Ooer! don't use those things. What you want for bass is either very solid contact, or total isolation. If you have a concrete floor, just stick the box on the floor, preferably with something heavy on top of it, like a concrete paving slab. This will not make your neighbours happy, because the whole building will then be coupled to the subwoofer. You will like the sound a lot though! Good solid bass is best achieved this way. In actual fact many custom installers actually cast concrete enclosures into the floor to get incredible bass. The other solution is to rest the sub on a paving slab with a sheet of Rockwool 6 (high density rockwool) on top of it and the sub on top of that. This will also give you good bass response, and be much nicer for your neighbours. Spikes are not very good because they transmit sound, think of the childhood paper cups and string telephone or a violin soundpost. This means the floor resonates, producing colouration and vibration. On a non resonant floor surface, the fact that the bottom of the cabinet is not touching the floor will mean that the bottom panel will resonate, introducing colouration. On the other hand some people like colouration and it is one of those matters of taste. But generally most people like good effortless sounding clean bass, not rumbly one note thumper bass (which is coloured). Those pin things are one of my pet hates. I can hear very little difference with them on or off, except on thin wooden suspended floors (on which you definitely have to use a rockwool pad)
Oh yeah, here's a tip. Use an amp that has about double the RMS (Watts) capability of the speaker that you are using. Good bass is all about having plenty of power without any distortion. Just make sure you don't turn it up to the maximum level or you will smell burning. Amps overdriving sound awful and are the main cause of speaker failure.
A fairly simple way of checking if you like the suspended solution, is to buy a small inner tube and inflate it adequately to carry the sub. Its not pretty but it gives you a hint about what is needed for your secific application. I have such a small inner tube from a wheel barrow laying around. Whenever I set up something in a new place, I give it a shot. Its much easier than making the whole thing with rockwool and so forth without even knowing that its what you want.
Magura
Magura
USE THE SPIKES!!!!
If you want to couple the sub to the ground USE THE SPIKES. The one who said that a sub sitting on the floor couples it to the floor is WRONG.
The spikes take the weight of the whole sub and put it on tiny high pressure points coupling it to the floor. Without the points the sub sits with its weight being distributed over the entire surface area which does not couple it to the floor with any pressure. Use the type of spikes that screw into the cabinet not the floating type for best results.
If you want to couple the sub to the ground USE THE SPIKES. The one who said that a sub sitting on the floor couples it to the floor is WRONG.
The spikes take the weight of the whole sub and put it on tiny high pressure points coupling it to the floor. Without the points the sub sits with its weight being distributed over the entire surface area which does not couple it to the floor with any pressure. Use the type of spikes that screw into the cabinet not the floating type for best results.
bishopdante said:
This sounds like a good way to prevent the coupling of the sub to the floor in an apartment situation so that the system can be a played a bit louder in general. I assume the Rockwool limits the vibrations that reach the paving slab. The paving slabs mass limits the amount the slab vibrates. The combination therefore insulaties the sub from the floor.
I once asked a mechanical engineer what would reduce the vibrations from a second floor washing machine so that it could not be heard on the first floor. He said one ton of concrete would be pretty effective.
I guess I needed to specify that I was looking for practical solutions.
Are there any other recommendations on how to make the sub neighbor friendly or is the rock wool/paving slab combination about as good as any.
Well ive got spikes in a sheet of wood which then has concrete slabs on top of it, then the speaker is on the concrete via some wood chocks. Chocks are their to make the things very rigid. This sounds great, the bottom of the speakers are also filled with stones. The bass bit is VERY heavey for its size.
Hmmm.......
The paving slab details are missing some basic physics.
Foam (the rubbery the better) is far more effective than rockwool.
The foam should be used under the slab between it and the floor.
Blutack the subwoofer to the paving slab.
The foam should be compressed ~ 50% and still offer some bounce.
An alternative to the foam is a rubber innertube, as previously mentioned.
sreten.
The paving slab details are missing some basic physics.
Foam (the rubbery the better) is far more effective than rockwool.
The foam should be used under the slab between it and the floor.
Blutack the subwoofer to the paving slab.
The foam should be compressed ~ 50% and still offer some bounce.
An alternative to the foam is a rubber innertube, as previously mentioned.
sreten.
Well i have a pine wood floor so i take it if i put the sub straight onto the floor i'm just going to have another washing machine rumbling along the floor. So the speaker spikes seem to be the thing to get but where do i get them and how cheap do they come?
Anything else i can add to the woofer to annoy the nieghbours some more?
Thanks for the help so far
Anything else i can add to the woofer to annoy the nieghbours some more?
Thanks for the help so far
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.