Anyone Damp the insides of your Speaker Cabinets?

Some manufacturers factor the resonate nature of the enclosure into the overall sound of loudspeaker. The thinking is that most dampening simply smears and delays the resonate behavior without truly eliminating it. Having a cabinet that quickly releases rather than storing energy is thus seen as an advantage.

Applying additional dampening material will definitely change the sound of a loudspeaker, but it could just as easily sound worst.

"The thinking is that most dampening simply smears and delays the resonate behavior without truly eliminating it."

I tend to think of it strictly as what it says, ie damping material in the textbook sense of the meaning of the word Damping.

Yes, it may sound worse or better than otherwise, or not much different at all. Par for the course for "tweaks". At least its an easy, inexpensive, fairly harmless and easily reversible one to try if one is so inclined.

I've done some DIY speaker maintenance projects on older speakers where I changed the volume and distribution of internal damping material as part of the repair and tuning process, but have never felt the need nor been sufficiently inclined to just muck with the damping of a new pair in good operating condition, especially if still under a warranty of any kind.

Well-made is all relative. Maybe you have in mind shipbuilding standards of construction, like Rockport speakers.

Speakers are usually voiced for a cabinet. Placing dynamat or any other similar material can change the sound and not for better.

"Do most speakers sound best in cabinets that resonate as little as possible?"

I'd say the answer is yes.

Most but not all. Some speaker designs (Tonian comes to mind and a few others that I recall investigating) make cabinet resonances (as opposed to minimizing same) an integral and key part of the sound design along lines analogous to how a string instrument does the same.

My opinion is that designing a speaker and designing a string instrument are not analogous so I am not sure how well the analogy stands. I do not doubt however that speakers designed this way can sound very good indeed, at least in subjective terms at a minimum. its one way to get something more and/or different out of a similar box compared to others. Is it better or worse though? Dunno. I suppose it depends on the talent and ears of the designer more so than anything else.