SRS side panels

Mr. Bubbles

Has anyone tried mounting the side panels on the SRS to the cabinet in a more solid fashion so as to gain cabinet rigidity and or damping, and if so were there any noticeable effects?

Mr. Bubbles

I should have titled this post SRS bracing since I now have other questions.

I now have the cabinets stripped all except for the top and bottom plates. I thought I would look at all the braces while the cabinets were empty. They appear to be braced fairly well from the factory but some of the glue appears to be shrunken and possibly not bonding the braces well plus across the top back of the right cabinet I see no glue or adhesive/ sealant at all, but a small gap on the inside. I can see no light through it but think I will reseal this area anyway. