I must admit to having the volume higher (8 o’clock and sometimes higher) than my wife likes mostly because it sounds a bit flat at lower levels. Recently I tried the MusicWorks Reflex Ultra G3 with sparkly base and this has led to a better understanding of the role of mains power. Now with PowerLines everywhere as well it sounds better even at lower volumes.
Suggest you get hold of PLs and the G3 on demo. It’s all about noise reduction. The noise smears the sound across the audible and inaudible sound spectrum. The other house may have had less mains noise.
Many years ago we lived in a first floor flat, our first owned home of our own in fact, and played loud music in the evenings through the HiFi which included B&W’s most expensive big speaker at the time, the DM70.
All was well until we agreed to water the tomato plants of the people downstairs while they were on holiday. When I heard how really loud our music was to them below us, with surprisingly no complaints from them in the 6 months we had been there, I was appalled and we started the search for somewhere else immediately. We bought a very small but detached house a mile away before the year was out. It’s been detached houses ever since…
Best
I daren’t go round to listen the neighbours to hear how loud the system is but they’ve never complained and neither do we when they have their grand kids running around the place or having late night parties. They’re both retired now and it seems like we have agreed to a live and let live policy (within reason - I never play it at ear bashing levels anyway) without ever discussing it.
The long term aim is still to move to a detached house at some point in the next few years. Hopefully that’ll remove that bit of guilt I always have about listening to the system late at night.
Ability to play music at the levels I enjoy has been a priority with every house purchase (and I’ve owned and lived in 8 over the past almost 45 years. The first 3 were terraced, but I explored noise while choosing, and am confident that despite often playing very loud I did not disturb neighbours. I had one semi, with music room separated from the party wall by another living room, so no problem. The others detached.
But I have never had a perfect listening room, and plan to factor in room treatment from the start in my next and intended final move…