Just dropped $180 on a "quiet" air purifier and my upstairs neighbor's bass is still louder than it
I bought a Levoit air purifier for $180 hoping the white noise would cover up the constant thumping from the guy above me in my Austin apartment, but now I just have two loud things competing instead of one. My walls are so thin I can hear when he opens his dresser drawers, so a fan was never gonna fix this. Has anyone found a soundproofing trick that works on a budget, or am I stuck picking between bass and fan noise until my lease ends?
A fan was never supposed to fix bass, that is a physics problem and no $180 machine wins that fight. Low sounds travel through walls and floors as vibrations, not just air noise, so piling another sound on top just gives you two things to hear. You would get further spending that money on a rug with a thick pad, heavy curtains, and sealing the gaps around your outlets and door frame, because bass leaks through cracks way more than it goes through solid drywall. Truth is the cheapest real fix is talking to the guy or asking the office to move you to a top floor unit, since nothing you buy at that price will stop a subwoofer.