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Should we put weights on speakers

dosmalo said:
When I bought my Hornshoppes (used) and before I undertook redoing them, I kept hearing a rattling inside.
First thing I did was drill out a hole in the bottoms with a hole saw and out rolled a ****-load of BBs and it took me forever to get the damn things out.
Much better of without them...View attachment 856430
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I got a chuckle from this. I was on the old Hornshoppe forum when the BB discussion came up probably from the same guy you bought those horns from. As you know all those internal folds of Ed's horns produce a quite heavy speaker for it's relative small size.
 
Poultrygeist said:
I got a chuckle from this. I was on the old Hornshoppe forum when the BB discussion came up probably from the same guy you bought those horns from. As you know all those internal folds of Ed's horns produce a quite heavy speaker for it's relative small size.
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It was quite a job getting them all out with lots of shaking and rolling. Wore me out.
Blobs of them were stuck together like some sort of adhesive was used but I managed to get them removed or at least there wasn't any rattling around.
My thoughts were that if Ed had wanted BBs in there - he would have put them there and done a better job of it.
 
The only reason to put weights on speakers is if they have a poorly designed cabinet that resonates. I'm a bass player and because I move my equipment a lot, I want my cab to be as light as possible. I also play five string and I want to FEEL the low stuff. The best solution is lightweight, voidless plywood cabinets with internal bracing to solidify the wood. There are formulas that tell you the "effective" thickness of the wood depending on the bracing used.

If putting weights on your speakers audibly helps, it means they are made of acoustically "noisy" cabinets. Weights are a DIY fix for that, but then only moderately.

Caveat: If the weights are also somehow reflecting sound, they can affect that as well, good or bad, depending on the situation.
 
holyman772 said:
This works wonders for small footprint/high output subwoofers (I have 2 Velodyne DD-10s - about a 12 inch cube). It prevents the cabinet from vibrating/rocking. Haven't found an attractive solution though. Tried it with bags of cement but it looked like hell. Still looking for a permanent solution.
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On a related note...I placed my 50" flatscreen TV directly on top of my subwoofer. It lasted five years. The vibration caused one of the "tape" wire bundles running to the LED backlighting to rub against the metal frame so much that it eventually shorted out, killing the TV.
 
WillVT said:
I imagine weights would have a similar affect, at least theoretically, as spikes. It would limit movements of the cabinet, microscopic as they may be, thus giving more movement and accuracy to the moving cones.
If you imagine trying to hammer a nail into a board that is hanging in midair from a rope, the movement of the board will take away most of the energy from the hammer, leaving little to actually drive the nail. Now if you put a weight behind the board, it will move much less, and more energy will be transferred to the nail.
I guess in this analogy, the board is the cabinet, the nail is the cone, and the hammer is the signal. So, the less the cabinet moves, the more energy is produced by the cone, since it is not being expended moving the cabinet.

This is of course all theory made up in my head, but it does seem that in general, higher end speakers are heavier than those little flimsy speakers from cheap all-in-one systems.
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If your hammer strikes the nail at 200 MPH, I suspect the nail will be driven in before the board gets a chance to move. I think with speaker cabinets, the problem is cabinet resonance. And if weight helps, it means you are working with a poorly designed, or insufficiently braced cabinet. You WANT a violin body to resonate. Not so much your speaker cabinets.
 
Gibsonian said:
Not agreeing with this thinking. Even 1.5 in and thicker cabs overly braced can benefit from mass loading.
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Although I technically agree with you, regarding physics, I think the effect of loading is minimal to the point of being inaudible, unless the cabinets are poorly designed. I think that if you REALLY want to load a cabinet, it might be best to simply cast the whole thing out of six inch thick concrete slabs tightly bolted together with machined contacts coated with a thin layer of silicone.

But it is marginally important that a hi-fi fits in the room and doesn't make the place look like it is occupied by a guy that is doing everything he can to ensure he spends the rest of his life living alone.

i.e. A guy can throw a nice looking bronze statue or something on top if they think it's going to help the sound, but don't tell any potential romantic encounters that see it why its there. :D
 
RobRoy said:
On a related note...I placed my 50" flatscreen TV directly on top of my subwoofer. It lasted five years. The vibration caused one of the "tape" wire bundles running to the LED backlighting to rub against the metal frame so much that it eventually shorted out, killing the TV.
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Perhaps if you had added some mass to the subwoofer cabinet in addition to or instead of your television it would have amiliorated the resonance problems of your poorly designed subwoofer cabinet and you would still have your television in good working order. :dunno:
 
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