I brought home a new boat awhile ago which was secured to its trailer with nylon tie-down straps. The span of strap between the gunwales vibrated with the wind at highway speeds causing the trailer and the car to hum too. It did not take long for me to feel car sick. It took me awhile to find the source of the vibration, as I thought it may be out-of-round tires or bearings, but once I found it and tied it off, the car sickness improved then disappeared. I thought the car-sickness was post-big-purchase blues but now I can attribute it to Low Frequency Vibrations. Thanks Cecil
Welcome to the SDMB, downhillsailor!
It’s customary to include a link to the column under discussion, so we all know what you’re talking about. Perhaps it’s this one?
Speaking of which, why isn’t this up on the front page of the Straight Dope???
Did any of this sickness you were feeling involve a loss of bowel control?
It was as of lunchtime for me. 
Did Cecil actually answer the question?
Cecil’s answer seems like nothing but a big tautology.
Here is how I break down the question and Cecil’s answer.
What is it about low frequency waves that makes them hard to block?
When we say hard to block we mean the amount of scattering and absorption of the wave, directionality (spreading out of sound) of the wave, and the resonance of the wave.
Low frequency waves are less likely to scatter and be absorbed than high frequency waves. Low frequency waves are less directional than high frequency waves. Low frequency waves cause objects with mass to resonant more than high frequency waves.
To actually answer the question Cecil should tell us:
- why low frequency waves scatter and are absorbed more than low frequency waves
- why low frequency waves are less directional
- why objects with mass resonate more from low frequency waves than high frequency waves
(This list should probably be rewritten with “how’s” instead of “why’s.”)
Would you believe their wavelength is longer?
OK, OK, that probably doesn’t help.
Some extra sound science…
With music in general, everything can be interpreted as a wave, which is a visual representation of the back-and-forth vibrations of air molecules. With today’s digital audio, everything is compressed to hell, leaving no dynamics in the music. Translation: every peak on the audio waveform is as close to 100% of the volume scale as possible, regardless of how loud it was while recording. Adding EQ, as many people do, is usually a bass boost. Sadly, any audio engineer will tell you that the way to bring out the bass is not to boost it but to cut everything else- in audio land, you can’t get higher than 100%, and when you do, distortion! So hitting the bass boost will add distortion to your sound, resulting in the familiar crappy, fwubby bass we have all heard so much. The solution? Well built speakers and a properly used preamp/eq/power amp.
As far as bass guitar goes, the neighbor in question seems like a typical obnoxious bassist who doesn’t know squat about his tone. When you’re playing in front of 100,000 screaming fans, you will have subwoofers to replicate the lower frequencies of the bass signal. The true tone of a bass is more in the low mid range around 600-1200 Hz, and if you want people to be able to discern what you are playing, you give it a boost around 3,000 Hz for articulation. Adding the super-low bass boost to a bass only serves to muddy up the mix as it is competing with the kick drum, low toms, and other low-end sounds.
Cough. Cough. Inverse square law. Cough.
Okay, let’s pretend and not call it outright wrong for a moment. Let’s call it totally and utterly misleading. Nevertheless, I think we must agree that the “fighting ignorance factor” of this explanation is in the double-digit negative range… Can’t see how he would weasel out of this one.
Sorry, could you express that in dBA, please? 
Can’t. The ignorance factor’s reference point lies at infinity, because ignorance is boundless. 
What can you do if you are on the opposite end of the spectrum… meaning, we are getting complaints from apartments next to us about being loud. Honestly people, I do not feel that we ever have our TV up that loud. (Yes, it’s the television that is causing the problem!) We do not have a sub woofer, but when people complain we get a call from the landlord saying it’s a low sound that is bothering them and can we please turn down our sub woofer? I never thought our TV speakers were good enough to produce such low bothersome sounds.
Is there anything you guys can suggest? We have gotten several noise warnings now and we have tried listening to the TV at abnormally low volumes but still get complaints. It’s getting to the point where we don’t even want to use our television so we don’t run the risk of getting kicked out. And by the way, there’s not really any good place to move the television, there is only one cable jack in the whole apartment so it has to be close to that, unless we want wires running all over the place.
Every TV will have a bass control within the menus. Also there’s external equalizers like for hi-fi equipment, but those are overpriced. I’ll say you should ask to go to that person’s appartment and hear what it actually sounds like. It could be that the TV is in a bad spot acoustically, and moving it a foot in some direction will be a big change. But it could be that they’re pissed off that they can hear something as opposed to total silence and then it’s their fn problem.
Maybe your TV has a bass control; mine doesn’t.
Is the TV or the furniture it is on against the wall? If so, can you move it away from the wall a fraction of an inch?
Thanks so far for your help and opinions… here is some extra info:
My tv is on an “entertainment center” about 4 inches out from the wall (for the wires to fit since my boyfriend insists on having the modem, router, Playstation and Gamecube over there with the tv too!) We have actually gotten rid of our cable service because we pretty much stopped watching TV because of all the complaints. But I’d still like to watch a movie every once in a while.
When explaining attenuation here’s an example I’ve used that seems to work most of the time.
Have you ever parked your car and walked to a football stadium? A few blocks away you might be aware that the band is playing. And how do you know? You can’t hear the brass or woodwinds yet, but you can hear the beat of the bass drum.
For most people that’s an “Oh, yeah” moment that they can relate to.
Not to be overly critical of your criticism, but huh? In what way does the inverse square law apply more to bass notes than it does to alto, soprano, or mosquito notes?
That said, Cecil does a lot of explanation about attenuation in that paragraph before he gets to his point: that the things he describes attenuate higher frequencies more.
Can anyone here explain these issues:
- why low frequency waves scatter and are absorbed more than low frequency waves
- why low frequency waves are less directional
- why objects with mass resonate more from low frequency waves than high frequency waves
Maybe this acoustics page will help some.
Shouldn’t these “thoughts” be subjected to grammatical inquiry ?
I do love nonsense such as “more people smoke Wheezers than any other
cigarette”.
In other words - - - There ARE no other words. We, the ignorant public,
are expected to get some sort of implication that- - - see? It is NONsense.
But, wow!, did it sell Camels !! Does that mean all Camel-smokers are idiots ?
Sorry, I digress. The whole discussion seems somewhat jejeune. See you in
another Forum.
Flip