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Ugh, I agree the lack of noise regulations is a serious issue no one talks about. I moved away from the city in large part because it was always loud. Pretty sure I got tinnitus from years of daily earplug and headphone use, too.
Nowadays, I always sleep with a fan on for noise, and if that’s not enough then I play this. Doesn’t block everything out, but really helps reduce my irritation. https://youtu.be/hXetO_bYcMo
Even for non-autistic people, constant noise is very unhealthy. I don't understand why nobody seems to talk about that.
I have the same issue, and ended up building myself a coffin. Soundproofing a rental apartment would have been an insane waste of money that I didn't have anyways, and sleeping with headphones on was impossible to me due to how painful it would get, having the plugs in when I slept on my side, pushing them further in.
During the day, I used the noise canceling earphones solutions most mentioned and that worked really well, but thank heavens I'm not claustrophobic.
If it gets so bad you need to do that, make sure you get good enough ventilation, an easy way to open it, and personally since I lived with roommates, I ended up also wiring an emergency alert button, so in case anything happened to me in there, they could come into my room and rescue me. One of them even made me a sign for "The corpse is out/in" so in case of emergency or a fire, they would go and wake me up so I could evacuate too. Plus two USB ports, one for a night light, and one to charge my cellphone.
This message is getting kind of long, so let me know if you want more info about it. But in a nutshell it was just an iron frame, plywood panels, for the outer and inner walls, and rock wool for the in-between of the walls. Two doors, one on the upper panel, one on the side, so I could just roll myself out if it in case of emergency. And most importantly, and to repeat myself, ventilation.
A small custom mattress, and lining on the walls to prevent splinters, and you're all set.
Ok this is legit super interesting. It wouldn't work for me because I have to sleep in bed with my girlfriend, but this is really cool.
That honestly sounds amazing
Yeah, I even hooked up an AC and a fan after a while, natural ventilation wasn't cutting it. And of course, sweat is moisture, so you need it to be dry. Laundry and properly dried sheets and blankets are a must to prevent mold.
having the plugs in when I slept on my side, pushing them further in.
just a note for others who'd like to try with the plugs before going full-coffin, wax earplugs work great and are absolutely on another level of comfort
I use silicone earplugs for years and they are good
Acoustics is one of my main hobbies. The others recommending noise cancelling headphones are spot on. Most of the "soundproofing" stuff won't stop the sound, they're actually made to reduce echo in a room.
To stop sound you need either mass or distance, both are hard to do unless you like straight up build an inner room in your room and carefully engineer it. It sucks but there's no getting around physics
you need mass or distance
You forgot impedance layers and intentionally making them mismatch, which causes considerable energy loss between them without necessarily having to rely on a lot of mass.
Wood > low density foam > wood causes a ton of reflection.
Wood > pliable/stretchy rubber > wood causes a lot of sound energy to turn into deformation forces on the rubber, converting it to heat.
I didn't forget, I just lumped those under "mass" for simplicity because that's what they are, masses. Sure they work more effectively through the mix of materials but like I said, they can engineer a soundproof room in a room if they want but that's beyond the scope of a simple comment. Two layers of wood like you have in both examples is a not inconsequential amount of mass.
Also need to be careful with any design because the triple leaf effect is real and weird and doing layers like that inside a room might not have the desired effect, especially if they overlook coupling to the floor/ceiling and just created a drum instead of a dampener.
Yeah this. There's a reason why recording studios are so expensive, treating a room basically requires very specific construction
This is the correct answer. Don’t waste your money on expensive solutions that won’t fix the problem.
Can you perform ANC via stereo system?
Only for low bass rumble/roar, but I haven't seen any noise cancelling subwoofers for some reason. Passive bass traps exist. They work because a point sink can absorb bass from a large volume of air, because of the long wavelength of low-frequency sound.
It wouldn't work for higher frequency (shorter wave) noise because the loudspeaker could only absorb the small part of the wavefront that collides with it, and the rest would pass by. As useless as trying to cancel light pollution from street lights by adding a few vantablack objects to the room.
Theoretically it could perform better if the system had microphones where the noise was coming inside (window probably), cameras to continuously track the positions of your ears, and some computation to solve what anti-noise to play from each loudspeaker when, so that the noises would combine out of phase at your ears. The system would have to be taught the room's reflective properties by you wearing microphones in your ears for a few hours when the typical noise was active. It still wouldn't be as effective as adding a better window on the noise leaking window.
A buddy used to live in an apartment where the amount of road noise made it hard for him to sleep. He added a blackout curtain over his bedroom windows which made a huge difference for him.
Can't say anything interesting about soundproofing, but I did invest 3 years trying out every possible earplug out there and I can give you a quick summary:
This basically covers it. My personal setup is a small two chamber box that is always with me, in one chamber there are pvc foam plugs for max noise reduction and in the other chamber I have adjustable plugs that have 3 levels that I would define as:
If you are interested, I am using 3m foam plugs and these random adjustable plugs that I found that are surprisingly good quality for the price (cheap so don't expect anything special)
I am highly sensitive to sound, and it honestly has ruined my life at times when I've had to live in apartments. (not only do I fly into rages over excessive and/or long-lasting sound, it also gives me migraines that make half my body go weak). There aren't really options for preventing sound bothering us using sound-proofing. That said, windows are likely your main source of problem if it's coming from the street. You could try making sure the weather stripping is intact, cover the window with foam board, and also using plastic sheeting around the windows to create an air gap. They sell this as draft insulation at hardware stores.
You could try covering the sound with a noise machine, but if you're like me, you will find the constant noise exhausting.
