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Klipsch Promedia mod.

C

Copyright

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 17, 2000
Messages
6,004
I recently gave up a set of AV40s to play with some Klipsch v2-400 4.1 surround sound speakers. I am running these in a 2.1 setup. Initially I found them lacking midrange. The sound wasn't focused like my AV40 set. I compete in car audio SQ competitions and I know what good sound is. I am part of a team a guys who suggested I use some clay, raamatt and blackhole on each enclosure.


I knew right away I wanted to get rid of the cheap 24awg? wire being used. I picked up some 15awg wire that is twisted and shielded. I mainly got it because its a heavier awg and was round. Used some hotglue on the backside to keep the wire in place and sealed.

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After stripping these things down I found the enclosures are just pure molded plastic with some sort of polyfill insert. Anyone into high end audio knows an enclosure needs to be heavy to reduce resonance and keep the vocals focused.

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After getting the new wire in place I started to use Non-Drying clay to add some weight to the enclosure. After doing this you could already tell by tapping on the enclosure how much more solid it was.

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After getting the clay in I decided to use a piece of raamat around the enclosure to help hold everything in place. To be honest its not totally needed. The clay wouldn't budge no matter how I smacked the enclosure when testing this. It does however add a little more weight.

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After using all this material... almost a full lb of clay and then some raamat I knew I needed to add some blackhole to help with the fact I just reduced the enclosure's size. This helps with resonance also. Truly great stuff. I didn't get a pic after getting it fully packed although this was the start of it.

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So the results... after all this it was very noticeable. I am hearing more midrange. The vocals are more focused. It really sounds nice. Overall it was about 35$ for what I did but keep in mind I could have got A LOT cheaper on speaker wire if I wanted to and used Knuconceptz 16awg with probably the same results. I have some tang band drivers on the way to play with and I also plan on going back and adding some clay, raamat and ensolite to the front baffle the speakers are mounted on. This is probably the last place there is some resonance. I know this isn't for everyone but for me it was a must after owning AV40s.
 
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Interesting, I bet the clay did a lot to help with bracing, I've got some long haired wool en route to me at the moment, my speakers could stand a little more damping.
 
Yeah, when I did one I tapped on the stock enclosure and then the one with the clay and it was night and day. Anyone has been into car audio has probably felt a car that has had a lot of dynamat on the doors and knows the dead sound I am talking about. Been jamming a lot of FLAC files off my Asus ST card and it sounds amazing. Ready to do some work on the sub enclosure to fix a little of the boomyness it has. Its not as bad as my older logitech setup was but I know I can improve it. Overall I am very happy with this set so far but I still have a lot of testing to do.
 
I have a set of iFi's and I wonder if they have the same design corners cut. The satellites came from the Reference series, after all...
 
Is the sub a plastic enclosure too? I imagine modding that will give you the most improvements.
 
the sub has an MDF or wooden enclosure, hey I think I will try this mod, I still have my V2.400.1 sitting around!
 
Give it a shot.. I really like the results. Gives them more of a higher end bookshelf speaker sound. I am eager to see what the midrange driver swap will do for them. As for the sub enclosure I have some things I will be doing to that later.
 
I'm thinking of doing a similar mod with my klipsch 2.1 speaakers with some 18 gauge wire laying around from my home theater setup. I hate getting these itches to mod speakers. I just recently got new 3" tang band drivers for my klipsch 2.1.
 
Copyright said:
Hey just a reminder.. its NON-DRYING clay!!!.
Click to expand...

Is it duct seal? I was looking all over home depot for some of that, not only can you damp plastic cabinets with it, a popular mod is to damp parts of the driver basket, takes out unwanted resonances.

If your sub is mdf you should see if you can retroactively add wood bracing, if not through the middle at least on the edges and the corners
 
matteos said:
Is it duct seal? I was looking all over home depot for some of that, not only can you damp plastic cabinets with it, a popular mod is to damp parts of the driver basket, takes out unwanted resonances.

If your sub is mdf you should see if you can retroactively add wood bracing, if not through the middle at least on the edges and the corners
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Edges and corners really shouldn't need bracing.
 
Depends if they are braced or not, if they're not, then yes they do, especially on a sub. I'd be inclined to believe that Klipsch sub is probably an empty MDF box with nothing inside it at all.
 
Bracing is only really needed front to back, top to bottom. The closer to the center of each panel the better. Corners and edges are already the most rigid parts in a cabinet.

But, yea. The ProMedia subs are pretty much just boxes with no real bracing.
 
Its not bracing that is important on the small enclosures but the weight that helps dampen the enclosure.

The silver stuff is Raamatt not duct seal! It's a lot like dynamat. It is made to dampen.
 
We were talking about the sub enclosure, but you're correct about the monitor dampening.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Bracing is only really needed front to back, top to bottom. The closer to the center of each panel the better. Corners and edges are already the most rigid parts in a cabinet.

But, yea. The ProMedia subs are pretty much just boxes with no real bracing.
Click to expand...

Well yeah, they are less important than front to back...

Problem is, if you are retroactively bracing a cabinet it can be very difficult... Difficult to cut them to the exact size where they'll do anything and once you've done that it's difficult to glue them in place. If the cabinets curved it is much easier to add bracing. I did see someone get around this issue by having some sort of threaded screw between two pieces of wood and when they were in position with glue at either end he could unscrew them into place, if that makes sense.

So... If the OPs unable to add front to back bracing his next best thing is to beef up all the joins as best he can. That "sub" is probably only 6" or so, so a real rigid box isn't that important.
 
I just modded my speakers. My long hair wool came.. I added extra side bracing... and strengthened the existing shelf bracing. It was easy ad my cabinets are curved so I could knock the bracing into place.. they sound so much better now... Modding speakers is easy and Grey's good results
 
Uh. I'm typing on my phone so apologies for the glaring spelling mistakes
 
As an alternative to clay, you can mix up around 300ml batches of 1:1:0.25 polyurethane fiberglass resin, PL premium and sand and apply that. Dries fast, so use only the amount of hardener needed to cure the resin.

I usually mix 150ml of resin and Pl premium and add 100g of sand. Apply 1 thick layer. Allow it to cure for around 30m, then apply a second layer. PL premium dries spongey, the resin dries hard, and the sand adds weight. Gives you good damping and is easily applied to any surface.
 
I really like the recycled cotton insluation - Bonded Logic brand. It is less expensive than the audio branded stuff and available at a lot of home improvement places. It is the best stuffing I have found.
 
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