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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2) Ask them this question.
They'll give you all the answers you might want in about 15 minutes. EEs love speaker design.
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.