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You assume that musicians who practice in their own apartments don’t respect their neighbors; I think you’re wrong. My neighbors downstairs were a vocal/guitar duo. I tolerated their practice sessions and they tolerated mine.

I tolerated all kinds of noise from my neighbors and they tolerated my noise. People are not mice.

Isn't that the entire point of this very thread? How to make your hybrid piano quieter, so that you respect others. Nobody said the opposite.

You assume to know what I am "assuming". There is no point in going on about this. As I said, we choose how to live and to treat others around us. My "dreams" cannot come at the expense of affecting someone else's privacy, peace of mind, whatever you want to call it. Thus I treat others the way I like to be treated. You, of course, can choose your own path.
I am out of this argument.

I had lived for years beside a mentally ill neighbor who also happened to be quite an accomplished player. She very often played on her acoustic upright at 2am but it didn't disturb our sleep so we were very relaxed about it.

Gone are the days when every family home had an upright, parked up against the neighbour's adjoining wall. I practised, the nieghbour's son then practised. Poor little bugger had no choice. He must've hated me. I thumped him once ot twice when he got uppity, as you do.
I'd hazard a guess and say "New Yorkers are like no other . . . ." very much wanting to visit that marvellous, enigmatic place. There must be some tremendous night life there, something for everybody. THE place to get drunk in. With a little help from your friends.
Sorry I digressed somewhat. It was fun.

Given the noise I endured in New York, here is an abridged list: screaming drunks and prostitutes at 2am, fights, commercial garbage trucks picking up all night, winching on those little dumpsters which they would slam against the back of the truck, illegal jackhammering at 4am, car horns and alarms, helicopters, airplanes, never-ending traffic noise, and more, the opportunity to hear someone practice the piano does not register any annoyance with me, and I think most New Yorkers feel the same way. To live in New York is to put up with an incessant din that is hard to describe.

My piano teacher, a Russian, said her downstairs neighbors would call up and ask if she was ok if a day went by when they did not hear her Steinway. They would say, are you sick? Should we bring up food? The building was full of Russians. I think if you survived Communist Russia, a little piano practice from your neighbor did not bother you. The Russians got used to communal living and so they dealt with far worse.

He bought a digital piano instead of an acoustic because he lives in an apartment. What more could he have done ?

I concur with the sorbothane discs idea. Exceptionally efficient at converting vibrations into heat, it is also cheap and cheerful. I first discovered this material when trying to stabilise loudspeakers (hi-fi hobbyists like myself used to go for expensive, and yet useless "cones"😂). Since then I would use these for mechanical instruments, tumble dryers etc.

On the N1 I suspect the vibrations are going through the back panel? In which case the discs should work better without being compressed by load bearing. Otherwise one would need very thick discs to compensate.

When I was learning the piano as a child, we lived in a semi-detached house and our elderly neighbours said they used to turn off their radio or TV to listen to me practicing!

I now live in a small block of four maisonettes built in the 1960's - the lease states that a piano can be played up until 10pm.

I've had a digital piano for 20 years and played with headphones since my adjacent neighbour said he could hear it through the connecting wall. I started playing it much more in the last year - still only using headphones, and only then did my neighbour below me say she could hear the thumping of the keys over the sound of her TV so I started researching for solutions.

As already mentioned, Sorborthane was the answer. I bought eight 50mm hemispheres which solved the problem.

Also as part of my research I started looking to upgrade my old Korg digital and ended up buying myself a nice new Kawai CA79!

John

I had rented a silent U1 in my last apartment but my wife said she was bothered more by the thumping than the music, and so I switched to playing out loud.

My neighbor in the next apartment building was incredible talented and would play her grand for hours at a time, every day, but never before 9am or after 9pm. I enjoyed hearing her play.

My guitar teacher from a few blocks down is married to a singer. She tried hard to cover up her singing only to discover that the old lady next door was religious and liked hearing the hallelujahs.

I once looked at a noise complaint map of my neighborhood. My street was an oasis of calm, with one or two purple dots. A few streets to the east, the map was a sea of purple dots, indicating complaints for loud party music, mainly Latin dance music. One of the buildings had been labeled the loudest building in the city, with over 400 complaints in a year.

I’ll take a few hours of piano plinking every day, during the day, over amplified party music all day and all night, all the time.

exactly, and imagine a violin player. The so called "silent violins" are as loud AF.

LOL. I studied the violin for ten years, some of it while I lived in a studio apartment. I hung heavy “soundproof” curtains over newly installed French doors to a tiny dining area/bedroom with Murphy bed that shared a wall with a stairwell. The building was of the Art Deco era, heavy plaster and solid walls.

After having this remodeling done, I then commenced to practice every night when I got home from work. One morning, I got on the elevator and my neighbor from the other side of my practice room got on with me. She asked if I played the violin. I said yes, braving myself for a complaint, and then she said she enjoyed listening to me play. I was amazed.

I spent the last ten years studying the classical guitar. I don’t think anybody ever heard me. The amount of energy produced by bowing is far more than that produced by plucking.

LOL. When people think violin is for rich people, yes, in a way I agree, you need to buy a bunker, not just a violin

Ha, indeed! By the way, my “soundproof” curtains were lined with lead, and weighed a ton, a lot of good that did. I ordered them from some industrial supply place. Sound is very tricky and can go through any small opening.

I wonder if we DIYers should join forces and create a 5mm vacuum layer to cover every wall, ceiling and floor.

I have heard of professional musicians constructing a room within a room, with an air gap, to cut down on the transmission of sound. My guitar teacher has an upstairs neighbor who is a professional percussionist, and that guy went to great lengths to stop the noise from leaving his apartment. I'm not exactly sure what he did but I could find out. Still, when we rehearsed at my teacher's apartment, every once in a while, you would hear a burst of drum noise, lol.

My office has a room like that work. Some kind of "floating" floor, with two layers of drywall and sound deadening material in between. It works very well for anything except a full drum kit, and folks jam pretty loud with a full PA setup and it's reasonably silent on the other side of the wall. Pretty expensive build-out though, talk about going to great lengths for sound insulation! I couldn't imagine going to that kind of expense in an apartment or condo.

For a "reasonable" solution, I think it's mainly properly rated sorbothane padding, plus locating the DP in the least offensive position. Anything much more (other than agreeing to reasonable playing and quiet hours) is above and beyond the call of duty.

The legs on the N1X aren't completely flat, they have casters attached to the bar, and were just barely big enough that they fit perfectly in the well of the cup. I was a little worried too, but it was like they were made for it.

Actually, vacuum works much better than air
In construction, a sandwich of heavy concrete walls with a isolation gap in between works well.

Agreed, now tell me the cost, lol.

After twenty years of living in one bedroom apartments, my wife and I recently moved and bought a little house. It is nice not to have to worry about bothering anyone with my stereo, or my piano, a DYUS5, both of which can put out a lot of sound.

The house has a staircase on one side and my speakers face it. The house is kind of like a folded horn speaker. I can hear the stereo clearly in my office at the top of the stairs.