Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and I am joined as always by my brother, the man who once tried to soundproof his bedroom with empty egg cartons only to realize they mostly just collected dust and looked like a strange art installation.
Herman Poppleberry, at your service. And for the record, Corn, the egg carton myth is one of the most persistent fallacies in the world of DIY acoustics. They provide a tiny bit of diffusion for high frequencies, but they have zero mass, so they do absolutely nothing to stop sound from entering or leaving a room. It was a youthful indiscretion in the pursuit of science. It is good to be back in the studio, even if the neighbors are currently operating what sounds like a commercial-grade wood chipper right outside our window.
Well, that is actually quite fitting given what we are diving into today. Today’s prompt comes from Daniel, who has been following our recent deep dives. We recently talked about light pollution and blue light minimization, specifically looking at how cities like Flagstaff and Tucson have pioneered dark sky ordinances to protect our circadian rhythms and our view of the stars. Daniel wanted to pivot that conversation toward what he calls the other great sensory intrusion of the modern age: auditory trespass.
It is a brilliant term. We use that word trespass specifically because it implies an entry without permission. It is a violation of a boundary. When light from a poorly shielded streetlamp spills into your bedroom at two in the morning, it is trespassing on your private space. When a car horn blares outside your window while you are trying to sleep, or when the low-frequency rumble of a bus vibrates your floorboards, that is auditory trespass. It is sound that you did not invite, that you cannot easily turn off, and that your brain is forced to process whether you want to or not.
And living here in Jerusalem, we know this all too well. Daniel mentioned the honking issue in the city center, and honestly, it is one of those things you almost stop noticing until you really stop to listen, and then it becomes absolutely maddening. There is a specific kind of stress that comes from noise you cannot control. It is that feeling of being trapped in your own home. Daniel mentioned that for him and his wife, their home is supposed to be a quiet, peaceful haven, but the urban environment makes that haven feel like it is under constant siege.
Exactly. It is the lack of agency that does the most psychological damage. You can close your eyes to block out light, but your ears do not have lids. Evolutionarily, our hearing is our primary "always-on" warning system. Even when you are in deep REM sleep, your brain is monitoring the acoustic environment for threats. In a natural environment, a sudden loud noise usually meant a predator or a falling tree. In twenty-twenty-six Jerusalem, it usually just means someone is annoyed that the car in front of them took half a second too long to react to a green light. But your nervous system doesn't know the difference. It still triggers that micro-spike of cortisol.
So, we are going to look at some very concrete mitigation solutions today. We are going to move from the high-end, structural investments down to the renter-friendly hacks. We will start with the big one, acoustic windows, and then move into multi-purpose curtains, seals, and the physics of why some things work while others—like your egg cartons, Herman—fail miserably.
I am excited to get into the physics of this. People often think soundproofing is just about adding more stuff, but it is really about managing energy and vibrations. It is about understanding how a pressure wave moves through the air and how it interacts with solid matter.
Right, so let us start with the windows. If someone is looking to truly seal off their home from the street noise, they usually look toward acoustic windows. Daniel mentioned they can be expensive, and they are definitely an investment. But how do they actually work? What is the difference between a standard double-pane window and a dedicated acoustic one? Because most modern apartments already have double-glazing for heat, right?
That is the crucial distinction. Most people assume that because they have double-glazing, they have soundproofing. And while double-glazing is significantly better than a single pane of glass, it is often designed primarily for thermal insulation, not acoustic insulation. To understand why, we have to look at something called the Sound Transmission Class, or STC rating.
I have seen that acronym on spec sheets before. It is basically a scale for how well a building partition attenuates sound, right?
Precisely. It is a laboratory-tested integer that tells you how many decibels of noise a barrier can stop. But here is the catch: the STC scale is logarithmic, just like the decibel scale itself. A standard single-pane window might have an STC rating of around twenty-six or twenty-seven. A typical double-pane window might get you to twenty-eight or thirty-two. That sounds like a decent jump, but in the world of acoustics, thirty-two is still quite low. When you move into the realm of true acoustic windows, you are looking for STC ratings of forty-five, fifty, or even higher.
So what is physically happening in an acoustic window to get that rating up? If it is not just two panes of glass, what is the secret sauce?
