Soundcoat for speaker cabinets

[dsrviola]

I'm finishing up the cabinet work on my latest project. I was wondering if anyone's had experience with using Soundcoat in their cabinets. I'm one of those strange guys who hates the sound of MDF, so I'm wondering what the effect of using Souncoat is going to have on the sound. IMHO damping isn't bad per se, but depending on how you do it, it can "deaden" the sound. I'm trying to avoid this.

Any and all experiences with this product are most welcome before I open up that gallon of Soundcoat and start slathering....

[GM]

No experience with Sound Coat per se, but efficient damping occurs when there's a high impedance mis-match, so liquid coatings work best on very high Fs materials such as a metal horn or driver frame and as the material's Fs decreases the amount of damping thickness required increases, so my SWAG is that to effectively damp MDF will require a very thick coat to mass load it enough to make it non-resonant, ergo 'dead'.

Rather than gambling on wasting time/$$, I recommend taking a piece of scrap MDF and clamp it at one end in a vice/whatever and tap it with a hammer to hear how it sounds, then coat/hit it again once dry to see if it's damped enough to suit you.

GM

[ScottG]

It won't transform the sound of mdf.

If you don't like the "dead sound" of mdf the the first thing you do is use several layers of enamel on the interior. Something that sets-up *really* hard and stiff. Look to a marine grade gel-coat enamel or a really hard automotive "bondo".

THEN use several layers of Soundcoat on that.

The real benefit of Soundcoat is some freq. absorption with little "drag". The benefit gained does to an extent depend on the drivers you are using. High compliance low eff. rubber surround drivers won't display vast improvements with different absorption materials.

Here is a comment of a user when altering more common "stuffing":

My Fostex FE 108EZ project, Part 2

[dsrviola]

Actually, the cabinets are made completely out of Baltic Birch.