Ask HN: How to effectively jam audio speakers?

[the_italian_job]

My family lives in a medium sized Italian city, just in front of a cafe that has recently been bought by two guys that are notoriously part of mafia.

They turned the cafe in a wild night club, playing music _very_ loudly all night long.

Police and all sorts of organizations has been contacted without any success. One of the owners even hit a policeman without any consequences as everyone is scared of them.

The club is in a densely populated urban area, with families with kids that now are having very hard time to sleep.

In asking HN: is there any device/technique that I can use to jam their audio speakers to, hopefully, make them stop with this?

Honestly I don't know what else to do.

The apartment of my family is about 30-60 meters from the speakers.

[Freak_NL]

Stop looking for a technological solution to a people problem; move.

There is nothing you can personally do to make them stop legally, and anything you do illegally comes with a risk to your personal safety. So if the police won't uphold the law for these guys, your best bet is to simply get out. Improve the quality of your life by living somewhere else.

Other option: just wait it out and see if the problem doesn't go away on its own. This may fail though.

[FernandoMax]

Great technique to push people for selling houses, so accepting down price deals. So maffia can buy the properties for the cheap and then do whatever to make a profit.

Step two: Repeat at next neighbourhood.

Solution: Noise isolation windows and walls. Costly, but it works. Isolate from the outside world, including installing an AC machine.

[the_italian_job]

Sadly moving is not an option at the moment.

Probably, as someone else suggested, the only option is to invest in audio insulation and a good AC.

[Freak_NL]

Proper sound insulation is expensive though. If moving is not an option because of financing, you might want to save money to be able to move eventually rather than spend it on a property that's making you miserable.

[bradenb]

This is the right solution. It really sucks, but feels like it's out of OP's hands. It's not worth the risk to personal safety.

[iasay]

Having dealt with a similar situation with an antisocial family, I would recommend just moving as soon as possible. It's not worth spending your time and energy on something which you can't change.

Let them chase everyone away and the local land and building owners will suffer. Eventually some knee caps will go missing thanks to someone even less reputable than the local mafia...

[superchroma]

Investing in insulation and triple glazing is a sensible thing to do with benefits regardless of whether there is loud music playing outside or not. Good luck all the same.

[the_italian_job]

Thanks. Sadly this is probably my only option at the moment.

[jdmoreira]

Move your family to northern Europe. You won't regret it

[Glawen]

Lol, why? Northern Europe respec the law, but at the cost of having people snitching all the time. Maybe it doesn't fit him, I know I don't like it and find it oppressive. Also he'll lose the nice weather, the community etc...

[andyjohnson0]

Directed RF interference oriented at the speakers might work, and could be physically concealed, but will almost certainly be illegal - as well as posing a risk to people with e.g pacemakers and maybe self-driving vehicles. And traceable with an RF spectrum analyser.

Counterphase directed audio? Probably impractical due to range and visible speaker pods.

But obviously the main problem is that you'd be going up against an adversary that is potentially able to use intimidation and violence, and it appears that you don't have recourse to a properly functioning legal system. There are no technological countermeasures against that.

[game-of-throws]

You have two choices:

1. Build an EMP generator

2. Move your family away from the mafia

Option 1 may be more fun, but I recommend you just get out of there. Life is too short.

[btbuildem]

I was very excited to see what the comments were going to be, but the mafia angle is a real bummer. There doesn't seem to be a way to mount a counter-measure without being detected.

A microwave generator combined with a parabolic dish? Not sure your apartment provides enough power to knock out electronic equipment with this, plus it's a super dangerous contraption, you could accidentally cook people alive from the inside out. It would also be pretty conspicuous.

I don't think a tech approach would be effective here. It's still violence (in the sense that you're forcing your will over that of others'), and they (the mafia) have a long history of being very good at violence. I'd steer away from any plays from their book.

Maybe a social engineering angle? You mention many other neighbours are affected -- perhaps band together to find a solution? Maybe target the demographic that attends the club. A social media campaign? I have no idea what the social norms are in Italy, could you organize a local protest and shame them out? Petition the don to order his underlings to cease?

I'm really sorry about your predicament, it's difficult when your home is intruded on like that. There's no easy solution here.

[Nextgrid]

I've read a Reddit post a long time ago where someone used powerful amateur radio equipment to blow up a speaker wirelessly. Maybe look into this?

[ethbr0]

I'd assume this was exploiting speaker cables as an antenna and effectively inducing a high volume artificial signal in them (preferably at the bounds high or low frequency), that then exceeded the speaker capacity?

Alternatively, I've heard that speaker electronics don't like dirty signals. Would be curious what options EEs would come up with there.

[iasay]

That's probably bullshit.

[piker]

Used to pick up citizen band signals on my guitar amp. If it's close enough, there may be even legal source of interference -- although the intention to interfere may make it illegal.

