Vibrating Motorhome

[Rob France]

Hello All,

I have a largish Motorhome and I like extremely loud music So ive installed a pretty decent upgrade on the audio. But its giving me problems. The sub has had to be installed in what was an enclosure for a drawer and also a seat. When I first did this it sounded awful, so I removed the panel the sub is fitted to and changed it from the light weight board used in campers for MDF (the rest of the cabinet is still light weight board and it cant be changed due to aesthetics.. Still really bad. So I sealed all the unsealed corners with sealant. This nearly blew the cabinet apart, so ive fitted a grill with speaker cloth where the drawer used to be. This made it somewhat better. So now its acceptable at medium volume. But when I crank it up im getting bad vibrations. Ive just lined the inside of the cabinet with sound deadening stuff but this made no difference. It seems to be the cabinet and to be honest, the entire side of the van that is vibrating.

So does anyone have experience with loud music and motorhomes? Any ideas for deadening the vibrations? Or do I just need to calm it down? I really want to avoid the last option!

Cheers!

Rob

 

[1aespinoza]

Any ideas for deadening the vibrations?

the rest of the cabinet is still light weight board and it cant be changed due to aesthetics..

This light weight board is the issue. Subwoofer enclosures have to be rigid because subs create alot of pressure. Your best bet is to line the inside of the cabinet with at least 5/8" mdf (3/4 would be better). Is it possible to build the box and then slide it in? That would be the easiest option.

 

[1aespinoza]

Any ideas for deadening the vibrations?

the rest of the cabinet is still light weight board and it cant be changed due to aesthetics..

T

 

[SlugButter]

A good enclosure builder could build you a proper cabinet and should be able to match aesthetics fairly close to what you want. Enclosure design and solid construction is absolutely the most important part. It may not be super cheap however to get a custom box. I put a 500 watt 15 in my friends RV in a ported enclosure tuned to 27 HZ and it rocks. I made 2 bookshelf style speakers with a 6.5 inch midbass and a 1 inch tweeter. Sub running on an 800 watt Skar amplifier and the stereo is an old Sony home audio receiver. Bookshelf speakers run directly off the receiver with no amplifier. TV runs through it lo. Pretty good on movies but not surround sound.

 

[hispls]

Ive just lined the inside of the cabinet with sound deadening stuff

Your only option to make whatever flimsy particle board rigid enough to hold up to any real pressure from a subwoofer would be several layers of composite or fiberglass on all sides of the interior of that cabinet. The chamber into which the sub mounts must be very rigid and 100% airtight. From there you can use deadener or whatever else you can think of to attempt to tame rattles from everything else in there.

IMO if you want proper loud you should pick something that you can live without inside your camper, remove the entire thing, and build a sub box of that shape to put in that place.

 

[shredder2]

Motorhome?... Jeez
Once the enclosure is done right you may find many other things flexing and rattling. I installed a pair of T2-12s in an ice cream truck awhile back and it got loud but even though we deadened it somewhat it took going back in there several times to tighten up bolts, add deadener or foam and even tighten up the seats before he just gave up. It sounded much better finally although the overhead console never stopped rattling a bit.
I hope it's a newer motorhome and is basically deadened and tight.
If not...

 

[1aespinoza]

. I installed a pair of T2-12s in an ice cream truck awhile back

Did the owner go by alias Big Worm?

 

[shredder2]

Did the owner go by alias Big Worm?

That's funny, I hadn't seen Fridays yet back then and I always wondered why the guys always said that when he pulled up. People walking by when the truck was out front as well. I just did not know back then...