Soft baffles - surely these will help?

[zerokelvin99]

I have a pair of wall mounted 5.5" tops, and was thinking of using some excess rockwool RW3 (60Kg/m3) to create a soft baffle increase, in the hope of reducing both boundary interference and also baffle diffraction.

I was originally hoping to mount as below, but still would keep the baffle diffraction issues:



Hence, moving to a "pyramid" type scheme as as below. This would be quite a pain to make.. Do you feel it would be worth it?



Worth it or shall I put my efforts elsewhere??

Thanks

 

[Bill Coltrane]

Diffraction occurs when there's a change of acoustic impedance.

So to minimize it, limit the impedance change.


An option I would consider is to use wood instead of rockwool at 45 degrees angle or less and make a pyramid.

 

[zerokelvin99]

Quick reply, thanks!

I just have so much of the bloody rockwool left

Do you feel 45 degrees would suffice? Is it worth rounding the edge next to the speaker and keeping it tangential?

May try it in wood tomorrow if I get the chance,

 

[Bill Coltrane]

Less degrees is less impedance change, so less diffraction. I don't know what is optimal.

Then there is baffle step compensation to take into account. If you change the box, this must change to. So you probably need to change the crossover to.


But I think it is fun experimenting with this.

 

[zerokelvin99]

I run the speakers through a miniDSP, so not too worried about the baffle step compensation. If there is a simple passive filter I can compensate for it!

I think 45deg is the best starting point for WAF maybe.. I'll see how it goes from there!

 

[Bill Coltrane]

With minidsp you can compensate for baffle step.

Measure off axis to!