I swear we need designated "quiet" neighborhoods so people like us can just live
I feel your pain. I just can't fully be relaxed if there's too much sound. The sensitivity appears to have gotten worse as I've gotten older. I wish every product in the world had sound limits so that nothing is too loud. Most people look at me like I'm crazy because they can never truly understand.
I keep asking my therapist if my tolerance has gotten lower with age!
I'm actually living in a tent "dispersed camping" for the summer while trying to give my nervous system a break. I know how insane that sounds: camping long-term to get away from noise. But I haven't been this relaxed in a few years, so it's worth it to me
That sounds super relaxing.. maybe someday I can do the same.
I wish we lived in a society that made it so you wouldn't need to do that to feel peace. For now, do what you need to do to feel calm, whatever that is.
Thank you. I hope you find a solution, too
Foam board is light and flexible, therefore bad at blocking noise. Plastic film is even worse, unless several millimeters thick like window glass. Acoustic foam is light and flexible too, that's why it's supposed to be glued to a wall or ceiling to connect the missing necessary properties to the foam so it can work.
Glass is heavy, so it blocks noise well. Adding a better window on the noise leaking one will help a lot.
I agree about the weatherstrips, but if the missing strips (or open-cell foam strips) are a purposeful air intake, then you'll have a ventilation problem to solve after sealing the window airtight.
Fair. I had done this on my house, so perhaps the distance from the street meant only a small amount of noise needed to be blocked
Yeah noise cancelling headphones are your best bet, it's been a life changer for me
I already have noise canceling headphones and loops. I don't like wearing the headphones all day because they get uncomfortable after a while. I'd like to target the sources of noise if possible.
How long are you able to wear yours? The right pair might change everything...
I'm unable to wear most headphones for longer than 15 minutes due to wierldy sensitive, painful ears but my Bose QC 35 I can literally wear for 8hrs straight before they start to irritate other areas
If you have any comfortable noise-canceling headphones recommendations that would be helpful. Mine are not really comfortable and I can't lay down and wear them because I like to lay on my side when I rest.
I lay on my side as well so my noise cancelling headphones dont work for that sadly
If im wearing them I have to lay on my back
A good pair of noise cancelling headphones is gonna be the easiest, cheapest option. You don't even need to play music through them; just wear them and have them powered on with the noise cancellation on.
Lots of hanging cloth helps dampen noise too
At my old apartment with thin walls, we bought some cheap fleece blankets and hung them on the walls. It was janky, and they probably collected dust and needed to be washer more often than my 22 year old self realized. Wasn't perfect acoustic isolation or anything, but it cut down on road noise and allowed us to feel like we could have conversations without the whole building knowing what we were saying. Also helped thermal insulation a lot.
"Lots" measured in mass. Buy your curtains by weight.
Leaving an air gap behind a cloth hanging on a wall extends its absorption frequency band lower because it makes it effectively as thick as the gap from the sound's perspective. It also becomes a panel resonator with the air gap.
Oh wow, is this an area of expertise for you?
Hobby for 30 years.
i cant be bothered to read everyone elses replys but ive found the best thing for me is some earbuds with a nice pair of over ear hearing protection. ive got some industrial over ear earmuffs with a 32 dB or so attenuation. those by themselves help a ton, but to really get the isolation ill play some brown noise or ocean waves through my earbuds. the combination of controlled noise and high attenuation of outside noise provides almost perfect sound isolation, to the point i cant hear anything in the room, even someone speaking right next to me. it helps if you can find a kind of noise thats comfortable for you, like i said for me something like brown noise or ocean waves work best. they're soothing for me but you might prefer something else.
Triple glazed vacuum sealed windows do wonders to dull out most of it.
Boots do an own brand version of loops. Easily sleepable in and cuts out a surprising amount of noise.
https://www.boots.com/wellthy-by-boots-sleep-earplugs-1-pair-10384239
I hate hearing myself breathe super loudly, which is what every in-ear noise blocker (be it plugs or earphones) causes to happen.
Same for me, doubly so with over-ear cans. Any internal noises (breathing, swallowing, coughing etc) get cranked to 11. And any noise from the cans or headrest goes to 12.
Replace your windows with thicker glazing. Or if you live in a rental you can add sound proof secondary glazing in front of your windows. And for the rest of the room the best way is to build a room inside the room with soundproofing insulation behind the walls. Or hang Mass Loaded Vinyl against the walls.
Basically proper sound proofing is expensive as fuck. Cheapest is a good pair of active noise canceling headphones and custom fit earplugs.
Not autistic but sound sensitive from time to time. Try a white noise machine. You can find ones that are tunable so you can find a tone that doesn’t trigger you. They can greatly help drown outside noise. You could get one for each room and create your own sound wall.
The only thing that would effectively work would be mass loaded vinyl which you would need to cover all 6 sides of your room in, which is usually done before putting up the walls because its a heavy rubbery fabric.
And it's expensive.
Everything else is acoustic stuff which would really only prevent sound from escaping the room too easily.
Would probably go for the soundproof headphones like others have said. Cheap and effective.
How much noise can you take. Audio recordings Studios can get very good but that can get expensive too. Still it would be worth looking in those forums for people looking for help with street noise as those people know what works
Better windows, thicker walls, or moving
I've tried everything I can get my hands on. For actual silence (or close to it) I wear yellow foam 3m ear plugs and then I wear construction ear muffs, like what you wear to operate loud equipment, over them. Also works wearing them over a small pair of ear buds if you want white noise or music or a podcast. Construction ear muffs are light and made to be worn all day.
I also have a set of sony wh-1000xm5 and they are great for noise cancelling when also listening to music I really like.
You could see if you can get some old carpeting or rugs for cheap or free to hang along the wall facing the street. They have two features that block sound: complex geometry, and mass.
Are active noise cancelling headphones an option?