Should i replace my plastic 6.5" compontent adaptors with MDF?

[bumpasauras 10+ year member]

In my experience in a well damped door (yess that means inside and outside of the metal door shell) making "wood/mdf" standoff rings make the biggest difference in the response of amidbass speaker.

Did a Toyota carolla once and put a set of 385$ alpine comps in the door, I advised deadner and the customer declined he came back a week later and wanted to order some morel's because the mid bass could "not keep up with the tweet" so I said no problem and proceeded to deaden the inner and outter door shell and made standoffs outta 3/8ths mdf. When the customer came back he was blown away by how good the morels sounded and how crappy the alpines were then I gave hommie the bill and he looks over it and says damm those morels on sale?? I thought they were like 7-8 hundred dollars and I said yeah they are that's why I spent 200$ on damppner and mdf lol. He could not believe his ears lol

O

Any way damp the shizz outta your doors and make some stand offs and you won't believe the difference..

 

[bumpasauras 10+ year member]

If you have the time and materials go for it. I wouldn't do it unless you have the right tools though (i.e. a router and jasper jig). Done correctly with the right gasketing materials I would think the wood would sound better, give a better seal, less vibrations, etc.
But just know at the end of the day the adapters may not have been your limiting factor and it may sound exactly the same.

This is very true I have gone into a "fix my mid bass" job only to find that the door was already damped with standoffs and still sounded crappy...till we started movin the speaker around and bamm fixed it with a set of sealed fiber glass renforced kicks and it made all the difference.

Usually there are 4 factors for mid/high sq. signal.power,location, and dampening/insulating

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

This is very true I have gone into a "fix my mid bass" job only to find that the door was already damped with standoffs and still sounded crappy...till we started movin the speaker around and bamm fixed it with a set of sealed fiber glass renforced kicks and it made all the difference.
Usually there are 4 factors for mid/high sq. signal.power,location, and dampening/insulating

Lol. Kicks done properly trumps doors done "properly" all day.

With a door you just can't seal it like a kick panel. The door will always be an over sized, leaky box

 

[bumpasauras 10+ year member]

I just wish I was better at makeing them

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

I'm on my 3rd set lol

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

a plunge router, upcut spiral bit, and a circle jig allows you to make perfect mounting rings.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

mounting base

hurricane nuts and a MDF ring (coated in resin).

Green Glue between ring and base

Speakers mounted

Other speakers used:

Foam around front to seal against door panel

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

in order to control the rear wave from a speaker and lower reverberation inside a hollow door, i use pvc encased fiberglass absorption. i've seen people use foams or polyfill but those have issues. foams aren't absorptive enough (especially if they are closed cell). polyfill isn't absorptive much as-is. the doors get wet so any fibrous material will hold water = growth and smells.

in architectural acoustics, we use pvc encased fiberglass batt to cheaply add a lot of absorption to a room.

i started with 1 mil PVC sheeting - it is normally used as a drop cloth for painting. it was stupid cheap, like $3 for a roll. i have some fiberglass batt insulation as well. fiberglass batt is one of the absolute best materials for sound absorption. the concern is that you don't want it getting wet. moving forward, i may use UltraTouch insulation just to alleviate the issues working with fiberglass. rigid fiberglass panels are another option and they alleviate issues with the bags being loose.

i measured my doors, they have two metal tubes that provide structural strength. i will fit absorption between these. if i had 2" thick bags, they wouldn't interfere with the window. my doors were already sealed up, luckily i used several smaller panels to cover the gap, so i just cut and peeled one of them back:

i needed 6" tall, 30" long, and 2" thick bags. i cut out 18" tall by 33" long sheets of PVC.

i wrapped and compressed it for covering. i used 3M Duct Packing Tape to create the seal.

i made three of them for the passenger door

then i placed them and used aluminum foil tape to hold them in place between the bars

the window guide came down in the middle. this was a snag/tear possibility. so i covered that portion with aluminum foil tape to protect it.

all done, 100% coverage along the entire outer door skin, with a fourth smaller bag stuffed up near the hinge airspace

closed up with a few layers

driver mounted.

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

Dammit KHA

 

[MellowHype 10+ year member]

Great work!

I went ahead to day and covered any holes, as much of the outerskin as i could and just stopped there. The speaker already had dynamat behind the plastic so i didnt change anything there.

Only got one door done and i cant tell how much of a difference it made as my tweeter fell out of place.

One thing im stuck with now, my tweeter detached as the sealant has split, my tweeter sits something like this but with a load of silicone around it to hold it in place

Can i go and use any sealant to stick it back in place? i remembered reading about letting Caulk dry before mounting a sub in a box as caulk gives off bad fumes when curing, is this true? Do i need a solvent free adhesive?

If not ive got a few different silicones i could use

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

If whatever sealant you use won't damage the speaker and will hold it firmly, i don't see it being a problem. Brought straight to you from captain obvious lol

 

[MellowHype 10+ year member]

If whatever sealant you use won't damage the speaker and will hold it firmly, i don't see it being a problem. Brought straight to you from captain obvious lol

Lol yeah i had guessed that much

Just wondering if any sealants can actually cause damage because of the fumes it lets off. Probably just gonna go ahead and try caulk tomorow.

 

[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

Someone above said not to cover holes with defender. Not true...

I didn't say he shouldn't cover those holes, I said he shouldn't cover them with deadener, because that's not what it's designed for. It's most effective application is adding mass to resonating panels so they no longer resonate. It's not the best sound barrier and tends to be very fragile when applied over a large area with nothing to support it from behind. It may have response benefits from sealing the airspace however the fragility aspect is still there.

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

I didn't say he shouldn't cover those holes, I said he shouldn't cover them with deadener, because that's not what it's designed for. It's most effective application is adding mass to resonating panels so they no longer resonate. It's not the best sound barrier and tends to be very fragile when applied over a large area with nothing to support it from behind. It may have response benefits from sealing the airspace however the fragility aspect is still there.

We're in the page then.

Using it asa sound barrier isn't effective, but sealing the audience with it .

 

[bradl79 10+ year member]

I'm hesitant to post these. This isn't the prettiest way, and these are older pictures from the past, but none the less was very effective and shows you the concept.This is the way to mount the mid.

Basically foam sandwiched between everything.

Between baffle and door, between baffle and and speaker, between speaker and trim panel.



Here i tried to make a ring around the speaker with foam to close the gap between speaker and trim panel. Not pretty, but it did close the gap. (That's the Exodus Anarchy by the way, great speaker)



This is doors.

Someone above said not to cover holes with defender. Not true...

Deaden the outer door skin (the outside metal door panel. Look through the access holes you'll see the deadener)



Cover and seal access holes with waterproof material. (I used cardboard as you can see. Bad idea. It's not waterproof. I got lucky, i checked the other day after several months and the cardboard is unaffected, still a bad idea)



Then completely deaden.



a lot of knuckle heads here will recommend minimal coverage of deadening, but your best results come from 100% coverage.

Then for fun.

Those speakers look familiar Caleb lol