibrations that could be a real pain in the neck to your neighbors. It is advisable to avoid two types of subs at all costs.
Conclusion
It’s fun to be blasting music at home but you don’t have to cut off your neighbor’s peace for your enjoyment as a level-headed person. There are several methods in the above article to help you reduce subwoofer vibration through walls and enjoy great music at louder bass without receiving any complaints from your neighbors.
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