Quiet Enjoyment: right of audiophiles neighbors to NOT be annoyed

Interesting question. Easy answer. Be polite. Don't bother other people. As my parents always told me "Its not about you".

But this brings up another interesting issue. We often tell people to ditch their spouse who doesn't like giant speakers and sound deadening panels on the walls of their shared home....if they really want to hear all that pent up SQ just waiting to get out if the room and domestic situation can be rectified.

Maybe the advice to apartment/condo dwellers would be to sell the $50,000 hi-fi system than can't be unleashed in that environment, buy a house and a $10,000 system you can actually listen to.

All of this in jest..............right?

+1 Gawdbless my daughter lives in a secured apartment complex with her 5 year old and it never ceases to amaze me how cheaply built and poorly insulated these buildings are and for what she pays!!!

She has lived in her apartment for 4 years and had a new neighbor move in under her and the very day he moved in came up and knocked on her door and complained about noise. She has trained herself and her son to be courteous and above all quiet.

When living around other people you have to exercise some tolerance and realize if you want to live in a morgue buy some F&*^# acreage.

The unleashing would mean the audiophile would want to unleash some repressed whatever...
I have no need to play Beethoven sonatas at 110dB. Nor String quartets.. Nor Miles Davis either. Really the only music needing to be played in any way loud to seem realistic would be Heavy Metal, or Arena Rock, and maybe the climaxes of Symphonies and operas (My guilty treat is I paying Opera pretty loud, (85dB peaks) so the climaxes, which are always pure vocals, can get rather loud... Lucky those frequencies do not go through the walls as much as the bass.
I think I got over "LOUD" back in the early 1990’s. I guess I just plain wore my loud out.
One curious thing about playing loud is it then seems ’normal’... But when, if you play at a lower volume for awhile, the lower volume then is the new normal. and seems perfectly loud enough. (unlike for the person who plays louder all the time. the moment you turn it down, for the loud listener it sucks, sounding weak and useless. But give them time at the new lower volume, and that will change.I discovered that back in the 1990s. And really am perfectly happy playing music at 50dB to 65dB ..loud.. 70dB ... blasting like crazy to me is 85dB. LOUD!!!!
As for condo or own a house.. No @*#$& way. I love living in an apartment, heat provided, indoor parking included. My apartment at 80F temps all Winter.. In Wisconsin, who owning a house can afford to heat the house to 80F all Winter? NO shoveling snow, no grass cutting, no sudden need money for new stove/washer/ roof/fridge/lawnmower/snowblower/ flooring/rugs you name it. If I have a neighbor who is a complete XXXX they will most likely move away in a year.. unlike house neighbors.. Now I agree finding a good rental is important. Cheap, nice (enough) area, indoor parking a requirement for me,(once I discovered the absolute JOY of having under the building heated indoor parking. Jeesh I would never again park outside, NEVER. ) keep up repairs.. clean..     
(one thing I miss living in an over 55 place is kids. I always enjoyed kids running around playing above me. Some folks it drives them crazy. Not me. No problem.) (oh and sex.. always fun to hear folks. creaking away.. LOL)

Well, you don't exactly have to live in the country to enjoy your music plenty loud. I live on a quiet shady street in a small city. Houses are old and probably no more than 15-20 feet apart. I've cranked my stereo up past the point that I would normally listen to it and it is not enough to bother anyone outside the house and could not be heard inside the neighbors house at all.

But I also have a country place. Nearest neighbor is over a mile away. When I have a project around the cabin I'll put my speakers on the porch and blast away.

The place I live at is also a senior citizens facility; you have to be at least 62 to live here. The units are all single level so there's nobody above anyone else. Mine is an end unit so I only have one neighbor and on the infrequent occasions I talk with her I almost always have to repeat myself so she must be hard of hearing, which suits me fine. Never had any complaints to date and I generally play with volume at 11 o clock or a little less if using disc player. Sometimes I will go to 1 o clock when the spirit(s) move me that way. I play stuff like classic rock, jazz like Art Pepper or Miles Davis, and vocalists like Lyn Stanley and Rickie Lee Jones. The 1 o clock stuff is for George Thorogood and the Destroyers.