1st home - a flat- what will become of my hifi?

Posted by: Spoonboy on 11 October 2009

So, I'm purchasing my first property, and due to financial constraints it is a 1 bedroom flat - luckily it's a decent sized one with a 16" x 13" lounge.

At the moment I am living with my parents and have my hifi in my bedroom for the last 3 years. I've never been happy with the sound - I think it has something to do with having had the kit on a suspended floor and a plain room with bouncy walls. When I have the house to myself I take the hifi downstairs and it sounds 'just like it did at the dealers'.

My concern now is that now my new place may be even worse for t'hifi than at current.

in it's favour:

1) The room is in a rectangle shape - I can get closer to speakers and have a perfect seating position on the setee (i currently sit on my bed with the speakers in front of me. speakers are around 6ft apart from each other, i'm about 10ft away from them)

2) The room is bigger and will hopefully be more furnished. I think the sound will bounce around better

3) As it's the lowerground/basement flat of a victorian conversion I will have a solid floor to put my gear on.

Against it:

1) I now have the neighbours upstairs to think of. Seeing as I like to play my music at decent volume I can see this opening a whole can o worms.

It could be worse I guess - I could have upstairs AND downstairs to worry about.

2) In line with the above - but I generally don't get home from work untill after 9pm so when I do play the hifi, it will be fairly late.

3) Although I'll finally be able to get a spur, the run from the mains to the lounge is quite long so I can see it being expesnive/a pain.

Be interested to hear your opinions and any hints for listening to hifi in a flat. I'd really like to stick ith speakers than have to go to headphones.

Cheers
Posted on: 11 October 2009 by u5227470736789439
Headphones can save you a lot of unhappiness with your new neigbours.

You may be coming in from work relativelylate and if you neigbours need to be in bed early, then playing music at "decent levels" may not be really fair on them.

Perhaps you should use headphones for the week days and the speakers at the weekened.

Not wishing to put up a cast iron rule on this, but keeping good relations with your new neigbours should be a high priority, IMO.

Best wishes from George
Posted on: 11 October 2009 by novelty
It could be worse. My first property was on the third floor of a 3 flat. I didn't realize how much it affected my acoustics until I moved to my current single family home and have the kit on solid ground.

As for neighbors, befriending them is always helpful. Let them know you like to listen to music and perhaps invite them over. We had very thick floors (110 year old rehab) in my old flat so the neighbors were only bothered if I listened at significant volume levels.

If your flat is old I would expect the floors to be quite substantial, that tends to be the rule of thumb in the states.

It sounds like you have a pretty good set up, good luck.
Posted on: 11 October 2009 by novelty
quote:
Originally posted by novelty:
It could be worse. My first property was on the third floor of a 3 flat. I didn't realize how much it affected my acoustics until I moved to my current single family home and have the kit on solid ground. I would expect being on the basement floor will allow you to listen at somewhat loud levels without much fuss.

As for neighbors, befriending them is always helpful. Let them know you like to listen to music and perhaps invite them over. We had very thick floors (110 year old rehab) in my old flat so the neighbors were only bothered if I listened at significant volume levels.

If your flat is old I would expect the floors to be quite substantial, that tends to be the rule of thumb in the states.

It sounds like you have a pretty good set up, good luck.