Low Volume Listening?

[David A]

I don't think the DSP in roon can be made to compress, I could be wrong.

ICM with music sounds odd to me, but worth a quick try.

You could try compressing an album in audacity, or similar, as a trial, to see if you are onto something.  The problem with compression is that's it's likely to make the bass louder all the time, but if you play it back much quieter it could work out.

I don't think easy solutions to this problem exist, other than headphones, or moving. Good luck.

I checked the Roon DSP settings and there are no options for modifying dynamic range that I could find.

Dynamic compression with music is going to change the way things sound because dynamic contrast is important in a lot of music and dynamic compression reduces that.

I agree there are no easy solutions. There are solutions but they can be complex and costly, that's if you're even allowed to do them, and unfortunately part of the problem when it comes to disturbing neighbours is the sensitivity of the neighbour. What will disturb one neighbour may not disturb a different neighbour and what will solve the problem with one neighbour may not solve it with another. You can spend a lot of time, effort, and money and discover that whatever you do you simply cannot satisfy a particular neighbour because they simply demand no sound transmission at all from your setup. Headphones or moving may be the only legal solutions. You could also try throwing your neighbour to their death from their balcony, provided they have a balcony, but you'll really find your own musical enjoyment reduced even more while you're in prison.

Addition: There's a big difference between dynamic compression when mixing music and dynamic compression when playing the recording. Music is recorded using different channels for the singer or soloist and for the backing musicians. The recording engineer can compress the channels for the backing musicians and still make sure that there's enough difference in the level of those people in the final mix to provide a volume contrast between them and the singer or soloist. When you compress the mixed result, you reduce that difference between the singer/soloist and the backing because you're compressing everything and that makes a big difference to the way the music sounds.