Apartment life with lots of naim boxes

After putting together a 282/250dr system and all the boxes to go with it, I find that I may make a tremendous life change - from a house to a basically studio type apartment (with high ceilings at least). Was wondering if anyone else runs an 8 or 9 box system into an apartment (condo)? Looking at older conversions with thick walls, but still? Does it make sense or even works well?

Yup. 3 racks of gear in the same room and floor standers. 30th floor open plan.

Was not a problem until kids arrived.

Walls in rental apartments are thin and previous dwellings needed care. I always rented top floor corner so I only had to soundproof the floor. Put the hifi in the room without neighbouring walls. I got away with THX home cinema like this in 3 apartments with no complaints. I did a lot of work to soundproof the floor.

Apartments to buy (which I’m in now) have significantly thicker and soundproofed walls and floors. I would rock out regularly.

I would say open plan is awful and I’ll never do it again. You basically have competition between music and people talking at the dining table, the dishwasher, oven etc. That means decent open backed headphones are still no good for private listening because they let in so much noise.

Yes, and nothing to do with apartments per se. I am surprised how many houses now go for open plan, and when I see the layout that is my first reaction. A kitchen/dining/family area can be great for entertaining, as long as a separate utility room at least for washing machine, but there absolutely has to be at least a separate, large enough, room for music. Architects/designers never seem to think of practical life!

Honestly, I’d like to take the archtect who set off the modern open plan fad and pull their eyeballs out through their anus. It’s awful. It’s for show not actual living.

Combined kitchen dining is just about okay.

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Part of my problem is “mobility” , so walking entails touching the sides (narrow apt.) or a walker or wheelchair in wide centre . some of the older construction has huge beams that I can also use to bounce from point to point. It’s all a bit daunting- plus by my calculations- I can afford to move - but not live afterwards or stay in the same home I’ve been in for years but increasingly difficult as it is not “my home”.

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With space really at a premium, I’d sell off the 8/9 box system and get a Nova and be happy with it.

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makes sense … but so much time and effort to get to this level plus the quadraspire double wide would probably be part of the furniture anyway. one of the reasons for the move is the difficulty of playing what I already have :frowning:

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There’s no reason to downsize the hifi unless you already know you don’t have room for it. Only you can judge your future living conditions and any limitations it imposed.

In my previous apartments, my gear fit on one rack. And 4 boxes or 1, it takes up the same footprint when placed vertically on a rack. 1 box solutions only save space if you decide to go rackless.

In my current place, 3 racks really wasn’t a big issue at all space wise and did not draw the ire of my significant other. Kids changed all that and competed for space. But that’s the point, each person’s living circumstances vary wildly. But even now, with the conditions as cramped as they became over the last few years, I’d rather have better gear and listen to music on it than have the space back. Not everyone will begrudge the floorspace for a rack or two to the same degree.

And some apartments (not mine) are massive.

Hi,

Don’t mean to hijack the thread …but, what soundproofing have you fitted?

Thx.

Not sure what is driving the move to a smaller space. However - no need to change everything at once. Obviously hi fi is important to you! I would keep it and not even think about it for a 6 months or so.

I moved to an apartment about a year ago ( not the best circumstances unfortunately) I left old system behind ( not a good system) and upgraded to atom. Perfect for me ! Apartment has fantastic sound insulation. No complaints from neighbors (yet). I limit sound levels to 65db.

All soundproofing is based on either absorbtion (changes in material density) or deadening (mass).

With that in mind I used cork and foam floor tiles as the underlay. And over the top of that heavy soundproof carpet tiles of about 10Kg/m2. The windows were covered with special soundproof curtains I had made which weighed a ton. As it was a cinema room, I also fit the window frames with 5cm thick insulating foam boards. All materials specifically marketed for soundproof intent.

This created not just soundprofing for the apartment below but stopped leakage from the windows. Being a corner top floor, the room had no neighbouring walls or ceiling to contend with.

The approach also resulted in an amazingly dead room that just swallowed sound. Brilliant for home cinema but truly awful for stereo music. With hardly any reflections it was like wearing giant headphones. No live music illusion at all… but I was all about surround sound back then.

If you want good soundproofing and to not end up with an acoustically dead room, you need to deal with this in construction, not an after market DIY job. That means no parallel walls, lead panels in the floor and ceiling etc. below the floorboards. I plan on having a professionally designed soundproof room in our next house we are building.

Thx, that’s useful.

It’s called supply and demand.

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