What's the best way to soundproof my windows permanently?

[T Boog]

My neighborhood is full of young guys with loud, booming stereo systems in their vehicles. I want to blockout/ cover the windows in my studio completely & permanently. Rockwool seems to get good reviews but I don't think it excels at very low frequencies. Google suggests "Mass Density Vinyl" for blocking bass but I dont know how thick I need, the pricing or where to get it. 

I have one huge 4' x 8' window and one normal size window. Im fine spending up to $600 if it means significant sound reduction of those annoying bass frequencies. 

I welcome all suggestions, even out of the box ones. Btw, Looks are not important to me at all cause I'm just gonna cover it with Blackout curtains, never to be opened again. Please help me before I go postal on every low rider in my neighborhood 😖

[reginaldStjohn]

Ideally you would need a combination of things to reduce the sound significantly.  Multi-pane window glass where the pane's are not parallel. Cover it in rock wool/insulation will help. More wall insulation or sound proofing may help as well.

Depends on where the sound is entering. The lower the frequency the harder it is to get rid of because it just transfers directly through the wall material. 

Good luck

[T Boog]

4 minutes ago, reginaldStjohn said:

Depends on where the sound is entering

Thanks. I shouldve given more info. The house is brick with wall insulation and thick double paneling. However, the windows are cheap, single pane. The vast majority of the sound is def coming thru the windows. 

Ironically, I used to build insulated windows for a living. I cant afford that route though. I may just keep stacking rockwool.

[Wookiee]

Perhaps @T Boog build a bass trap for the out side, with additional vinyl sound proofing mat.

Replace you window with triple glazed, the inner pane set at an angle, then the void evacuated of any gas.

With another internal bass trap.

Though I think that approach may be prohibitively expensive. Perhaps start with the Advanced Acoustics premium mass loaded vinyl mat. The page I read recommends sandwiching between two sheets of high density acoustic plasterboard. Plasterboard is surprisingly effective, I have two layers of that on the doors, walls and ceiling of my studio.

[T Boog]

1 hour ago, Wookiee said:

Perhaps start with the Advanced Acoustics premium mass loaded vinyl mat. The page I read recommends sandwiching between two sheets of high density acoustic plasterboard

Thanks Wookie. Yeah, that does sound like a good place to start. 

Note: This is the second time I edit this. I was trying to find the exact mat roll but I see they come in diff thicknesses. I been watching some youtube vids on how to use MDVinyl for soundproofing so I think I'm good to go. I'll def let u guys know how it turns out once I get it all done. Thanks!

 

Edited November 22 by T Boog

[Mr No Name]

doubl glazing, rockwool in the cavity, very heavy thick curtains x2, 

there's a function rooms near me, sometimes they have raves there with 10 k systems, traditional brick building,they cover the out side windows with massive heavy curtains, windows are double glazed. Can hardly hear anything from outside, amazing. If the building was a warehouse style made of metal , it would be far worse.

[T Boog]

15 minutes ago, Mr No Name said:

very heavy thick curtains x2

Thanks bud. I cant afford the insulated windows(though I know they work well) but Im def with u on the heavy curtains. I think Im gonna combine your's & Wookie's advice and use thick MDVinyl mat sandwiched between dense drywall and finish it off with the heaviest blackout curtains I can find. If there's still some bleed thru, I prob go with another layer of curtain as u suggest.

[T Boog]

I started thinking... "Wouldnt it be nice if there was an active device that could cancel out the surface vibrations on my big picture window?". Well, I came across this device. Predictable result but still an interesting(& funny) lil video:

 

Edited November 23 by T Boog

[DeeringAmps]

Low frequency, you need mass. Layers of 5/8” sheet rock. Way cheaper (and effective)  than rock wool or OC703. I’d layer it inside and out. 
just my nickel98 on the subject…

t

[mettelus]

That is a tough one. A window is shimmed into it's frame, so they are not really "rigid" to begin with, and the sill/molding just covers that gap. More permanent solutions require mass, so a wall insert to replace the existing window would be ideal, but certainly not easy and would need storage for the window to put it back in. Like you mentioned, if you remove inner molding and fix your temporary panels  to the frame inside, that would be the best alternative. That would only disturb the molding and easier to install/remove. Sheet rock (even thickened to be more "wall-like") as mentioned above would be more effective and cost effective too.