There are three main factors: mass, decoupling, and damping. First, mass. Acoustic windows usually use much thicker glass than standard windows. But here is the trick that many people miss: they use different thicknesses for the two panes. This is called asymmetrical glazing. If you have two panes of the same thickness, say four millimeters each, they will both vibrate at the same frequency, which is called the resonance frequency. When a sound wave hits them at that specific frequency, they actually reinforce each other and let the sound pass through almost as if the glass wasn't there.
Oh, that makes sense. It is like two tuning forks hitting the same note. So by having one pane that is, say, six millimeters and another that is ten millimeters, they vibrate at different rates?
Exactly. You are breaking that resonance. The sound wave hits the first pane, it struggles to move that mass, and whatever energy gets through hits the second pane, which has a completely different physical response. The second factor is the air space between the panes. In thermal windows, that gap is often quite small, maybe half an inch, because you want to minimize convection currents that carry heat. For acoustic performance, a wider gap is generally better. You want a "deep" air space to decouple the two layers of mass. Sometimes they even fill that gap with a heavy gas like argon or krypton, which is denser than air and slows down the sound waves even further.
And what about the third factor, damping? You mentioned that as the most important part.
Damping is where laminated glass comes in. This is probably the single most important feature Daniel should look for. Laminated glass isn't just one solid piece of silica. It is a "sandwich" of two layers of glass with a thin, transparent layer of plastic between them, usually polyvinyl butyral, or PVB. Some high-end acoustic windows use a specialized "acoustic grade" PVB. This layer acts like a shock absorber or a thermal-acoustic bridge. When a sound wave hits the glass, the glass wants to vibrate. But the PVB layer is flexible and viscous. It absorbs that kinetic energy and converts it into a tiny, microscopic amount of heat instead of letting the vibration pass through to the other side.
So it is essentially a sandwich where the filling stops the vibration in its tracks. That sounds incredibly effective for something like a car horn, which is a very sharp, high-frequency sound.
It is very effective for high frequencies. We should note, however, that low frequencies—like a heavy truck rumbling or the bass from a neighbor's stereo—are much harder to stop. Those waves are longer and carry more physical energy. To stop low-end noise, you need pure mass. But for the sharp, mid-to-high frequency honking Daniel is talking about, that laminated PVB layer is a total game changer.
If someone is out there shopping for these, besides the STC rating and the lamination, what should they be asking the salesperson? Are there specific frame materials or installation details that matter? Because I imagine the glass is only half the battle.
The frame is absolutely vital. You can have the best, most expensive acoustic glass in the world, but if the frame is leaky, the sound will just walk right around it. We call this a "flanking path." Think of it like a bucket with a tiny hole in the bottom. It doesn't matter how thick or strong the walls of the bucket are; the water is going to find the hole. Sound behaves very much like a fluid in this regard. You want a frame with high-quality, continuous gaskets and seals. Multi-point locking systems are also a huge plus because they pull the window sash tight against the seals when you close the handle, creating an airtight environment.
It sounds like the installation is almost as important as the product itself. If there is a tiny gap between the window frame and the wall, you have basically wasted your money.
Completely. A gap that represents only one percent of the surface area of the window can allow up to fifty percent of the noise to leak through. When these are installed, you need professional-grade acoustic sealant—not just regular hardware store caulk. Acoustic sealant stays flexible for decades. It never fully hardens, which means it won't crack as the building shifts or as temperatures change. If the sealant dries out and cracks, the sound will find its way through those microscopic fissures. It is a game of millimeters.
Daniel mentioned a factory here in Israel that makes these. It is interesting to think about how local climate and local noise profiles might change how these are manufactured. Here in Jerusalem, we deal with a lot of stone buildings and hard surfaces. Does that change the math?
It changes the "acoustic landscape" significantly. Jerusalem is a city of stone. Most modern cities have at least some glass, steel, or wood, but Jerusalem is dominated by that beautiful, hard Jerusalem stone. From an acoustic perspective, stone is a perfect reflector. Sound doesn't get absorbed by the buildings; it bounces off them and funnels down the narrow streets like a canyon. This is why a single car horn can sound so much louder in the city center than it would in a more open, suburban area. You are getting the direct sound wave plus dozens of reflections hitting you milliseconds apart. That makes the auditory trespass feel even more intense because the sound "lingers" in the air.
