soundproofing for urban people

A decoupled ceiling might eliminate most of the noise between floors, but not all of it.   If you're thinking of decoupling a ceiling in your home or apartment, you might not eliminate all the noise between two floors. This doesn't mean that it's not worth doing. It means that resolving noise issues in your home might be an iterative process. Because after you address one noise source, you might discover another one. Noise paths A noise path is how a noise enters another space. For example, this could be through the air or through a thin wall, through the joists and studs in a building frame, through a wall outlet, or through a vent. You might soundproof one noise source only to realize afterwards that there were other points of entry for that noise. So if you're thinking about removing your existing ceiling and decoupling it with soundproofing materials, keep in mind that some types of noise might be coming from different sources via different paths. You might reduce o

Can you block noise by adding mass? That depends on the situation. What kind of noise? How does the noise travel? What materials will you use, and how will you apply them? This 2008 article from " Sound on Sound ," explains that sound "cannot be destroyed: it can only be converted into another form of energy." While some sounds are airborne and can easily be blocked, you might still hear lower-frequency sounds passing through on the other side. This is because the energy from sound waves makes the walls vibrate, and this creates more energy. Does adding mass help? Yes. Will mass solve all your noise issues? Possibly not. You might also need to address other characteristics of the space by adding sound absorption inside the rooms, or by decoupling the floors, ceilings, or walls from the structure to keep the sound (energy) from passing into it. Let's look at a couple of examples. Example 1: Interior doors Many American homes feature hollow-core interi