[Amberwolf]

I have had this problem in my area for the last 20+ years, and have tried a bunch of "cheap' things.   A decade ago I had a housefire so there were a few upgrades I couldn't afford to do on my own, such as the double=pane insulated windows.   Those will keep out the low-mid and higher parts of their sonic assault, but do nothing for the sub and main lows. 

I kept the thick (6"+) and dense foam blocks from all the couch cushions that the dogs (especially the St Bernards ) have...customized...over the decades, and by a wierd coincidence, they perfectly fit the insets of the windows (they are not only the same depth, but the same "width"!), and the closet doorway...so I use them stuffed into those, and that reduces leftover rattling of the windows (and closet door, and the echoes of the space in there) themselves to nothing.  

But it doesn't stop the bass and sub:

All the earthquake-level sub booms and rumbles are conducted direclty into the structure of the building via the ground, so unless you can physically isolate the room from the structure and ground (probably very expensive, and probably requires special construction permits from the city to structurally alter the building that way), you probably can't get rid of them.

The outside walls here are all cinderblock, but the inside ones are typical wallboard on woodframe, as is the cieling, so those all are vibrating to the conducted subbass crap.  Adding mass helps (rubber mats/sheets, screwing heavy blocks to the wallbaord in the middle of the expanses between joists and studs, etc) a little, but I could only use whatever scrap came my way to do this so it was not consistent materials and not all that effective for all the work done (and all this was lost in the fire; I haven't been able to do it again in the decade since then, or most of the other soundproofing/trapping stuff I had done). 

Multiple layers of stiff wallboard, well-secured to each other, will help minimize the vibrations of the wallboard itself.

If the room is already bass-trapped and shaped to keep the standing waves to a minumum, it'll help, but if yours are as loud as the assholes in my area, it's not enough.   Here, some of them are so loud that from a block away they will still shake things off your walls and countertops; it sounds like an army is outside kicking the doors and walls in. 

 

Thankfully they usually only drive (slowly) thru the area with that, and don't sit there with it all day and night anymore, but sometimes one will jsut park their car or truck in the middle of the street, open up all their doors/hood/trunk/etc., and turn it all the way up and go in their house.   It's pretty awful.  

Edited November 23 by Amberwolf

[T Boog]

5 minutes ago, Amberwolf said:

it sounds like an army is outside kicking the doors and walls in. 

Thankfully most of them arent quite that bad but its still annoying as hell.

It makes me miss the good ol days of 6 x 9's with a booster/eq on side of the ashtray. I honesty think they should outlaw these booming systems. It selfishly disturbs everybody's peace. If they want it that loud, they could wear open back headphones or something. In my view, it's a very selfish thing. It's like that old saying...

"If it's too low, you're too young!" (or something like that 😏)

[Amberwolf]

I think the whole point of what they are doing is to piss everyone else off and subject them to whatever they feel like.  Power trip.   

If you ever politely ask anyone with a system like that and they actually turn it down instead of telling you to ***** and turning it up even louder, I'd like to see a video of that so I would be able to believe it.  Around here you can end up with a gun in your face if you ask them to turn it down.  

If it was because they wanted to hear it loud, they wouldn't need anything like the earthquake-level systems they have.  The only point to those is to assault other people with. 

Just because they can.

 

 

[T Boog]

1 hour ago, Amberwolf said:

Around here you can end up with a gun in your face if you ask them to turn it down.  

Dang Amberwolf, youre actually making me count my blessings. I live in bayou country/South Louisiana. There's some crime in my town but most people arent that eager to pull a weapon on you. Of course, u may catch the wrong guy on the wrong day. 

