Hard or soft face

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Hello!

I've got a pretty strange question about a project that I'm planning, and I'm a complete dope so apologies ahead of time.

Most speakers I've seen have hard faces (wood, mdf, fiberboard, etc), but I have seen builds with soft faces like felt. What are the advantages/disadvantages of going with a soft face? it must be dampening some sound, right? What if the face was covered in a rug (tufted rug not like woven or braided)?

I'm going to be building a set of Zaph 2.5 TMM's based exactly off of his plans on Madi's site and I'm curious about my face options,
Thanks!
 
I've done it and liked it. Mostly it's going to affect the high end, so the tweeter benefits most. The felt kills some reflections and diffraction that you don't want.

I've gone as far as fake fur on the speaker, which worked great and look very silly. 😀
 
Silly? Been there, done that!

I later removed the felt and went conventional, because the treble was too overdamped. You do need to take measurements and compensate for any effects of the reduction in HF output.

I also found the speaker to have become less sensitive to toeing in or out, maybe because of change in directivity.

As usual, YMMV.
 

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