Cabinet damping for speakers - worthwhile tweak or no?

Den · « **Reply #20 on:** 20 Apr 2003, 07:51 am »

Quote from: Tonto Yoder

I was thinking about just pouring wet cement through the driver holes--it'll level itself !!!!

But seriously, Michael Percy has that paint on stuff too--Soundcoat or something???? Dynamat makes a liquid too--Dynacoat I believe, about $30/gallon.

VMPS offers Soundcoat as an option, but they say it must be applied before the panels are glued together; it can't be done after the speaker is constructed. Does anyone know why? Would Soundcoat split the seams of the cabinet when it dried?

Anyone wanna ask BC?

Tonto Yoder · « **Reply #21 on:** 20 Apr 2003, 12:48 pm »

Quote from: byteme

I ordered enough of the Dayton Loudspeaker vinyl to do both for about $40 shipped. I'll let you know how it goes...

The Dayton stuff looks similar to Dynamat. If you have any left over, you might experiment with damping chassis (sp?). I have an AH! Tjoeb CD player which is based on the reasonably priced Marantz player (it understandably has the cheap chassis/case of a $200 player). I stuck Dynamat inside the top of the case and on the sides--- a very worthwhile tweak and reversible if you decide it's not an improvement.

markC · « **Reply #22 on:** 20 Apr 2003, 01:38 pm »

I was thinking of doing the same thing with my QDS-15, but was concerned about the heat created by the tubes. With the damping material in place, would the heat be dissapated properly?

Tonto Yoder · « **Reply #23 on:** 20 Apr 2003, 01:54 pm »

Mark,
I wouldn't want to recommend anything that would mess up your gear, but I would think your player would engender similar (i.e. minimal?) heat as the Ah! player. The metal top gets warm but never hot--pretty much the same with or without the damping.

BTW, I didn't end up covering the ENTIRE top of the case. I covered the sides first but found that putting Dynamat all over the underside of the top
damped the sound TOO MUCH, muddying things and making it a bit lifeless. Eventually, I ended up with several 3" strips running front to back.
What if you left the area directly over the tubes uncovered??? The tubes could warm the metal, and the metal could dissipate the heat kinda like a heat sink????

Also, I have other tube gear (BAT phono & BAT pre) that runs very hot. I wouldn't even THINK of putting Dynamat even close to that gear; of course, the BAT stuff is built like tanks so I don't feel much need to tweak.

Hope this helps,
Tonto