Speaker Tweaks

Playing around with audio equipment is fun. We have summarized a short list of speaker related tweaks that we found to be easy and effective and we would like to share them with you.  

Heavy Weight Speaker

Adding extra weight on top of your speaker will force your speaker to have firm contact  with the ground,  therefore grounding the vibration to the floor more effectively. This tweak can apply to  bookshelf and floor stand speakers. Speakers with spike will benefit more from this tweak. Timber floors with carpet will notice more improvement.

 From our experience a typical 20 liter two way  bookshelf speaker requires 5kg or more of damping weight. So, as the size of the speaker increases the weight will also need to increase. High density material is preferred,  such as marble slack, concrete, or metal will give better results compared to wood or phone books…

The result of the Heavy Weight Speaker will vary depending on the flooring of the room and  the quality of the speaker enclosure. But in most cases this tweak will improve the soundstage and imaging, as well as the control of the bass region.

Rewire

Since out of sight is out of mind, most commercial speakers employ low cost speaker wire for internal wiring. Most sub $1000 speakers will have $ 0.5 per meter  doorbell wires in them. Replace them with better quality wire will give you great result at very low cost.

Rewiring can be as expensive or as   cheap as you want.  $1 per meter CAT5 cable is always good value for money. $5 – $10 will give you results beyond expectation. Of course you can also spend more  on rewiring your speaker with Audioquest or something better.

If you have not tried CAT5 cable please look it up on the Internet.

Blocking Nose?

To get the most out from your speaker it is important to position them correctly. In most scenarios you should keep your speaker at least 1.5 to 2 meters away from the back and   sidewalls. If you don’t have enough room for your speakers to breathe you will have a booming bass and a poor sound stage.  

Here is where our Blocking Nose can help. Source some glass fiber wool (speaker stuffing material). One handfull of  this is plenty for your purpose. By blocking the speaker ports, the back firing energy from the drives will reduce and the booming will reduce. There is no set rule for this tweak and you will have to try different amounts of stuffing material and then listen to the result. It is largely dependent on size and shape of the listening room.