Mounting loudspeaker drivers into cabinets (Decoupling)

[Puggie]

What do people use for fixing drivers into cabinets?

I'm currently thinking Cap head screws going through the driver frame into T nuts in the cabinet. Relatively simple and nice and easy to replace the drivers while i'm playing with Xovers etc.

To seal the driver I was looking at using a thick silicone gasket (5-10mm thick), this would also offer some decoupling between the cabinet and driver chassis as it is quite a thick flexible layer between cabinet and driver. Is this a good thing or a bad thing (the chassis is 8-9mm thick cast aluminium)?

I'd use the same for mounting the tweet (Morel MDT), is this a good or bad method? does anyone have any better ideas.

[BillFitzmaurice]

The cap screws/tnuts is good, as are brass inserts that accept bolts. Reconsider pulling the driver to tweak the crossover. Aside from wear and tear you can't tell what the crossover tweak does without going through a lot of work; mount the crossover externally. As for gasketing, two theories there. One is to isolate the driver from the baffle to prevent vibrations back to the frame; the other is to make the baffle stiff enough to keep the vibrational frequencies higher than the driver passband. I lean towards option 2.

[Puggie]

My baffle looks like it will be about 10" wide, height not yet known (could be be a standmount or floorstander yet). It will be 18mm MDF with 18mm beech over the top and I need to flush mount the drivers, in a moment of lazyness I thought I could cut through the beech and then use a 10mm thick silicone gasket to mount the driver on bringing it flush with the face of the baffle. the remainder of the cabinet will be 18mm MDF and veneered to match the baffle.

Is that substantial enough for a chunky 8" midbass?

I will probably mount the Xovers externally while I'm tweeking, just have 4 banana plugs on the back for mid and tweet.

anymore thoughts on this people?

[DC Dave]

I was taught to rigidly couple the driver to the baffle. I would take the extra time (I personally think it would be easier) and properly recess the drivers using a router. You can always borrow or rent one if you don't own. I say put a thin layer of silicone down as a gasket, just enough to make an air tight seal. I see no advantages to using a 1cm thick gasket.

[Puggie]

Ok so rigid mounting is the prefered option, I have a router so that should be no problem, shame the speakers use a squared frame not a nice easy round one they also come with nicely cut foam sealing gaskets so I'll just use those instead of silicone.

Thanks guys