So, that covers the high-end, permanent solution. But let us be real: a lot of people are renting, or they just don't have the budget for a five-thousand-dollar window overhaul. Daniel asked about multi-purpose curtains. We talked about blackout curtains for light, but what can a curtain actually do for sound? Is "soundproof curtain" just a marketing buzzword?
This is where we have to manage expectations. In the strict, scientific sense of the word, no curtain is truly "soundproof." You cannot stop sound entirely with a piece of fabric because fabric lacks the airtight seal and the extreme mass required to block a pressure wave. However, you can significantly dampen and absorb sound, which changes the "perceived" volume and the "harshness" of the noise.
Right, it is the difference between a sharp, piercing sound that makes you jump and a muffled, distant one that you can eventually tune out. So what should Daniel look for in a curtain that actually does something?
Mass and density are the two metrics that matter. If you pick up a curtain and it feels light and airy, it is an aesthetic choice, not an acoustic one. You want something heavy. We are talking about materials like heavy-duty velvet, or curtains that have multiple layers of different materials stitched together. Some of the most effective ones use a layer of what we call "E-glass" or specialized acoustic felt in the middle.
I have seen some that claim to have a layer of mass-loaded vinyl, or MLV, inside. Is that overkill for a residential curtain?
It is not overkill if you are serious about the noise, but you have to be prepared for the weight. Mass-loaded vinyl is a very dense, limp material—it is basically a high-density plastic infused with metal particles. It is incredibly effective at stopping sound because it is heavy but doesn't have a resonance frequency of its own. But a curtain with MLV can weigh forty or fifty pounds. You cannot just hang that on a standard tension rod or a cheap plastic bracket. You need a heavy-duty steel rod that is anchored deeply into the wall studs. If you don't mount it correctly, the whole thing will come crashing down and take a chunk of your drywall with it.
And what about the way they are hung? I imagine if you just have a curtain covering the glass but leaving gaps at the top and sides, the sound just flows around it, just like the "leaky bucket" analogy you used for the windows.
Exactly. We call this the "flanking path" again. To get the best results, you want the curtain to be much wider than the window itself. You want it to overlap the wall by at least six to eight inches on each side. And ideally, you want it to go from the ceiling all the way to the floor. If you leave a gap at the top, the sound waves hit the ceiling, bounce, and slide right over the top of the curtain. If you create a "seal" of heavy fabric that covers the entire window opening and the surrounding wall, you are creating a much more effective barrier.
It is almost like you are creating a secondary wall made of fabric. Does the pleating or the folds in the curtain matter? Or should it be flat against the window?
Folds are actually better. More folds mean more surface area and more air pockets. Those air pockets help trap and dissipate the sound energy. In the acoustics world, we talk about the NRC, or Noise Reduction Coefficient. This measures how much sound a material absorbs rather than reflects. A flat piece of fabric has a lower NRC than a deeply pleated one. Think of it like the foam in a recording studio—it is often shaped like pyramids or egg crates to increase the surface area. A pleated curtain does the same thing on a larger scale.
So, if Daniel is looking for a multi-purpose curtain, he wants something labeled as "blackout" for the light trespass, but he also needs to look for words like "acoustic," "sound-dampening," or "high-density." And he should probably check the weight in the product description.
Definitely. If it doesn't list the weight per square foot or the number of layers, it is probably just a thick blackout curtain. And look for triple-weave technology. Some of the best ones have a decorative front layer, a dense, black-yarn middle layer for light and sound, and then a thermal or acoustic backing. That middle layer is often a felt or a specialized polymer.
I wonder about the psychological side of this, too. Daniel mentioned the sense of a lack of control. Even if a curtain only reduces the noise by five or ten decibels, that can be enough to make the noise feel manageable rather than invasive. Why is that? Why does a small numerical change feel so big to us?
That is a really important point, Corn. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, a three-decibel change is the smallest change the human ear can typically detect. A six-decibel reduction is a very noticeable change. But a ten-decibel reduction? That actually sounds like a fifty percent reduction in volume to the human ear. So even if you don't achieve "silence," reducing that car horn from eighty decibels to seventy decibels makes it feel half as loud. It is the difference between feeling like someone is shouting in your room versus hearing them through a thick door. It moves the sound from your "immediate personal space" into the "background space."
