Speaker wadding on eBay

[walpurgis]

I've seen a possibly useful speaker damping material on eBay. Monacor 75% sheeps wool and 25% polyester mix sheets. Sheeps wool is a useful damping medium. I'm ordering some myself. Its eBay listing No. 3000715136687 from seller dappletoft.

[electric beach]

Geoff, I was recently looking around and saw this too. I made the mistake of buying cheaper and the material was hard to the touch and very inefficient. I decided to try 100% washed wool (also on ebay) and although I've only just started experimenting, I can say it's really efficient - a small quantity made a dramatic difference and I'll only need about 25% of the volume I expected. It's quite clumpy though and have to be sure to break it up; I dare say the Monacor stuff would be more uniform in it's effect.

[walpurgis]

Did you know that B&W did extensive research into various fibres years ago and concluded that long haired teezed pure wool was best for bass damping.

[electric beach]

Well, trying the washed wool directly was a mistake, too dense to allow enough air flow. I spent a bit of time teasing, seperating and fluffing up the wool and it's much better. It's still very efficient in that you don't need as much as synthetic damping and the end result is tonally much better.

I pulled the wool apart by hand first to get it loosened up then used a pet grooming comb (cat/dog) and just kept working at it until I got a fuffy mass with 95% of the knots and tangles removed.

Considering the cost difference of prepared material I'll stick with this in future. It's a bit of a faff but sonically worth it and not a terrible job as far as HiFi chores go - I'd rather be doing this then twisting and weaving bloody bits of wire


Although... is that me or has a sheep crapped in here?.....

[walpurgis]

The reason wool and presumably other animal hair works, is that at the microscopic level the individual hairs have rough surfaces which makes them abrade against each other under vibration thereby soaking up sound energy.

Synthetic fibres are generally smooth and far less effective at absorbing energy, although any damping is better than none in most cases.

Speaker parts specialists can supply loose ready teezed long fibre wool.

One last little point, if you use ported cabinets it may be worth putting fine net across the back of the bass port to stop moths getting in. They eat wool!

[electric beach]

I'm grooming my long haired cats and I'm thinkin'....





One kitten per cabinet should do it

[awkwardbydesign]

Did you know that B&W did extensive research into various fibres years ago and concluded that long haired teezed pure wool was best for bass damping.

So did A.R. Bailey http://documents.jordan-usa.com/Famo...-Enclosure.pdf
I use carding combs to tease out the wool.https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/im...A2nWgXM-rupNrQ

[iscm]

I am thinking that there may not be one ideal damping material and that
one may just want to dampen the speaker walls, break up reflections, or dampen the box.
It may be that in some speakers there is only a real need to take out some upper bass coloration in which case some light polyester may work possibly together with some wall damping.

In my large B&W DM70's they came with total filling of fiberglass and no damping for the walls except for a bolt to tension from front to the back.
I have now removed some of the filling, using laundry wash bags to help keep what is left central.
The use of floor mats (the natural sort 3/4 inch thick and rubber backed) stuck to the inside rear has been useful to prevent a resonance of the rear panel and reduce reflected upper bass inside of the cabinet. I may try more on the rest of the larger sections.
I used spray carpet adhesive to great effect here.

One thing I know is that large speakers are much harder to get right, but I hope my experience will help others.

In the future I may try long fiber wool to replace the fiberglass, but I am having problems sourcing it in the UK.
How much better than fiberglass is it?

[Alex_UK]

That should get your system purring!

[electric beach]

Well it worked OK Alex, tempted them in with a handful of Dreamies. Took a bit of burning in with a few hours of Michael Bubble at a decent volume and the added high frequencies seem to have stopped now. Can't quite get used to that smell though