Blocking out noise from one wall.

[ryanlikestorock]

I'm opening a studio here in Toronto located in a nice building. However, my neighbour listens to Van Halen REALLY loud sometimes and it comes through the walls. I've got nothing against Van Halen, but it's really out of control. I'm going to introduce myself and see if I can do anything on their side of the wall to help matters (see if they'd mind moving their speakers away from our shared wall, etc), but if that fails, what would you suggest on my side?

[Mark Alan Miller]

Is it only coming in through the one wall? Is it principally low end or more lows-and-mids?

If it's only coming in through the one wall (not through the floor, not resonant coupling to other walls) you can add more mass to the wall (i.e. layers of "sound stop" (homosote) and drywall (gypsum wall board) until you've dampened down the transmission to acceptable levels, or better yet, literally build a second wall in front of (and not attached to) the offending wall, insulate it and again with layers of wall board, etc. Third option is to build a floated room-in-a-room for isolation, or look into if any of those prefab iso-room thingies might work for ya.

If it's principally low end, maybe your neighbors would decouple their speakers from the floor for you (you could get them a pair of decoupling thingies I've seen in various gear catalogs) but it's gonna be tough to get rid of that bass.

If it's not just the one wall, but in the whole structure of your building, you're also gonna have a harder time.

That's my $.02 for now - need sleep.
Anyone else?