Sound Deadener Showdown?

[pieper88 10+ year member]

Oh and starting now every time I get groaned I'm deterring one person from buying AT deadener. Remember nuthuggers your douchebaggery is losing your company business.

One person telling people not to buy. 10 telling people to buy.

I think AT will be fine.

 

[ahole-ic]

I see that Don has a wide range of products, reviews and tutorials. I see that he ships fast and seems to be courteous to his customers. His prices are a bit higher than similar products. That would be the drawback I see. At any rate, nuthuggers from both sides call the other side nuthuggers. It doesn't make them any more experienced, informed, or correct. For some, price is a very important factor, and when you consider that the products are very sticky, not asphalt based, and similar density, cost becomes even more relevant.

 

[brodeisel 10+ year member]

I like both of them. At im using for just the basic deadner. Then i want to get Dons mlv and ccf.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

LOl i thought no one on the internet would bother you.

I don't care about the groans, I care about the nuthugging it's annoying. You honestly think some one with 363 groans gives a ****? lmao

 

---------- Post added at 01:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 PM ----------

 

Not locally or on other forums, besides any company that will let a customer go that easily is not worth business to begin with.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

What are you calling 'weakness' in this statement? The shape of the steel panel, thin and long? If so, why do you then turn around and suggest stone wont resonate, without mentioning the shape/size of the stone in question? You seem very confused about this topic, maybe you should read more and talk less, especially of your talking will be to tell other people that they dont know what they are talking about. Frankly, you dont know what you are talking about. No offense meant, but its true.

once again you do not understand what I said but pretend to do. Weakness being the actual stiffness in the panel causing it to resonate. Guy stated that making the panel stiffer would not stop it from resonating, it does if done to a well enough degree. And yes it will resonate at such a low freq it doesn't matter anymore. That is why high end Ht use spikes and stone slabs to absorb the energy so the floor doesn't bounce it back into the listening area.

 

[ahole-ic]

once again you do not understand what I said but pretend to do. Weakness being the actual stiffness in the panel causing it to resonate. Guy stated that making the panel stiffer would not stop it from resonating, it does if done to a well enough degree. And yes it will resonate at such a low freq it doesn't matter anymore. That is why high end Ht use spikes and stone slabs to absorb the energy so the floor doesn't bounce it back into the listening area.

In high school, as well as college, they taught us in physics that the more rigid an object is, the higher it's resonant frequency is. The flimsier an object is, the lower its resonant frequency. Would you mind explaining your comments on how stiffening a panel will lower its resonant frequency? I am very interested to know how this can be achieved.

 

[tommyk90 5,000+ posts]

I'd like to toss in my 2 cents here, even though audioholic and Don have done an excellent job already.

When it comes to raising or lowering the resonant frequency of a panel, I think it boils down to what works best for your application. All vehicles have a nominal resonant frequency that, if you are a serious competitor, you want to tap in to. This is the frequency that provides the most cabin gain.

In the case of my vehicle, adding weight (deadener) most definitely lowered the resonant frequency of my vehicle. For the way my truck is set up and is metered, this most likely helped my SPL score by lowering the resonant frequency into a range that gives me a "boost", if you will.

How do I know this helped? Well, because if I brace any panel, thereby making it stiffer, I actually LOSE on the meter. Depending on the panel "stiffened", anywhere from .3 to over a dB. This is a significant change. Obviously stiffening panels to raise the resonant frequency would only hurt my SPL score based on the information provided.

I think this is an oversight of some SPL competitors. The reason they are gaining after adding mass is because they are lowering the resonant frequency of their vehicle that better matches the frequency they are testing with. Now whether you gain or not is also dependent on many other factors that audioholic listed above, but some of the principles remain the same. Covering up holes, reducing (to a point) interior and exterior panel vibration, etc. are all tied into this as well.

Don't forget that bracing can also make sure the panel makes good contact with the seal, which can increase pressure inside the vehicle.

I've seen many instances where a competitor has initially LOST after deadening a vehicle, only to regain their original score (and sometimes more) after retuning/rebuilding their enclosure. And there are the cases where you lose permanently until you rip the stuff out all together. In this case what probably happened is they lowered the resonant frequency too much, thereby reducing the cabin gain they had previously experienced.

At least that's the way I see it. Truth be told is that you never really know if it's going to hurt or help you until you try it out. This holds true for ANY aspect of SPL. If everything was factual in the realm of spl competition you would see every car built exactly the same way. This is not the case and never will be.

SPL competition is a whole different beast compared to a daily driver. What daily drivers want is reduced noise and vibrations, both from inside the car and outside the car. For some reason people have this preconceived notion that deadener will help reduce road noise and that's why you need to cover every square inch of your car with the stuff. Fact of the matter is (and Don's website lists the specifics as to why) that deadener is a HORRIBLE noise blocker. Reducing road noise was my number one concern when I was building my daily setup, that's why I did the proper thing by ABSORBING and BLOCKING the noise using CCF and MLV.

The bottom line is YOU need to determine what your wants and needs are and base your purchases off of that.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

...it's the weakness in the panel causing it to resonate NOT the stiffness.

Weakness being the actual stiffness in the panel causing it to resonate.

No offense, but you are very confused. You need to do some more research on this topic before giving much advice about it.