Sound absorbent material on front baffle.

[oon_the_kid]

Hi,

I came across some sofa cover is quite soft and feels like sponge at about 5mm thick. A thought came to me, is something like that good for the front panel of the speaker? I remember reading somewhere that adiitional reflections from the front baffle from the speakers causes loss of definition for the sound due to the additional reflection smearing the sound.

I was thinking if you would to cover the front of your speaker with something that is sound absorbent, will it improve the sound by reducing the smearing.

Thanking all in advance

Oonn

[weltersys]

Originally Posted by oon_the_kid

Hi,

I came across some sofa cover is quite soft and feels like sponge at about 5mm thick. A thought came to me, is something like that good for the front panel of the speaker? I remember reading somewhere that adiitional reflections from the front baffle from the speakers causes loss of definition for the sound due to the additional reflection smearing the sound.

I was thinking if you would to cover the front of your speaker with something that is sound absorbent, will it improve the sound by reducing the smearing.

Thanking all in advance

Oonn

Edge diffraction is problematic, but the front panel itself does not cause "smearing", it is what happens to the sound wave as it diffracts around the baffle that is a problem.
To reduce edge diffraction problems you would put the absorptive material around the perimeter of the baffle.
For the sponge sofa cover to be absorptive, the material needs to be open cell, if you can't breathe through it, it will be reflective, making for a "rubbery" diffraction .

[oon_the_kid]

Hi thanks for the input. The stuff I have seem to be pretty foamy and hollow.

Will give it a shot.

Oon

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

[Pano]

I've used felt, faux fur, cotton batting, etc on the baffle face and wrapped around the edges.
The benefits were hard to ignore. I recommend it. Felt seemed the best.

[j.michael droke]

Originally Posted by Pano

I've used felt, faux fur, cotton batting, etc on the baffle face and wrapped around the edges.
The benefits were hard to ignore. I recommend it. Felt seemed the best.

Hi there P: Would you elaborate on your observations of benifits for felt on baffle faces. What felt thickness are you using? I've tried shag carpet over fiber board underlayment, without positive results. ...regards, Michael

[Pano]

I don't remember the thickness exactly. IIRC it was a couple of layers of thin felt fabric over batting.

Most of the help was in the upper midrange. Smoother, more natural. Imaging was better. Don't have any measurements, tho. Doing the same with horns it was easy to measure.

[454Casull]

Try here

David Ralph's Speaker Pages - Felt Effects on Baffle Diffraction