super unbiased here, but if I said I bought Damp pro and said it didnt work, sux, etc...Nobody would believe me, they would assume user error not bad product..But if I get Edead and it works, Im lucky or I would get bashed?? Sounds like nut-hugging to me...Rep is everything and since somebody made a test 4 years ago using stupid simulations, makes 1 that much better then the other?? I mean who the fawk would go through that much temp change in ur car...I see soooo many blown DD and AQ subs, yet they are a big forum boner...Blown=Failure..
Nobody should pay much attention to claims that follow the form: "I used X and it worked for me". The fact is that almost anything will be at least slightly better than nothing so any single person's subjective impressions of a single product don't mean a lot. The important question is: does it do enough to be worth the cost and effort and is the product reliable enough to consider using in your vehicle.
No car is going to be exposed to 400°F and it's very hard for me to believe that anybody honestly believes that was the point of those tests. That would be a more valid criticism if the samples were only exposed to 400°F, but they were heated to a range of temperatures starting with a level that can easily occur at the vehicle's sheet metal, during the summer, in the sun.
There are two good reasons to heat test polymers - like the adhesive layer used for most sound deadening mats. At the time, many sellers (including ED) were being intentionally vague or outright dishonest about the composition of their products. Heating to 180°F-200°F very quickly demonstrated which were asphalt and which were butyl. None of that testing would have been needed if sellers (including ED) had been forthcoming about this important "detail" in the first place.
The second reason to heat test polymers and the reason serious scientists and manufacturers do it is that polymers react to heat in a way that is very similar to the way they respond to time. Heating gives us insight into how a material will age.
Once we pass the minimum threshold of whether or not these things are what the sellers say they are and whether or not they meet basic usability requirements for the purpose for which they are being sold, we need to evaluate damping performance. Consider that for a minute. These things needed to be tested to see if they were actually what the sellers claimed they were and if they could survive when used as directed //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif
There are standardized test for this but they are very expensive and it doesn't seem likely that anyone will provide the results for us. Since some people will automatically assume these results are rigged and others will attribute more validity to them than they deserve, I'll just say that these represent RTA readings taking from 12" square samples of 22 gauge steel mounted in a closed termination configuration to the front of a sealed chamber that contained the measurement microphone. The front surface of the sheet metal was hit with pink noise. These graphs show the untreated steel blank (top line at the panel's resonant frequency in the 50-100Hz range) and then with 25% coverage.
Before people start looking at these results and interpreting them to mean that all you need is twice as much eDead or 3 times as much P&S to equal the performance of Damplifier Pro, it doesn't work that way. Vibration damping is much more a minimum threshold meeting process than it is linear. I got to 25% coverage in three stages - 8 1/3%, 16 2/3%, 25%, using 3 2"x6" strips added one at a time to the center of the panel. Doubling coverage yields something like a 1/2 dB improvement meaning that you would really need something like 6 times as much eDead v1SE² and 8 times as much P&S (or eDead V1, FatMat, etc.).
These results are an attempt to isolate the vibration damping performance of these products - which is what they should be used for. Attenuation at the panel's resonant frequency and throughout the frequency range should be of interest. There were other products that performed very well in these tests, but since I'm responding to an eDead v. Damplifier Pro post, I kept it to those two products with asphalt P&S thrown in for fun.
A few final notes. I've already addressed the fallacy of using individual subjective results to evaluate these products - if you used ICIX for your information, you would conclude that whichever version of eDead was being sold at the time was the best product on the market. Interestingly, I've read many such reviews over the years and I can't remember ever seeing one that followed your hypothetical:
"but if I said I bought Damp pro and said it didnt work, sux, etc.". I've seen many posts that say that for other products including eDead.
Before jumping on a bandwagon that seeks to dismiss any inquiry as stupid or biased, consider the motives of your sources. I actually thought these tests were pretty stupid when I did them and didn't expect them to do any more than demonstrate who was telling the truth and who was lying - until I was contacted by several polymer scientists and NVH engineers who were kind enough to walk me through the ways in which what I had done reproduced their stand testing methodologies.
Peel & Seal - ~2.5 dB reduction at the panel's resonant frequency, very little attenuation at other points in the spectrum:
eDead V1SE² - ~3.5 dB reduction at the panel's resonant frequency, limited attenuation at other points in the spectrum:
Second Skin Damplifier Pro - ~7 dB reduction at the panel's resonant frequency, more attenuation at other points in the spectrum than the others:
