Outside of crossover tweaks, I will also add that if the drivers in your speakers make use of stamped baskets, damping them can make a HUGE difference. This is especially apparent in the upper bass / mids / lower treble as that is where the baskets tend to ring once excited. Cast baskets will benefit from this trick also, but not as much.
If you want to see if this "trick" will help you, pull a woofer or midrange driver from your speaker. Obviously, pay attention to how it came out, what was connected where, etc... Once you have the driver out, hold it by the magnet structure without touching any part of the driver. Now take your finger and "flick" the basket near the mounting flange. If it sounds like a bell and rings, you are hearing a source of colouration that IS apparent when listening. While it is true that the speaker is mounted and the ringing is reduced due to mass coupling, the resonance has simply been altered in amplitude and frequency. What you are trying to achieve is a basket / mounting structure that does not contribute to the output of the speaker once excited.
I was shown a trick by an industry professional that works like gangbusters for this situation. What he recommended was taking a tube of "Liquid Nails" and filling in the gap between the front plate of the magnet assembly and the rear of the basket. Depending on the driver in question, this can take quite a bit of "Liquid Nails", but the benefits are VERY obvious once you've done this. This approach drastically deadens the basket without impeding air-flow in or out of the driver. One can go further and coat the entire basket of the driver with liquid nails, but if doing so, you have to make sure that you don't get any on the driver, block air passages or interfere with how the driver is mounted.
My personal experience with this is that filling the gap between the motor assembly ( magnet ) and rear of the basket works GREAT and produces a frame that is FAR less resonant. Since you are filling in a "gap" that already has a form to it, you can simply pressure feed the Liquid Nails into the crevice and it takes care of itself. You'll know when to stop when the crevice is full.
As to coating the entire basket of the driver ( except for the mounting lip and area right behind it ), this can be trickier and a lot messier. First of all, it is hard to apply an even coat of material to the entire basket. Secondly, you'll probably end up trying to smooth it out by hand and end up making a big, very sticky, mess. My suggestion is to wear some latex gloves if you want to try this approach.
What i've found to work best is to fill in the crevice between the basket and the magnet with Liquid Nails and then to apply damping sheets that you can cut to fit the rest of the basket. While these sheets come with their own adhesive already attached, i've found that applying a very few dabs / thin layer of liquid nails to help keep the sheets in place works best. Obviously, if the basket of the driver uses very thin rails without enough area to attach damping sheets, you may be stuck with just using the Liquid Nails. Either way, something is better than nothing.
Using the Liquid Nails / damping sheet approach can result in a driver that is dead, dead, dead !!! The only sound being contributed to what you hear is coming out of the active cone area of the driver itself now. All of the other sympathetic resonances have been removed from the drivers themselves. In effect, you've tried to remove any outside influences from the sound just as a good quality manufacturer tries to minimize cabinet vibration from contributing its' own sonic signature to what you hear. The reason that most manufacturers don't do this is that it is very time consuming. As we all know, time equals money, especially if trying to mass produce a product.
Once you've learned to "tweak" using what i like to call "the total approach" concept, you'll find that your equipment is far more revealing and transparent. Whether or not you like the end results will depend on how much you like neutral sound and how high of quality the design was to begin with. This is not to say that your equipment will be more to your liking. It is possible that the "ringing" or "colouration" that the basket was adding may have been part of the "voice" of the speaker that you were used to. Removing this characteristic from the speaker may not be to your liking, BUT, the sound that you now hear is more representative of what the speaker system is truly capable of providing under optimum conditions. Sean
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If you want to see if this "trick" will help you, pull a woofer or midrange driver from your speaker. Obviously, pay attention to how it came out, what was connected where, etc... Once you have the driver out, hold it by the magnet structure without touching any part of the driver. Now take your finger and "flick" the basket near the mounting flange. If it sounds like a bell and rings, you are hearing a source of colouration that IS apparent when listening. While it is true that the speaker is mounted and the ringing is reduced due to mass coupling, the resonance has simply been altered in amplitude and frequency. What you are trying to achieve is a basket / mounting structure that does not contribute to the output of the speaker once excited.
I was shown a trick by an industry professional that works like gangbusters for this situation. What he recommended was taking a tube of "Liquid Nails" and filling in the gap between the front plate of the magnet assembly and the rear of the basket. Depending on the driver in question, this can take quite a bit of "Liquid Nails", but the benefits are VERY obvious once you've done this. This approach drastically deadens the basket without impeding air-flow in or out of the driver. One can go further and coat the entire basket of the driver with liquid nails, but if doing so, you have to make sure that you don't get any on the driver, block air passages or interfere with how the driver is mounted.
My personal experience with this is that filling the gap between the motor assembly ( magnet ) and rear of the basket works GREAT and produces a frame that is FAR less resonant. Since you are filling in a "gap" that already has a form to it, you can simply pressure feed the Liquid Nails into the crevice and it takes care of itself. You'll know when to stop when the crevice is full.
As to coating the entire basket of the driver ( except for the mounting lip and area right behind it ), this can be trickier and a lot messier. First of all, it is hard to apply an even coat of material to the entire basket. Secondly, you'll probably end up trying to smooth it out by hand and end up making a big, very sticky, mess. My suggestion is to wear some latex gloves if you want to try this approach.
What i've found to work best is to fill in the crevice between the basket and the magnet with Liquid Nails and then to apply damping sheets that you can cut to fit the rest of the basket. While these sheets come with their own adhesive already attached, i've found that applying a very few dabs / thin layer of liquid nails to help keep the sheets in place works best. Obviously, if the basket of the driver uses very thin rails without enough area to attach damping sheets, you may be stuck with just using the Liquid Nails. Either way, something is better than nothing.
Using the Liquid Nails / damping sheet approach can result in a driver that is dead, dead, dead !!! The only sound being contributed to what you hear is coming out of the active cone area of the driver itself now. All of the other sympathetic resonances have been removed from the drivers themselves. In effect, you've tried to remove any outside influences from the sound just as a good quality manufacturer tries to minimize cabinet vibration from contributing its' own sonic signature to what you hear. The reason that most manufacturers don't do this is that it is very time consuming. As we all know, time equals money, especially if trying to mass produce a product.
Once you've learned to "tweak" using what i like to call "the total approach" concept, you'll find that your equipment is far more revealing and transparent. Whether or not you like the end results will depend on how much you like neutral sound and how high of quality the design was to begin with. This is not to say that your equipment will be more to your liking. It is possible that the "ringing" or "colouration" that the basket was adding may have been part of the "voice" of the speaker that you were used to. Removing this characteristic from the speaker may not be to your liking, BUT, the sound that you now hear is more representative of what the speaker system is truly capable of providing under optimum conditions. Sean
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