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"It might be.....it could be......IT IS!......The cure for a suspended floor [message #17257]

Sun, 19 December 2004 12:45

BillEpstein
Messages: 886
Registered: May 2009

Illuminati (2nd Degree)

The suspended floor in my hovel has always bothered me. Muddy bass but lots of it! I thought maybe I had just overdone the cabinet tuning, the room couldn't be that bad. Speakerman came over and heard them for the first time and pointed out how bad the bass was. That's a good friend! He put a 16 Ohm resistor on the crossover which helped but I thought it had a bad effect on the mids.

Then some discussions of sandbox damping on various forums lately combined with finally acquiring a tablesaw got me into action.

I built 2 boxes from 3/4" MDF 2 inches bigger than my speaker footprints which hold 2" of sand. About 40 lbs each. A top plate sits level with the sides and doesn't touch them.

Major improvement.

I immediately notice song lyrics I never heard before. You know the scene in "Bull Durham" where Tim Robbins sings "Women get ....."? Like that.

Emmy Lou's "Wrecking Ball" album straddles the over-done bass line and is a really good test of clarity of the bass and percussion. Now it's all really well-defined.

Completely different tonal balance that makes the mids seem leaner and may take some getting used to. I'll definitely start working on the crossover issues. I'm certain I will hear changes more easily than before.

"Hand me another Budweiser, Steve......."

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Re: "It might be.....it could be......IT IS!......The cure for a suspended floor [message #17258 is a reply to message #17257]

Sun, 19 December 2004 14:46

Wayne Parham
Messages: 18791
Registered: January 2001

Illuminati (33rd Degree)

Those kinds of floors are always a nightmare. I can usually live with the acoustics of most rooms but raised hardwood floors are an exception. Glad to hear you're preloading and damping them, that will help a lot.

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Re: "It might be.....it could be......IT IS!......The cure for a suspended floor [message #17260 is a reply to message #17257]

Sun, 19 December 2004 20:51

Bill Martinelli
Messages: 677
Registered: May 2009

Illuminati (1st Degree)

Hi Bill,

I found the same thing you did. I had those platforms made up for my big speakers while I had. They were sandwich of high density fiberglass and the top was seperate from the bottom.

Basically, the decoupling of the speaker from the floor made improvovments that were increadible with my floor situation.

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Re: "It might be.....it could be......IT IS!......The cure for a suspended floor [message #17262 is a reply to message #17257]

Mon, 20 December 2004 06:12

spkrman57
Messages: 522
Registered: May 2009

Illuminati (1st Degree)

Bill,
Glad to hear the "suspended" floor bass additives have been corrected for. Dr. Bruce Edgar discussed this and how it even affected his 100 hz mid-bass horns. He also went the "sand-bag" routine and claimed how the drum sounds cleaned up amazingly nice.

Are you still using the 16 ohm resistor(parallel with 16 ohms speakers for 8 ohm load to Ella)???

I must be one of the few who get noticed for finding flaws in my friends audio systems. People might get a complex about me. LOL

I will have to come up and listen to the new and improved system sound.

Great work Bill!

Ron

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