Beyond curtains and windows, what are some other renter-friendly things people can do? I am thinking about the gaps around the doors or the windows themselves. You mentioned that air equals sound.
Seals are the absolute low-hanging fruit. Most urban noise problems are exacerbated by old, worn-out weather stripping. If you can feel a draft of air coming through a closed window, you are essentially listening to the outside world through a straw. Replacing the rubber or foam seals around your windows and doors is cheap, non-permanent, and incredibly effective. You can buy adhesive-backed silicone "D-strips" or V-strip seals at any hardware store.
What about the bottom of the door? In a lot of Jerusalem apartments, especially the older ones in the city center, there is a significant gap between the front door and the floor. You can often see the light from the hallway, which means you can definitely hear the neighbors' footsteps and conversations.
Door sweeps and draft stoppers are your best friends there. A heavy, weighted "door snake" or draft stopper that sits at the base of the door can block a surprising amount of noise. If you want something more robust, you can buy a "u-shaped" door sweep that slides onto the bottom of the door. If you are allowed to do minor installs, an automatic door bottom is the gold standard. It has a spring-loaded mechanism that drops a neoprene seal down to the floor only when the door is fully closed. When you open the door, it lifts up so it doesn't drag on your rug.
I have also heard people talk about using furniture as a sound barrier. Like putting a large, full bookshelf against a shared wall or a wall facing the street. Does that actually work, or is that another "egg carton" myth?
It actually works, but for a different reason. A bookshelf filled with books is incredibly dense. It adds a lot of mass to the wall, which helps reduce the transmission of sound through the structure itself. Books are also great at diffusing sound—the uneven spines of the books break up sound waves and prevent them from bouncing cleanly off the wall. Also, soft furniture like sofas, heavy rugs with thick pads, and even wall hangings or tapestries help reduce the "reverb" inside the room. If your room is full of hard surfaces—tile floors, stone walls, glass tables—any noise that does get in will bounce around and sound much louder and harsher.
So it is a two-pronged approach: stop the noise from getting in with windows and seals, and then "kill" whatever noise does get in by making the room acoustically "dead" with soft materials.
Exactly. It is about creating an environment where the sound has nowhere to go. I also want to mention something that people often overlook because it seems counterintuitive: adding more noise.
You mean white noise machines?
Yes, or pink noise, or brown noise. While it doesn't stop the "trespass," it masks it. This is a psychological trick called "sound masking." If your bedroom is perfectly silent, say thirty decibels, and a car honks at seventy decibels, that is a forty-decibel spike. Your brain's "alarm system" goes off instantly. But if you have a high-quality white noise machine or a heavy-duty fan running at forty-five decibels, that same car horn only represents a twenty-five-decibel spike. It "raises the noise floor," making the intrusive sounds less jarring.
We use a white noise machine in our house, and I have noticed it helps specifically with those "sharp" sounds—the honking, the sirens, the shouting. It doesn't make them disappear, but it rounds off the edges. It makes them feel like they are part of a distant wash of sound rather than a specific event you need to pay attention to.
Precisely. It reduces the "signal-to-noise ratio" of the trespass. For sleeping, I usually recommend "brown noise" over white noise. White noise has a lot of high-frequency energy—it sounds like static. Brown noise is deeper, more like a distant waterfall or a low rumble. It is much more effective at masking the low-frequency sounds of traffic and engines.
Let us go back to the windows for a second, because I think there is a middle ground between replacing the whole window and just hanging a curtain. Have you seen those window inserts? I have been seeing ads for them lately, and they seem like a perfect "renter's acoustic window."
Oh, window inserts are a fantastic engineering solution. They are essentially a secondary pane of high-grade acrylic or glass that fits into the existing window frame on the inside, held in place by a compression tube or magnetic seals.
And they create that air gap we were talking about earlier, right? Without needing to rip out the original window?
Exactly. They create a secondary "dead air" space. Because they use a compression seal, they are often more airtight than the original window itself. And here is the clever part: because the insert is made of acrylic and the window is made of glass, they have completely different densities and resonance frequencies. This "mismatched" pair is incredibly good at stopping sound. They are much cheaper than a full window replacement, they are nearly invisible if installed correctly, and you can pop them out with a suction cup and take them with you when your lease is up. For someone like Daniel in a city center, this might be the single most effective "bang-for-your-buck" solution.
