deflex pads

[fatryan 5,000+ posts]

The problem is that deflex is not a sound blocker or anything like any of the normal deadener. It isn't intended as such. It it meant to kill standing waves and prevent reflections from the rear wall of the enclosure from going back to the cone and coloring the sound. It does its job based on surface pattern, not the material composition. Sound deadening material depends on the composition of the material to do its job. If you look at the STC or NRC of a deflex pad you'll see what I'm talking about. It isn't meant to stop or diminish the transmission of sound through a surface. It is meant to scatter reflected sound, nothing more. If the rear of the enclosure is sloped in relation to the driver's baffle the effect and thus the gain from the deflex pad is reduced because the reflection is already being diverted away from the rear of the cone. Basic acoustics.

what youre saying is correct in theory, but you cant assume theres no standing waves just because the door panel is sloped. a car door is very differently shaped than a home unit, and the depth of the door is usually far less than the depth of a home unit. this of course means that the wave has a much shorter distance to travel before reaching the driver again and therefore will not be scattered as much. also my panel doesnt have a very big slope in comparison the the panel my baffle is bolted to. i def think that something like a deflex pad will help in my situation. they wouldnt be recommended by some of the leaders of this board if they did nothing. and i would also argue that they DO in fact help to deaden based on their composition. i do not know this for sure, but have you ever actually held a deflex pad? theyre not plastic like they look, theyre made of some sort of tar-like rubber, not too far from fatmat or any other deadener. i would def say its safe to assume that they have deadening properies. but most importantly, as mentioned above, thayre $11 a piece. if they dont work, whatever.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

They are similar in composition to deadener, I know, but that is not their primary purpose. They are not a replacement for deadener, but something in addition. BTW, without parallel surfaces, you can't have a standing wave, you might get some reflections back to the cone but nothing like you would with parallel surfaces. The deflex pad might have an effect, never said that it wouldn't have any effect, but its effect is greatest when the rear wall of the enclosure is parallel to the baffle.

 

[genxx 10+ year member]

OK. I contacted Cascade asked them to clear up what they had said before this is the reply I recieved back. Hope this clears this up. I was a little off on what they had tried to describe before. So I stand corrected.

Here's a visual:

door skin---> / |

Imagine you're not using a car door but a home speaker audio tower. To get the proper 15* tilt you'd have to use a tower with a back that's tilted like this: /_| and not like this |_|

In other words, the 15* angle is in reference to the vertical plane of the speaker, not the horizontal. You DO want the pad to be directly behind the driver, though. If you were to install the Deflex pad in front of the driver instead of the rear, it would be exactly 0* ON AXIS, yet "tilted" 15* away....up,side,down, etc...it doesn't matter.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I knew exactly what you were talking about. The confusion lies, most likely in that we are talking about different things. They/you are talking about the perfect environment for a midrange speaker which (duh) involves the back of the enclosure being angled in relation to the speaker baffle. I'm talking about where the deflex pad will actually have the greatest effect which is a less than perfect environment for a midrange which is where the back of the enclosure IS parallel to the speaker baffle. We're not talking about the same thing. In your situation, the the pad takes a very good environment and makes it about perfect. In mine the pad takes a terrible environment and makes it good. The marginal increase is larger in my situation and thus my point that the largest gain from the pad is in a less than optimal setup. Make sense?