Is this really a better alternative to sealing door gaps?

1685 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by capnxtreme, Mar 18, 2009

douggiestyle

Discussion Starter · Mar 18, 2009

Step-by-step mating spacers for door speaks - AcuraZine Community

Curious if anyone on here has done thing or a combination of this and sealing up the access holes, although that's probably redundant

The reader's digest version:

"The purpose of mating spacers is to mate up to the rear of the door panel, the way the factory speaker frame does. This allows the whole door panel to be the speaker's "baffle".

A baffle is the panel a speaker is mounted to. The more a baffle leaks, or the smaller it is, the less mid-bass can be played. The metal skin inside the door is very leaky, and many people respond to this by sealing up all the holes with a big sheet of Dynamat. This makes the speaker sound better, but also covers up all the bolts needed by mechanics if anything ever breaks or you get hit. Also, it adds more weight than you need to add.

The mating-spacer solution sounds better because the speaker is firing directly through the door panel hole into the cabin, instead of into a chamber with a hole in it (the chamber is the space between the door panel and the door). Much higher-fidelity sound is possible this way."

Just curious

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t3sn4f2

· #2 · Mar 18, 2009

Imagine a nice bookshelf speaker in your house made out of door panel material.

I'd take a somewhat structurally sound and treated metal skin baffle over a door panel baffle any day, especially in the midbass band.

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capnxtreme

· #3 · Mar 18, 2009

I try to accomplish the same effect simply using foam tape as a gasket, both on the door card and around the driver. I got the idea from a member's build log. I think it was Ge0.

This guy just took it one step further, I like it.

The factory grill sucks, but it looks factory. :worried:

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trunks9_us

· #4 · Mar 18, 2009

douggiestyle said:
Step-by-step mating spacers for door speaks - AcuraZine Community

Curious if anyone on here has done thing or a combination of this and sealing up the access holes, although that's probably redundant

The reader's digest version:

"The purpose of mating spacers is to mate up to the rear of the door panel, the way the factory speaker frame does. This allows the whole door panel to be the speaker's "baffle".

A baffle is the panel a speaker is mounted to. The more a baffle leaks, or the smaller it is, the less mid-bass can be played. The metal skin inside the door is very leaky, and many people respond to this by sealing up all the holes with a big sheet of Dynamat. This makes the speaker sound better, but also covers up all the bolts needed by mechanics if anything ever breaks or you get hit. Also, it adds more weight than you need to add.

The mating-spacer solution sounds better because the speaker is firing directly through the door panel hole into the cabin, instead of into a chamber with a hole in it (the chamber is the space between the door panel and the door). Much higher-fidelity sound is possible this way."

Just curious

I might be misunderstanding this thread but is this what you are looking for?

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2119519

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douggiestyle

Discussion Starter · #5 · Mar 18, 2009

I've already deadened my doors by sealing off the access holes, I'm just curious and trying to bring up other install methods for discussion. Essentially, the guy was trying to separate the front waves from the back waves by sealing the front of the speaker to the door card, rather than sealing off the door.

So if the front waves were in fact separated from the backwaves, does the "leaky enclosure" still matter?

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capnxtreme

· #6 · Mar 18, 2009

Yeah because the door card itself is still gonna be leaky IMO, and is very flimsy.

The other condition for a baffle, besides separating the front from the back wave, is not resonating in the passband of the driver. I would bet that the plastic door card is a lot more likely to violate this than a well-deadened and sealed inner door.

And he's still using the inner door as the main mass in the baffle anyways. Imagine what a disaster you would have if you simply mounted your driver to the door card.

And besides all that, the main benefit here is simply the fact that more of the sound travels into your listening space. How he brings baffles into the discussion is somewhat misleading IMO. I do not see this as a replacement for sealing the access holes and deadening the inner door skin. It's just another good thing to do also.

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