It seems like it would solve the "leaky bucket" problem too, because the insert creates its own airtight seal regardless of how old or drafty the original window frame is.
It does. It essentially turns a single-pane or a cheap double-pane window into a high-performance triple-pane system. It is a very elegant way to upgrade your acoustic environment without needing a construction crew.
We have covered a lot of technical ground here. We have talked about the physics of sound, the importance of mass and decoupling, the specifics of STC ratings, and the more accessible options like curtains, seals, and inserts. But I think it is worth taking a moment to talk about the "why" again. Why does this matter so much for our long-term health?
It really comes down to the autonomic nervous system. Our bodies are evolved to react to loud, sudden noises as a threat. When you hear a sharp honk, your amygdala sends a distress signal to your hypothalamus. Your body dumps cortisol and adrenaline into your system. Your heart rate increases, and your blood pressure spikes. In an urban environment, these "threats" are constant but meaningless. There is no actual danger, but your body is still reacting as if there is.
And that is what leads to that "under siege" feeling Daniel mentioned. You are in a state of chronic low-level "fight or flight" in the place where you are supposed to feel the most safe.
Exactly. Over time, that chronic stress leads to sleep deprivation, which we know is linked to everything from cognitive decline to cardiovascular issues. The World Health Organization has actually classified environmental noise as one of the top environmental risks to physical and mental health. It is not just an annoyance; it is a public health issue. Reclaiming your quiet isn't just about comfort; it is about protecting your nervous system from a world that has become too loud for our biological hardware to handle.
I love that framing. Reclaiming your quiet is an act of self-care. It is about taking back control of your private space. Just like we are learning to clean up our light environment by using warmer bulbs and blocking blue light at night, we can take steps to "clean up" our acoustic environment.
It is about intentionality. We spend so much time thinking about the visual aesthetics of our homes—the paint colors, the furniture, the layout—but we rarely think about the "acoustic aesthetic." A home that sounds peaceful feels peaceful.
So, if we were to summarize the practical takeaways for Daniel and anyone else dealing with auditory trespass, what are the top three things?
Number one: Seal the gaps. This is the most important and often the cheapest step. Check your weather stripping, look for light coming through door frames, and use acoustic sealant or high-quality foam tapes. If air can get in, sound can get in.
Number two: Add mass and break resonance. If you can afford it, go for acoustic window inserts or full acoustic windows with asymmetrical, laminated glass. If you are on a budget, go for the heaviest, multi-layered curtains you can find and mount them so they overlap the walls.
And number three: Manage the internal environment. Use "soft" decor to absorb reflections and use a high-quality brown noise machine to mask the spikes of noise that you can't block out entirely. It is a multi-layered defense.
And for those curtains, Herman, just to reiterate: look for density, multiple layers, and make sure you have a rod that can handle the weight. Don't just buy "thick" fabric and expect it to work miracles.
Exactly. And don't be afraid to go "wall-to-wall" with the curtains. The more surface area you cover, the more sound you trap. You want a seal, not just a cover.
This has been a really enlightening conversation, Herman. I think sometimes we feel powerless against the noise of the world—especially in a city like Jerusalem where the "honking culture" is so deeply ingrained—but there are actually a lot of scientific principles we can use to fight back and create that haven Daniel is looking for.
It is all about managing energy, Corn. Once you understand how the waves move, you can start building obstacles for them. You don't have to be a victim of your environment. You can engineer your way to a bit of peace.
Well, I hope this helps Daniel and his wife find a bit more quiet in the city center. Jerusalem is a beautiful, vibrant place, but it certainly has its own unique set of sensory challenges that can wear you down if you don't have a way to escape them.
It really does. But that is what makes it interesting, I suppose. It is a city that demands you be present, but everyone needs a place where they can finally turn that presence off and just be.
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Thanks for listening to My Weird Prompts. We will be back soon with another deep dive into whatever Daniel—or any of you—sends our way next.
Until then, stay curious, stay thoughtful, and maybe try to find a little bit of intentional quiet today.
Take care, everyone.
Goodbye.
