On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 20:31:44 +1300, "John H"
wrote:

These are detached houses. Wood framed, with gib-board inside and pine
sidings (weatherboards) in my case, cement board in their case.

Nevertheless, what's almost certainly happening is that the bass is
coupling with the building's structure and making it resonate like a
big passive speaker.

There are two main ways to deal with bass noise. One is with mass,
like a concrete wall. Some recording studios even line control room
walls with lead sheets made for X-ray rooms because it's more weight
for the bass energy to have to move. The other is by decoupling the
source from the structure, essentially making the bass have to move
through the air, which is a great shock aborber (Michael Rettinger's
"perfect sound absorber" is an open window). Studios also use this
approach by floating control rooms and using all sorts of trick
hardware, like vibration-isolating water pipe connectors, to contain
the energy. But you can accomplish some of that by simply floating
the speakers.

The only thing I can think which might help on your end is to replace
your windows with sound-absorbing units, which is incredibly
expensive. These work in part by using a glass thickness which isn't
an even multiple of common window glass, which therefore attentuates
harmonic resonance from your neighbor's vibrating windows. Again, a
recording studio trick.

Steve Manes
Brooklyn, NY
http://www.magpie.com/house/bbs