Adding Insulation to a Cab

Walt-Dogg

Walt-Dogg

New member
So I'm thinking of adding some fiberglass insulation to my Sunn 412L. What will adding insulation to this over-sized cab do? I'm trying to reduce [perceived] bass response from the cab and accordingly I recently installed casters to the cab (which helped). The cab is just incredibly bassy due to it's size, so will adding fiberglass (or anything better) insulation to the interior walls of the cab add or reduce bass response? And yes I am a newb to this sort of thing.
 
Try to get it off the floor, put a few crates or books under it so the amp is off the ground. I made a little wood (mdf) box, about 120mm high, now the room doesnt vibrate or make annoying bassy noises.
 
I did this years ago to all of my bass cabs to try and get a punchyer tone and it did seam to help some but in the long run I just got an Ampeg V4 (4x10) cab - the little brother to the 8x 10 cab and that was the sound I was looking for all along.;)






:cool:
 
Walt - It's counterintuitive, but stuffing your cab with insulation will result in an effective increase in interior volume, which would extend the low-frequency response of the speakers. I don't think that's what you're looking for.
 
Zaphod B said:
Walt - It's counterintuitive, but stuffing your cab with insulation will result in an effective increase in interior volume, which would extend the low-frequency response of the speakers. I don't think that's what you're looking for.
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All I needed to know. Thanks!

I'd consider replacing speakers, but 1.) They're the original Sunn Transducers, 2.) I don't have the money.

I've raised the cab as much as possible, put it on casters, got a crate under it. Except now it's just blasting my face because I'm right in front of it and it's not facing the lower half of my body so all I'm hearing now are different frequencies.
 
I can only speak from my own experience.I have an older Ampeg cab that has insulation on the back panel.I had replaced two of the speakers and removed the insulation and got an awfully boomy sound out of the cab.I put the insulation back in and it took the boominess out and sounded fine.

I also have an older Peavey cab and it has a boomy sound to it.It doesn't have any insulation in it.I've thought of putting some in on the back panel to see if it will reduce the boominess but i just havn't got around to it.

It really only bothers me when i have them both hooked up.I rarely have them both hooked up though.I play through the Peavey in the bedroom and the Ampeg is set up in my living room for recording.

I just roll the bass down when using the Peavey cab.One of these days i'll throw some insulation in it to try and get a better matching sound between the two cabs.

I wouldn't suggest covering the entire inside with insulation but maybe try a thin piece on the back panel.
 
Zaphod B said:
Walt - It's counterintuitive, but stuffing your cab with insulation will result in an effective increase in interior volume, which would extend the low-frequency response of the speakers. I don't think that's what you're looking for.
Click to expand...
That's true, but it may not be the bass response of the cabinet he finds objectionable, but resonance, where the cabinet rings like a bell at certain frequencies. Adding insulation can improve the sound of a poorly designed cabinet that has a strong resonance peak. In addition to increasing the apparent size of the cabinet it also will make the "size" less definite. The effect would be to move the resonance lower and flatten the peak somewhat.

Insulation might help him.
 
Any chance its the room and not the cabinet that's resonating? Does this cab have these resonances in different venues?
 
ggunn said:
That's true, but it may not be the bass response of the cabinet he finds objectionable, but resonance, where the cabinet rings like a bell at certain frequencies. Adding insulation can improve the sound of a poorly designed cabinet that has a strong resonance peak. In addition to increasing the apparent size of the cabinet it also will make the "size" less definite. The effect would be to move the resonance lower and flatten the peak somewhat.

Insulation might help him.
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That's a good point. It's a cheap experiment and it can't hurt anything to try it.

Edit: However, if it is the cabinet that's resonating a better solution would be to install some additional bracing.
 
Zaphod B said:
That's a good point. It's a cheap experiment and it can't hurt anything to try it.

Edit: However, if it is the cabinet that's resonating a better solution would be to install some additional bracing.
Click to expand...
I'm gonna find out this next week, as my band is going on a short trip up north for a few shows and we'll find out what the issue is.
 
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