You know i let my buddy host one of my machines and he lives in an apartment. He lives on the first floor. I'd hate to move anything that wasnt ground level.

So far he hasnt gotten any complaints that I know of about noise and the machine. Well, except for his roomates girlfriend who hates that fact there is a machine in their dining area.

I say go for it. Be mindful of how high you have thw volume and what time of the day/night it is and you should be fine

Doubt noise would be an issue. I play mine down the hall from a baby and never woke him.

You can also install a Pinball Personal Audio Control System, made by Pinnovators, to mute the external music coming from the speakers and pipe it through plug-in headphones.

http://pinnovators.com/

It's great for playing late at night when my wife and kids are asleep. It won't silence the mechanical sounds of the slingshots, pop bumpers, and the pinball itself, but it will silence the audio coming from the speakers.

I had a few pinball machines in my apartment years ago. I kept the volume pretty low and never played them before 10 AM or after 8 PM. I never received any complaints. I was on the ground floor.

I have 4 machines up on the 15th floor.

No issues here!!

rd.

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Main concerns are the sounds from the game action (as stated above). Wood framed building or concrete high rise? Putting rubber feet on your game will help. Does the wall that the game is against a common wall were on the other side is a bedroom?

>seems your requirement for owning a game is that the title must end in "man" or "men"!

Yes, that is the "man" lineup. Well ... It's actually the superheroes line up. I would have Avengers there too but a 5th pin blocks the door into the Laundry, that's why the Pac Man is there instead.

rd.

You can turn down the sound, but you can never stop the click clack that a pin makes when it works.

Although in another apartment thread, one guy said he stuck some insulation material inside the pin to deaden the sound. Don't know if that would make a difference or not .. Honestly, if the neighbours can hear the click clack, it might be time to move to an apartment with thicker walls.

rd

I would add that I would think an older Bally SS pin would be less "click clack" than a DMD era pin, because of the smaller less powerful coils.

That's just my gut feeling though ... I haven't tested it with a DB meter.

rd.

I have 3 machines in a 3rd-floor apartment (no elevator!)

It's a pain hauling them.

I haven't had any complaints about sound. I asked the person in the unit below me if they were bothered by the noise, and they informed me they never heard anything.

I live in a 2 story house with my one pin in a room on the first floor. Even with the sound turned down, it makes a lot of noise and you can easily hear it through the walls. I can't play it at night after my kids go to bed because of the noise. My house is an open design with all hard floors so that probably has a lot to do with it.

The other thing to consider is the size of pins. You don't notice it in an arcade full of other machines, but pinball machines take up a lot of space.

Totally there with jawjaw .. my pins are in the basement of an older house currently sitting on concrete floors but man you can hear them upstairs almost like you're in basement with them. Turning down the sound to nothing does help but they are still pretty loud. Going to install carpet tiles soon and see if that helps at all. There's a lot of factors to consider though.. how picky are your neighbors, what exactly is between you and them, flooring, new/old bldg and even the pin itself. I guess worse case if it doesn't work out noise-wise you can just resell it. Never know until you try it.

If your floors are concrete then you are probably fine. Mine are and I don't have any problems (I live on the second floor). Even when the four machines in my place are all going at once when I have people over, still no problems even late into the night.

I live in an apartment also, 4th floor. I figured it would be too loud but I did my research and got one. I have had zero problems. It is kept on the shared wall and the neighbors can't hear it at all. They didnt even know i had one until i asked if they could hear it. Wood floors so rubber feet and the people below cannot hear it either.

I tried to find the thread, but couldn't. Anyway, one Pinsider made pretty good use of acoustic blankets. Made a small surround hanging them from the ceiling and creating a mini room. He said they worked excellent on the mechanical sounds.

http://www.amazon.com/C-H-SC-122-8-Acoustic-Blanket/dp/B0037WHLLE/ref=sr_1_7

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I've had good success with pins in an apartment. I've since moved into a house, but in the apartment I was always sure to play at a reasonable time of day(when people aren't trying to sleep). Keeping it to 30 min at a time, and being aware of others schedules around you goes a long way. I've owned 4 different pins over 4 different apartments and had no problems. My roommate at one point was the only one who had a problem haha

When I put my game at work in the breakroom, I put felt sticky pads on the stoppers for the coils so it wasn't a loud metallic clank. Also had sticky foam strip to put on the lockdown bar and egg shell foam on the bottom of the cabinet to soak up the noise. Actually helped a lot and there weren't any complaints of it being too loud.

I live on the top (4th) floor In a 1 bedroom apt, and started with arcades first.
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That got boring quickly, so started swapping for Pins.
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I have 7 pins and 1 arcade in my apt now, With a WH20 on its way next.
Noise generally isnt an issue. I have vaulted ceilings and cement floors. Definately helps

I think it depends on the insulation of the apartment and the neighbors. I live in a two story apartment, top floor, not very insulated. I currently have four pins setup. The only complaints I have gotten from the neighbors are when I had EM's. They kindly asked me not to play them when they were home. I'm also very respectful of the hours in which I play. I also try to invite them up when I am having gatherings so they are part of the chaos and not subjected to it at outsider.

I'm currently in the same boat. I live on the second floor of an apartment, and sound seems to be pretty dampened laterally, but I'm told that it travels between floors, which is my worst case scenario. The neighbors next to me have kids, so I'm not too concerned about bothering them (as long as I'm considerate about it at night), but when I introduced myself to the little old lady that lives below me, she said that she could "hear everything. EVERYTHING" with a sly wink.

Yikes...

Anyway, I've heard a lot of good things about the acoustic matting and I think as long as you take some measures, and keep in mind that it may or may not be appropriate to play loudly at 2 am, it'll be okay. That's my plan, at least.

Good news!! I squeezed the 4 machines over and found a home for the PacMan ... So Avengers can come up to the apartment and join the superhero line up!

Niceeeeeee

rd.

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Virtual pin might be a good idea, given space and noise constraints. Your long term goals may be a house (given NY, may not be), but at least this has as little volume as you want, and you can experience virtually all machines.

In college i had the following in a second floor apartment.
8 foot brunswick pool table
1960's Dr Pepper Bottle machine
Up to 6 pinball machines at any one time.

Noise complaints? Only for sex, not one about the rest of it.

They were probably glad to hear anything else above you aggressively yanking one off every 30 minutes.

Avengers assemblllllllllleeeee!

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A pin with a shaker is more likely to have complaints. I set up a RS for a buddy and the shaker went off. His wife gave the 'oh hell no!' expression. To say the least, it's is switched to the off position. Booo!

I'd make sure I turned off the knocker!

I'm always trying to turn on the knockers. Oh wait ... Different conversation

rd.

I live in a tiny place in San Francisco and have one pin - not against a shared wall and I will play late at night and haven't had problems. I'm on the third floor so it was a pain to get up the stairs but i also have hardwoods only but it's been fine. My building was built in 1906 too so it's not like it's well insulated for sounds (as any San Franciscan can tell you about places here in the city)

I found this older thread tonight since I may be moving into an apartment soon.
Some good pointers here.
Maybe this will wake up the thread and others can voice their experience.