Our Bass is too Loud :(

starfishdance

DH and I just bought a town home. We absolutely love it! It's multiple levels, all carpeted, and almost all of our projects are done! 

The project I'm most proud of and love to use is our home theater! Of course DH did most of it, but I helped! Lol Anyway, its in our finished basement and we love showing it off to friends and family. The other night, DH was working on another project down stairs and had some music on and our neighbors came and knocked on our door to tell us it was too loud. We turned it down and exchanged numbers so that they can just call/text if we are too loud again. We don't want to be the noisy neighbors! That first instance was probably around 10pm, so we understood the complaint. Well, tonight we had some friends over to watch the Avengers and we got a text at 8pm saying that the bass was too loud and they couldnt hear their tv. So, we unplugged the bass. But now we are kind of in a funk. How are we ever supposed to really enjoy the sound/bass of an action film if our neighbors complain even when it's still early at 8pm? I mean, we understand it would be frustrating to not be able to hear your own tv, but what do we do? I've been researching tonight ways to reduce the noise from the bass, but everything I've found has to do with putting up another wall or muffling the bass...which is a lot of work, or totally defeats the purpose of having a really nice sound system for our awesome theater! We are so frustrated! 

Any suggestions? 

DolphinDad

Living in a town house I would assume that there is a common wall separating you from your neighbor?  If this is the case there is little you can do about the (transfer function) which you get with low frequency.  There are only a couple of ways to lessen this.  The first is to build a wall which is not attached at all to the common wall between you and your neighbor. Thins creates an air gap in which sound can not travel through.  Doubling  1/2 inch Sheetrock on this wall will dramatically reduce the bass your neighbor hears or feels.  You might try wall treatments as well.  Use insulation board( air duct board) wrapped in a nice fabric and then use velcro to adhere the panels to the wall.  I have installed hundreds of home theaters and this works quite well if done correctly.  Unfortunately there is little more you can domothernthan turning the bass level down which kind of defeatsbthenpurpose of a nice home theatre.