speaker vibration

[thinline27]

I have the original Nola Boxer speakers and they are sitting on sand filled stands and spiked through carpet to concrete slab. I use blu tack for them to sit on. they are rock solid with no movement whatsoever but yet when music is playing i can feel the cabinets vibrating and also with the "knock" on the cabinet test they sound hollow. maybe this is in the design of the way the speaker was meant to be? I was thinking either to accept this or maybe I could improve to make them more solid and the cabinet free from vibrations. I know they were designed by Carl Marchisotto of Dahlquist and Alon. anyway any thoughts either way would be appreciated.

 

[GM]

Some folks intentionally design speakers with cabs that dissipate/damp some of the speaker's output rather than loading it up with stuffing, though personally only do it with high Qt systems. Anyway, it's apparently been 'voiced' to do this, so wonder if sand, etc., is 'ruining' [over damping] its performance to some extent. Does the manufacturer recommend this or any particular mounting methods?

GM

 

[thinline27]

thanks GM. Nola claims they need a 26" stand but doesn't mention any filler of anything. they have upgraded from the original Boxer saying that they have "new cabinets" that have improved a better solid foundation but doesn't say what the cabinet is made of.

 

[GM]

You're welcome! In that case you can put something on top to protect the finish and stack one or more heavy [decorative] weights on top to mass load them to the sandbox till they no longer vibrate to 'hear' if they sound better, or just different, to you. FWIW, short of super heavy/stiff construction I always recommend this and to date, all that have tried it, kept it; most extreme example to date :

Mass Loading ALTEC A7 VOTT 825 enclosures - drlowmu - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

ALTEC VOTT A7- 800 , Concrete suggestions, Tweeter Horn - drlowmu - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

GM

 

[thinline27]

thanks again GM! interesting and will try this out. I do have some heavy brass footers I will try first.

 

[WaVeInFoRm]

stands should be solid or solid enough, sounds to me like lazy speaker boxes are too thin or small. slightly larger better lined cabinets would improve the sound

 

[Dave Bullet]

Got some clamps wide / big enough? It would simple enough to clamp opposing sides to see if this helps. Front to back is trickier (and clamp may cause diffraction anomalies on the baffle). Top to bottom should be possible too depending on the shape of your stand.

 

[WaVeInFoRm]

or chop out lumps of ply wood and screw them to the sides and bottom and top. I am supposing the side panels are the main flaw.

in seriousness it can be done. 'relatively' smartly...

u can do a test.

place a sizewise piece of ply on the stand. then the speaker box sideways onto it then another sheet and then dump some weight on the top like heafty books or doorweights or use your immagination. if the sound improves vastly

may be worth rebuilding the boxes or improving those you have.

escuxen the lazy typing its bed time soon and im a lazy oerson

ps: if adding additional side or topbottom sheets to the boxes....... it may look abit.....

ok.

but be sure to mieter them so bafflestep and such is all the same

 

[WaVeInFoRm]

thats hilarious. all that........... for speakers that are obviously too thin and hollow

one more seriosu way if the stands fit is to place the speakers sideways with a weight on the top. that takes care of the side panels.

have you opened them? u may be able to do something, like small cross pieces.

or u could stuff em and bung up the ports and see how that sounds

 

[Lojzek]

Open up speakers and give it a good visual inspection. Any loose screws, parts, etc...

 

[celef]

you can sew a huge sausage of dense fabric and fill it with sand, then put the sausage over the speaker that eats up the vibrations, let the sausage hang down on the sides