importance of pin hole pressure equalization and how to make one safely

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Avoidable Complexity & Common Sense?

Poobah -

"A lot of complexity here... and all of it avoidable."

"This is about common sense... don't ask an audiophile."

Please tell me I have misinterpreted the meanings of these two statements - they both sound like slaps in the faces of all of us participating in this discussion.

Exactly what is "avoidable" here - debate and discussion? Educated opinions? Personal experience? And has every single one of us NOT been using common sense?
 
Haha, poobah, the exploding kayak story is a convinving case that I can deal with making one small hole in the box. Off to find some small tubing to glue in. That sounds like the best idea so far for adding a hole smaller than drill bits. (Being that all my changes should be reversible, I don't want to modify the dust cap as one poster suggested)
 
poobah said:
CLC, my apologies,

Yes and no... all of your remarks are dead on the money. Something about someone not understanding Linkwitz set me off.

Well thanks Poobah - that is a perfectly acceptable answer - and perhaps I am easily set off myself, and easily misinterpret.

About something regarding not understanding Linkwitz that set you off, I think that was Post #12 by Noah. I hope you're not referring to my response to that post!

Anyway, I took no offense at Noah suggesting that I had misunderstood Linkwitz' reason(s) for using a pinhole - there's a ton of stuff Linkwitz says I don't understand - he doesn't exactly speak in layman's terms all the time - the guy's a Ph.D in electrical engineering and obviously (to me) brilliant.

I should read his section about the Thor subwoofer again in detail some time, but to the best of my recollection the pinhole relieves the driver from the "spring" effect of the air in a sealed chamber - I simply could have been mistaken about the benefits.

Cheers.
 
sdclc126 said:
to the best of my recollection the pinhole relieves the driver from the "spring" effect of the air in a sealed chamber - I simply could have been mistaken about the benefits.

I'm quite sure the intent is to equalize the pressure inside and outside the cabinet, which could become out of balance due to heat, barometric changes, etc. A 1mm hole simply wouldn't be big enough to have any real effect on the driver induced spring effect at the frequencies we're talking about.
 
The idea is to create a hole that's resistive enough that the pressure differentials during operation inside the enclosure won't create any serious air movement through the hole, but air can very slowly pass through it to do the pressure equalization thing.

I wonder if this would be more important in car audio, where the temperature differentials tend to be bigger and create more of the expansion and contraction. However, I cannot imagine that this would be important enough to do with today's long throw drivers where an offset of even 1 millimeter isn't doing anything terrible.
 
BAM said:
I cannot imagine that this would be important enough to do with today's long throw drivers where an offset of even 1 millimeter isn't doing anything terrible.

Unless my math and wild guesses in the posts above are way off, I think pressures in excess of 25lbs can EASILY be realized on a driver under the temperatures that could easily be reached, IF the box were absolutely air tight. That would certainly be enough to push the driver more than 1mm. It'd be enough to push it to the end of its ecursion. Obviously though, this is not typically an issue with most sub construction. The biggest unknown here is how leaky a "tight" box really is.
 
dscline said:
Unless my math and wild guesses in the posts above are way off, I think pressures in excess of 25lbs can EASILY be realized on a driver under the temperatures that could easily be reached, IF the box were absolutely air tight. That would certainly be enough to push the driver more than 1mm. It'd be enough to push it to the end of its ecursion. Obviously though, this is not typically an issue with most sub construction. The biggest unknown here is how leaky a "tight" box really is.

I'll be a son of a gun. PV=nRT never crossed my mind for sealed cabinets. Thanks!


Francois.
 
I assume that most "airtight" boxes are leaky enough that pressure changes aren't a problem.

But I just had an idea how one could make a really tiny hole of exact diameter:

1.) Drill a suitable hole into the cabinet (preferably at a hidden place).
2.) Glue a piece of insulated wire into the hole and make sure that everything is airtight.
3. Pull the conductor out of the wire and clip bot ends of the remaining tube close to the cabinet walls.

If you want to get a tube that is longer than the wall thickness then you could simply leave the inner part of the wire longer.

Regards

Charles
 
"While the hole will relieve the spring effect... the driver will not see it."

Yes and no. The driver will not see it at operating freq. It will see it statically.

This says it very well:

"The idea is to create a hole that's resistive enough that the pressure differentials during operation inside the enclosure won't create any serious air movement through the hole, but air can very slowly pass through it to do the pressure equalization thing."

"But I just had an idea how one could make a really tiny hole of exact diameter:"

There is no reason whatsoever to make an exact diameter.

The felt over a hole idea was good.

Tiny holes can be surprisingly noisy. I had a ticking noise coming from around a hole with a tight woodscrew in it.
 
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