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This post has came about tonight as a result of a thread where I responded to AA Member, mhardy6647 today.I took the time to mass load a Fulton P-12 Premiere set of loudspeakers, one of my all time favorite models from the genius designer, Robert W. Fulton. It is a 7 way system, that is plus or minus 1 dB from 12 HZ to 110 KHZ, measured.
I started with NO mass added, but the amp was cold, and it sounded poor. My program material was solo Piano, from some hack named Sir Arthur Brendel, playing some slipshod music from a guy named Ludwig Beethoven. It was a Piano Sonata No 21. " Waldstein ".
As soon as I put two red patio pavers on each side, the piano got better. Then I went to three ( 16 pounds, each unit ), four, five, six, and listened happily with six. As soon as I would remove ONE, I could readily sense the degrade. I added a seventh, there was plenty of room to do so, and I sat and RELAXED and listened to Sir Arthur play.
So, what are some of the things I experienced and heard??
Well, it played noticeably LOUDER with each unit added, It played " out of the box" more-so, and the drivers sounded more integrated, and I LOST the sense of a speaker, and the sense of a PIANO was starting to take place, in the room. Distortion in the midrange was lower, and I could RELAX and listen to the piano more-so. Individual piano strikes were better, more body and harmonic content, and a better hint of decays, was displayed.
Dynamics were noticeably better. No folks, a Fulton P-12 can NEVER beat my present ( getting ) well-set-up ALTEC VOTT A7-800s, but the mass loading certainly helped the P-12 speaker, as it will ALL speakers, to a LOVELY degree.
I had to disassemble the added mass, and as I did so, one 16 pound unit at a time, and carried each 20 feet to the back of this listening room, the P-12 speaker sounded more like a speaker, and less like when I heard seven 16 pound units per side. Interesting...ehhh ??
Seven is a good biblical number, Mr. Fulton would have liked that, he was with me in spirit in the session, he often is. My personal choice, as of ONE listening experiment, is to ONLY hear P-12s with seven units added...for SURE !!! 112 pounds added per side.
Sir Arthur was retired till I put him on my butt-kicking ALTEC rig, with 290 pounds a side added.
Have fun, I do !
HOPE this encourages some to get those red concrete blocks, truly, an audio / music-listener's NO BRAINER. Get off 'yer butt and DO something !!
You will eventually be thankful.
Jeff Medwin
Edits: 01/24/17 01/24/17 01/24/17 01/24/17 01/24/17 01/25/17 01/25/17 01/25/17Follow Ups:
mass loading would seem to work a lot better when you're able to bond your damping material to the front, back & sides where passive weighting doesn't work as much as increase the likelihood of buzzing.
i definitely believe in mass loading, especially when it's part of a design, but after the fact, especially with speakers, it can be tricky. i "mass loaded" a cheesy 12" sub cabinet i bought that was SUPPOSED to be 3/4" thick MDF, but only was on the front baffle with everything else lousy 1/2" or 5/8"
i spent a few days lining the interior with another 3/4" of MDF, one small piece that could fit through the woofer cutout and be weighted down at a time. the final cabinet was MUCH better damped and "knock test-proof", but was also extremely heavy and lost a lot of internal volume too once lined with 2" & 3" acou$tic foam tiles
after looking at another thread where someone mass loaded speakers by weighting their tops, i thought, yeah, but it doesn't do a lot to dampen resonances in the front, back & sides.
another issues with external mass loading would be if your dampening material is flush with your front baffle, it would ruin imaging through diffraction.
it would seem to me that a literally more seamless way to "mass load" (more increase rigidity really) would be to line the interior of a cabinet with fiberglass. besides adding a lot of rigidity without adding "too much mass" (as in in case you have to move stuff) it would also improve dampening by bonding a material with totally different resonant characteristics to your cabinet.
you could also further enhance rigidity by adding internal bracing ribs and if you also wanted to include mass loading, bond sheets of lead with your fiberglass.
yes, this is an apples and oranges solution, but is also one i haven't seen anyone toss out yet.
I've owned cast concrete spheres for ages. They were cast in halves and put together with a concrete and PVA slurry and reo rods.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Is that an E-V T35 or T350 horn tweeter mounted on the top? And, what is the square item mounted in front of it?Edit: For ID purposes, the T350 is about 7-1/4" inches on the long dimension, and the T35 is about 4".
:)
Edits: 01/30/17
Good questions.
Its a T-35, 4 inch mouth and a 5 1/4 inch O.D. mounting flange.
The square unit in front of the T-35 is a 2 1/4 inch Peerless paper cone tweeter, firing upwards. The square part has a hole cut in the center, so it blocks most of the cone's radiation, and it allows the dust cap of the Peerless to play into the room.
Specs included up top. This is mid-1980s.
Jeff Medwin
.
(NT)
No. Heavy Metal.
Tennessee Ernie Ford ................doing 16 Tons,
on the SPEAKERS doofusses !!!
An EASY 5% improvement in the mids. Almost for free !! 10-20 dollars.
Jeff Medwin
Speaking of turntables, is that a Philips 312 in the picture, Jeff?
Looks like it's really out of level, or is that just a photo distortion? (sorry to go off-topic....)
Yes on turntable, a GA-312. It is level for sure, all else is an optical seclusion.
Jeff
Am not sure, its my co-worker's system, which we had set up in our jointly used office. I pay little attention to his set ups. I gave him those $6,500 ( new ) P-12 Fulton Premieres as a 2016 Christmas gift, and he seems very happy.
After me owning rewired and mass-loaded ALTEC VOTT A7-800s, I can hardly listen to anything else and be happy....with MY amps on them, of course.
Wow, what a thrill. I am doing some cool experimental work, last five-six months, with amps and my speakers, ( that no one has ever put together and HEARD in audio ), and it is going well. Details in a couple of months I'd say, when I am done experimenting, and can safely confirm it all.
Jeff
ahhh the sound of music to my ears :)
Don't get too attached there Jeff, Those wonderful speakers are no longer yours :)))
I kidding
When I can get mine back up I will give it a shot, but right now only a mono tempo speaker and it sure keeps with the tempo of the music but IMO I have never heard speaker play grand Piano like the large fulton can.
Lawrence
Lawrence,That is your opinion, and your experience. Fine !!
As of tonight, I have my direct experiences, both with my own semi-optimized VOTT and ( as of today ) with a large Fulton, on a familiar recording. What I only suspected, I now know, today. They are not close.
If my words are not clear, they will be !! My not-quite-ready ALTEC implementation, from what I HEAR, easily EATS for lunch ANY large Fulton I have heard, and on piano reproduction, particularly !!
Hey dude, you need to TRY, ASAP, about 6 of those concrete patio units, on TOP of your mono speaker, listen incrementally. You WILL dig it, I know how well you hear LH !!
Jeff
Edits: 01/25/17
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