[kposehn]

…interesting.

So, looking at technical solutions, one thought is using active noise cancelling. Basically, use a microphone (or several) to cause destructive interference of the sound and reduce the amplitude in your home. While this would not solve the issue for others, it would potentially help you.

I could see it being done using a measurement or other high quality calibrated microphone (miniDSP umik as an example) hooked up to a raspberry pi, which then outputs sound to another amp and some full range speakers. It may help with the more annoying sounds, but is unlikely to drown out lower frequencies and resonances in the building proper.

While I’m not an audio engineer (just an amateur speaker builder and audiophile) I am quite curious to see if there is a solution.

[PinkRidingHood]

That was what I was thinking about too. Unfortunately, I think since the noise is coming from a point source and the entire room has to be denoised, it is difficult. I doubt there would be a speaker configuration that perfectly destructively interferes with anything like that, unless you got a row of speakers (and there wouldn't be software for that either).

(I'm no expert in this though, so am probably wrong)

[FernandoMax]

Question: Wouldn't create that noise for others, while cancelling most of the noise for you? The sound waves you create for cancelling cancels sound at one point, but keeps moving and creates noise beyond that. Isn't it?

[lodovic]

You could try a pair of noise cancelling speakers - not sure if that's enough to cancel out the speakers from a club though. On the other hand, if they already assaulted a policeman, be assured that the police will eventually be back.

[jdmoreira]

I think you are operating under the assumption that police is the same everywhere. The cops won't do anything here.

[btbuildem]

That doesn't work, it's an incredibly hard problem.

Whoever cracks it will be a very rich person.

[0xbeefeed]

1. Make bomb threats.

2. Occassionally call in SWAT for suspected sex trafficking or drug dealing.

3. Smear their entrance with literal dogshit covertly.

4. Destroy cars of the visitors. Start by simple scratching.

5. Leave bad reviews on Google.

6. Threaten families of owners.

7. Burn down the building.

[hiptobecubic]

1 & 2 will likely only work once or twice before they are caught. Also the police refuse to do anything, so presumably calling them in won't help.

3 is a fun idea, but probably will get you violence'd.

4 will definitely get you violence'd.

5 seems unrelated. Are mafiosos trying to cultivate high scores on Google?

6 back to getting yourself murdered

7 honestly the only thing on here that might actually work. If the police are as incompetent as op describes, then maybe they won't even get caught.

Overall, good list. I like your style.

[orangepurple]

Nobody should ever throw glass containers full of styrofoam dissolved into gasoline

[jimmyc_]

Are the speakers wirelesS? Listen intently for Bluetooth link up sounds.

[the_italian_job]

Thanks, but no wireless speakers, I already check for that.

[stuaxo]

Old school phones getting text messages always seemed to I interfere with audio equipment not sure why.

[hatware]

Do you think this club is using wireless speakers...?

[the_italian_job]

Thanks, but no wireless speakers, I already check for that.

[ethbr0]

1) Find a local electrical engineer (EE).

2) Ask them this question.

They'll give you all the answers you might want in about 15 minutes. EEs love speaker design.

[h2odragon]

Go into the club and poke holes in any speakers you see. All the audio links are probably wired or could be if needed so "jamming" radio mics aint likely to help for long. Destroying speakers will at least require some effort to replace.

Perhaps organize the neighbors to block the doors or otherwise make the neighborhood unwelcoming to club patrons.

If its that kinda fight; admit that you're in a fight that civil government will not help you with, and take direct action against the neighbors that are offending you. Broken bones speak louder than words.

[orangepurple]

Going there in person and destroying equipment is going to get OP killed. Don't suggest these things.

[the_italian_job]

This is definitely gonna get me killed or heavily injured. Also I don't want to get my family in danger, that's why I was looking into some way to anonymously jam their speakers.

[superchroma]

I liked the 2021 film "Nobody" too, it kicked ass, but I think asking an ordinary civilian to engage in symmetric warfare with the mafia in their club is perhaps asking for a lot from a person.

[dfbsdfbwe2ef2e]

"engage in symmetric warfare" - what a pretentious expression.

[thfuran]

Well, feel free to go and humbly slap those mafia goons in the face until they leave.

[superchroma]

Our time on this planet is short and I choose to amuse myself in my own way. :)

[FernandoMax]

specially because it is asymmetric.

[superchroma]

He advocates walking into the club and using direct force, which is pretty much what the mafia does as well. Seems symmetric to me.

[dfbsdfbwe2ef2e]

Exactly. Nothing makes being pretentious look bad, like being wrong.

[Nextgrid]

You will probably get caught and then "convinced"[0] to stop. A wireless attack on the other hand doesn't even require physical access.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acZe7O3T6kk

[the_italian_job]

Getting in a physical fight/confrontation with this kind of people is really not an option

[aj7]

No. They have cameras.