Damping 2307 horns

[2275xxx]

Hello JBLers,

I recently acquired a pair of clean 4343b, which replaced my 4333b.

Damping the 2312 in the 4333 was a great improvement and I wonder if I should do the same with the 2307.

This subject was discussed on other boards like DIYaudio, but I could not find any opinions on LH.

Did some owners of 434x monitors among you try to damp their 2307s ?
I am tempted, but I fear I would kill the balance and loose some of the magic...

Marc

[2275xxx]

Hem...
The subject does not seem to draw much interest.
I suppose the best way to know is to experiment.

[hjames]

I hadn't noticed any ringing, with my L200s or my 4341s (both have short-horns at the moment) but maybe my ears aren't sensitized to it!

Always interested in improvements like this!
Tell us more!

Hem...
The subject does not seem to draw much interest.
I suppose the best way to know is to experiment.

[toddalin]

I sprayed my 2312s with a rubber coating before installing them. Made a BIG difference in the ringing when you "thunk" the horn by itself. I don't know how much difference this makes once the driver is mounted and the horn is on the baffleboard, but it sure couldn't hurt. Any change would be subtle and I have no way to instaneously A/B the without/with.

[BMWCCA]

If I ever heard my 2306s ringing, I'd probably wrap them in Bituthane, or some commercial sound deadening mats for car audio like this:

[toddalin]

Unless you can instantaneously A/B the without/with dampening, how do you know you don't hear the ringing? :dont-know

As I noted, it could be very subtle and even limited to various frequencies/instruments. No, it's not going to sound like a bell. But it could manifest itself as a peak at a certain frequency. You could even mis-associate it with room acoustics.

[midlife]

If it is that subtle the difference may be difficult to quantify. Experiment and give us the results. I would think neutralizing any resonance would be an improvement.

[BMWCCA]

Unless you can instantaneously A/B the without/with dampening, how do you know you don't hear the ringing? :dont-know

I'm assuming if I could determine ringing in an A-B test, then I could hear something unnatural and irritating without the A-B comparo, no?

I go by the "if I'm happy, don't screw with it" school of acoustic engineering. In auto racing we call that the "butt dyno". I know the preferred method here is more data and less wank but my wife, her brother, and I have spent a nice evening listening to various CDs while we socialized and no one had any complaints. I'm not proposing anyone do it my way, or that I would be unwilling to experiment, or follow others suggestions for a mod that can't possibly do any harm, but I'd much rather just enjoy the music!

[pos]

Unless you can instantaneously A/B the without/with dampening, how do you know you don't hear the ringing? :dont-know

plotting the impedance with and without the damping material should give some clue

[Doc Mark]

I'm assuming if I could determine ringing in an A-B test, then I could hear something unnatural and irritating without the A-B comparo, no?

I go by the "if I'm happy, don't screw with it" school of acoustic engineering. In auto racing we call that the "butt dyno". I know the preferred method here is more data and less wank but my wife, her brother, and I have spent a nice evening listening to various CDs while we socialized and no one had any complaints. I'm not proposing anyone do it my way, or that I would be unwilling to experiment, or follow others suggestions for a mod that can't possibly do any harm, but I'd much rather just enjoy the music!

Hey, Phil,

I understand your reasoning, completely, and actually agree with what you have said. Though I do like to "test, experiment, and quantify" when I hear a problem, for most of my years, if my ears are happy, then I just call it good and have fun with it! Even as a working musician, I could tell if our PA or monitor system sounded "natural" to me. If it sounded good, didn't "feedback", and didn't leave my ears with tons of fatigue, then I left things as they were. IF problems manifested themselves, then of course, we would try to find them and fix them.

Here at home, we're very satisfied with what we have, and testing, experimentation, and such, are being done to learn, and to see how other things might sound, not so much to make our L300's sound better to us. We love them as they are!! I do hope to eventually get my subwoofer added into the system, but that's mainly to take a bit of the LF load off of the L300's, especially when watching movies, and not to change the way they already sound. Thanks for your comments on this. Take care, and God Bless!

Every Good Wish,
Doc

[toddalin]

I'm assuming if I could determine ringing in an A-B test, then I could hear something unnatural and irritating without the A-B comparo, no?

No.

When I put the 2405 diaphram in the 2402, the results were very similar to a 2405 except that there was still a dip of about 1.5 - 2 dB in the ~8kHz range. If you listened to the system (on axis) with either tweeter in the system, they pretty much sounded the same, and both were nice. (Grumpy was here for this testing and can atest to this.)

But, when you played certain stuff, like a ride cymbal, you could note a slight difference when doing an instantaneous A/B comparison. The 1.5 - 2 dBA difference highlighted the cymbals. If you played the entire song though one tweeter then the other, you would probably never note this difference.

[hjames]

No.

When I put the 2405 diaphram in the 2402, the results were very similar to a 2405 except that there was still a dip of about 1.5 - 2 dB in the ~8kHz range. If you listened to the system (on axis) with either tweeter in the system, they pretty much sounded the same, and both were nice. (Grumpy was here for this testing and can atest to this.)

But, when you played certain stuff, like a ride cymbal, you could note a slight difference when doing an instantaneous A/B comparison. The 1.5 - 2 dBA difference highlighted the cymbals. If you played the entire song though one tweeter then the other, you would probably never note this difference.

Then if you can't hear a difference its probably not worth going through a lot of grief to resolve such a non-issue ...

I mean, isn't that the point with any of this?

Why spend the extra money to buy serious high-end gear if you don't hear a difference - its NOT to impress other members, I hope

[toddalin]

Then if you can't hear a difference its probably not worth going through a lot of grief to resolve such a non-issue ...

I mean, isn't that the point with any of this?

Why spend the extra money to buy serious high-end gear if you don't hear a difference - its NOT to impress other members, I hope

I don't agree. You can hear a difference, just not in every case or on all music. But under the right circumstances, an audible difference is there (in the case of the tweeters) and may be there (in the case of the horn coating).

How much R&D did JBL do to produce subtle improvements that one would probably never notice unless instantaneously A/B'ed with the prior offering?

How many variations are there of the LE-5? If you listened to the nearly dozen or so variations in a 3-way one after the other, do you really think you would hear a difference with each variation? But what if you could instantaneously flip between them? Then these subtle differences may stand out.

[hjames]

I don't agree. You can hear a difference, just not in every case or on all music. But under the right circumstances, an audible difference is there (in the case of the tweeters) and may be there (in the case of the horn coating).

I'm talking about damping 2307 (or 2312) horns, I'm not touching on the topic of swapping diaphrams into drivers they weren't made for. Thats the tweeter thing, right? Thats a completely different discussion than what was here.

Frankly, that issue was beat to death in another thread and wasn't what I or Phil or anyone was talking about in this thread anyway.

we really don't need to ruin this thread with all of that discussion.
Open another thread for all of that please ...

[toddalin]

I'm talking about damping 2307 (or 2312) horns, ...

Fine, but as I noted, here to the differences would be subtle (maybe even moreso) and may require an A/B/x test to differentiate.

There are certainly plenty of people on this forum who have damped their Altec and Emilar horns and reported the improvements.