That's why Im trying to do all I can to minimize this problem. That way it's less battles I have to pick. I always try to keep the peace cause the only gun I own is a soldering gun and when I bust-a-cap, I'm def referring to a capacitor 😂

[Amberwolf]

When some of htose go they can be as loud as some (small) gunshots.  But blown FETs can be even louder.

 

When i lived as a kid in smalltown farm country in north texas in a literal pink house, people were often more reasonable about most things, though some stuff was just plain non-negotiable   

But i've been in the city for almost my whole life other than that, and the last few decades here in phoenix, az, where there are nice people, but lots of assholes and violent people. 

I used to love nighttime walks, especially after everyone would have gone to bed, in the "hour of the wolf" as Ivanova called it...then i was mugged at gunpiont by a bunch of kids (none of them taller than my shoulders) walking home from work about two decades back, and i've been afraid to be out in the dark alone; it's not so bad in my yard with the dog(s) but i could never go for a walk again. 

(my life is full of nightmare food for my brain to use, unfortunately, so i don't sleep well; my brain isn't normal to start with so this only makes it worse)

Edited November 23 by Amberwolf

[T Boog]

45 minutes ago, Amberwolf said:

my life is full of nightmare food for my brain to use, unfortunately, so i don't sleep well; my brain isn't normal to start with so this only makes it worse

Youre not alone my friend. My brain is pretty abormal too. Heck, most people here are abnormal. If u wanna talk to normal brained people, you'll have to join the Pro Tools forum. (cue the thumbs down 😂)

Nah seriously, l've met a lot of people in my 53 yrs and I don't think any of them were normal. Just rem God loves you and rem to feed urself some positive thoughts too. 

Btw, Arizona is a beautiful state! (aside from that big canyon/hole thing, but I'm sure u guys will get that filled one day 😜)

[Max Arwood]

The best solution is multilayers. Plywood, Sheetrock and a couple of layers of this sheetblok stuff alternating between the sheetrock & plywood .

This stuff=
https://auralex.com/sheetblok-sound-barrier/

There are other brands, but is one I have used. This stuff feels like lead it is so heavy!!

edit-

It might not be the windows, it’s probably the whole wall and could be the ceiling and floors, depending on your house. 

Edited November 24 by Max Arwood
Added info

[msmcleod]

I've had great results with plywood on the outside with 4" of loft insulation (couldn't afford rockwool), a 2" gap, then 4" of loft insulation on the back of drywall.  The gap between the two walls is important, as it gives the sound an opportunity to disperse before hitting the second layer of insulation, by which time its energy has been drastically reduced.

It doesn't work with loud incoming low frequencies - you'd need a 3' concrete wall for that, but that's where high-pass filters come in handy.  I don't have a sub in my studio so low frequencies leaking out isn't an issue.

I cranked my 2 x 150W speakers up to full (way too loud to listen to inside), shut the doors and walked around the building... I could only just hear the music, and it was so quiet I couldn't discern where it was coming from.  It was like I was sitting on a bus where someone was wearing headphones/earbuds with the volume up.  At normal volume, there was just silence outside.

One thing I would say is, if you're ever designing a room from scratch (or considering converting an existing room), bear in mind it's going to be MUCH smaller than it was originally after sound proofing.  You're going to lose a ft on each wall, and the same on the ceiling.  I did the floor in my studio as well (the inner room is completely separated from the outer room and suspended on expanding foam), but this isn't always necessary.

[Max Arwood]

29 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

you'd need a 3' concrete wall

😂you'd need a 3' concrete wall 😂

YES!  Or 2 -2’ with a 3’ air gap between them!

[msmcleod]

15 minutes ago, Max Arwood said:

😂you'd need a 3' concrete wall 😂

YES!  Or 2 -2’ with a 3’ air gap between them!

Yeah, that'd work... but then you've essentially got walls 7' thick!  That's a LOT of space to use up.