AudiogoN Forums: Speaker appearance verses musicality.

Speaker appearance verses musicality.

Every one of the hi end speakers has a great finish on the outside. Some like a car finish others like fine furniture stains. There are some beautiful speakers out there but at what cost to the quality of sound? To approach the very best attainable sound shouldnt the speakers be covered with acoustic dampning material? Maybe so you could take it off in pieces to tailor your sound. DJ speakers and car subwoofers are covered. One reason maybe it wont show scratches like wood. Has anyone ever tried enveloping their whole speaker except for the drivers? I have a top firing speaker with 3 drivers on top and I cut out some auto acoustic damping material for the top and it smoothed out the sound along with a pair of Grado earphone replacement pads attacthed to my front firing tweeters. I attached them with double sided tape. Looks nice except my front grill wont fit. The top grill fits. Clarity of bells and cymbels was enhanced. Here is my point. Or question. Has anyone wrapped their whole speaker in acoustic carpeting or foam. OK I know it might sound ridiculus. But shouldnt room tuning start with the speakers? How much impact would a dampened speaker have? Ive only tried a little of the way. Anybody done their whole speaker and what results did they get? Not many people would chance ruining their finish or resale price. I guess it would be room dependent on how much you would get out of it. Oh, that tweeter tweek was in Stereophile several months ago. The writer puts foam around his tweeters and he said manufactures are reluctant to do so because of attractiveness. He believed in that tweek. I do know Signet speakers had foam cut out like a star around their tweeters. B&W places their tweeter on top away from the encloser! Mike

Blueranger (Threads | Answers | This Thread)

01-23-11

Responses (1-21 of 21)

Click title to read one, or click date to read all below it.

01-24-11 Why would you want to mess with a speaker that has already b ... Tom6897

01-24-11 In the mid '80s, i was using a set of large tdl 4way floorst ... Roxy54

01-24-11 Esp speakers were wrapped with foam. the larger the speaker ... Rrog

01-24-11 My guess is that, for the most part, appearance is at least ... Shadorne

01-24-11 Appearance often trumps performance in most things. in 22 ri ... Stanwal

01-24-11: Dcrugby
just be sure you keep the box that the foam came in, your wife will need packing materials when she moves out.

or you could send me the box, my wife mainly hates cables, and those boxes aren't really big enough for most of her things.

seriously, though, i know some speakers are insulated like that internally. green mountain used to put felt (or something like it) around many of their drivers, if i'm not mistaken.

then there are speakers like gallo and vandersteen (ones like the 2c) that take different paths to trying to eliminate resonance...
Dcrugby (Answers | This Thread)

01-24-11 Glad you brought this up. i've been wondering about the same ... Unsound

01-24-11 Shadorne, "my guess is that, for the most part, appeara ... Trelja

01-24-11 I'm not concerned with waf, but an ugly speaker is a problem ... Rhljazz

01-24-11 You pay for both appearance/build quality as well as sound ... Mapman

01-24-11 01-24-11: shadorne "my guess is that, for the most part ... Phaelon

01-24-11 I didn't get my gamut l5s just for their looks but they look ... Stanwal

01-25-11 Sonus faber "guarneri" vs shindo "604" ... Geoch

01-25-11 Geoch, that's a good comparison! i'm sure i'd pick the mor ... Mapman

01-28-11 Thanks all Blueranger

01-29-11 Ok...i'll say it: my guess is that, for the most part, soun ... Nrenter

01-30-11 Some of the worlds best performing speakers do not have a fa ... Hififile

01-31-11 Dj speakers and car subwoofers aren't covered with any speci ... Imolazhp_ci

01-31-11 Hififile: lol, i think we both married the same woman... F1a

02-01-11 Facts show audio consumers buy looks over performance . Johnk

02-01-11 I just thought of paper bags ....... Rx8man