Has anyone tried sorbothane as a gasket to reduce baffle energy?

[mazeroth]

My brother has used sorbothane (google it or check this for an example: http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3037000) on a few different projects and after playing around with some leftovers of his I'm tempted to give it a shot. I'm designing some dipole speakers, much like the Orions but possibly going 4-way with dual 8s in the top baffle, and was looking for a way to reduce energy transfer to the baffle without having to use a screwless design like the new Orion and Phoenix use. If this stuff really is almost 95% efficient in absorbing impact energy (I hope the same would apply to mechanical forces) do you think it could work as an alternative? You would still have the mechanical transfer from the screws touching the speaker, but maybe the sorbothane could really compensate for that.

Let me know what you guys think.

[lufbramatt]

Im not sure what frequency range the sorbothane would work at, but theres probably a frequency below which the sorbothane will still transmit vibrations.

I think it would work well for midrange and tweeters, but on woofers it might blur the sound slightly due to the frame of the driver moving around rather than staying still.

For the mechanical fixing, why not use long bolts, with a nut and a large diameter washer on the back, under which u can make a sorbothane washer so the bolts do not make direct contact with the back of the baffle.

[cocolino]

I think decoupling drivers from the baffle with viscoelastic material
is a two-edged thing.
It`s good to prevent transmission of vibrations to the baffle. OTOH the driver itself must not move while working which demands for stiff coupling to the enclosure.

Maybe the best thing is (as almost always) a compromise between two things.

A good compromise, I guess, could be to couple the driver stiff to the enclosure only at some area around where the screws of the driver basket are located and for the rest to use viscoelastic material.
Sorbothane looks like it would be a good candidate for this, albeit
a bit pricey.

[pinkmouse]

Personally, I would just go for isolating the mid and tweeter, leave the bass driver coupled to the box. There was a long thread on this a couple of years ago, if you search, you might be able to find it.

[kappus]

I've used sorbothane as a LF vibration isolater at work. It's great stuff but a little tricky to work with as the wrong size/thickness/loading can create a resonant system near the freq you're trying to isolate

They have a great calculator on their webside: http://www.sorbothane.com/
which you should check out.

-Brian

[mazeroth]

Thanks for the replies! Some good ideas.

What I may try is making a sorbothane gasket that I'll place is the driver recess, make another gasket that I'll adhere to the rear of the baffle. Then, like mentioned above, use long bolts with washers and nuts so no part of the driver actually touches the baffle.

Sound like a plan?

[lufbramatt]

yeah having had a think it could work, but you would probably have to have a removable enclosure panel so you can get a spanner/pair of pliers on the nuts while you tighten up the bolts- either that or mount one of the other drivers with regular t-nuts that dont need access from the back while youre tightening them up. Then you can reach in to hold the nuts still.

[mazeroth]

This is for a dipole speaker, much like the Linkwitz Orion. Having the baffle panel fully accessable will make this very easy, I hope

[lufbramatt]

haha yes or solution#3: make an open baffle speaker

damn, you got there first

[joe carrow]

This is really interesting stuff- I especially like the included calculator.