I have a friend moving into an apartment before buying a condo. What is
recommended to provide good surround sound without disturbing the neighbors?
Are subs even appropriate for this application? If anyone has any thoughts
on brands to seek or avoid, it would also be appreciated.

sstidham wrote:
I have a friend moving into an apartment before buying a condo. What is
recommended to provide good surround sound without disturbing the neighbors?

A sensible listening level or different sleeping/at-home hours. Or an
old, very solidly constructed building. In a modern apartment, your
neighbors will hear your stereo, your TV set, beating your wife, etc.
There is no soundproofing that works. But reasonable volume management
can keep the peace.

Are subs even appropriate for this application? If anyone has any thoughts
on brands to seek or avoid, it would also be appreciated.

Bass travels through walls and floors better than anything else, and
it's most annoying.

On Mon, 29 May 2006 07:30:27 GMT, "sstidham"
wrote:

I have a friend moving into an apartment before buying a condo. What is
recommended to provide good surround sound without disturbing the neighbors?

Don't turn it up too loud :-)

Seriously, that's about it.

Mike Rivers wrote:

There is no soundproofing that works.

Solid 9 inch brick walls ( not building block ) work surprisingly well though
! ;~)

Graham

it's really good to be on the first floor!

I know that this is for your friend, but I'll speak from your perspective...

I find that, if you're going to be watching the Hollywood Blockbuster type
movies on DVD through a surround system, the Dynamic range is usually the
problem, especially when others are trying to sleep. One solution is to get
an inexpensive multiband compressor/limiter for those late-night movies, so
you don't have to keep riding the volume control between quiet dialogue and
raging loud chase scenes. Initially, put the compressor between the DVD
player and the amplifier. If you go with an amplified surround sound system
like the Bose, or the similar versions from everyone else out there, you can
put it between an old reciever's tape outputs and the surround systems line
inputs, and that would work for everything you plug into the reciever, using
it as a sort of router.

Roland used to make the VS-890, which sells for about $300 and less on ebay
used:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=7417796622

Here's a completed one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Roland-VS-890-88...temZ7414683989

What's nice about these selling for such a low price, is that they are an
entire virtual studio inside, with Roland's version of a Finalizer
mastering processor, not to mention hundreds of other quality effects.
Everything is at 24 bit 44.1 or 48KHz, and with optical and coax, as well as
multiple stereo inputs and outputs, these little boxes can interface really
well with a home entertainment system. You wouldn't need an old reciever to
use as a router, just plug all the devices into the analog inputs and use
the mixer to route everything through. I think it would look cool, too.
Also, having the faders, and a headphone output makes it even more
versatile.

The big drawback is that they are time consuming to get connected and to
learn all the internal routing and get it set up with your home theater,
especially for a novice. Another drawback is that it's essentially a PC, so
it takes a minute to boot up; no instant-on. The rewards would be awesome,
though.

For something a little more basic, a Behringer Composer or something similar
might work well:

http://cgi.ebay.com/behringer-Compos...temZ7417671541

With something like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1200W-Home-Theat...temZ9731936533

But not necessarily that one, you could definitely get away with using a sub
woofer, but only if you have that dynamic control.

Just my .02 worth...

--Rick




"sstidham" wrote in message
ink.net...
I have a friend moving into an apartment before buying a condo. What is
recommended to provide good surround sound without disturbing the
neighbors? Are subs even appropriate for this application? If anyone has
any thoughts on brands to seek or avoid, it would also be appreciated.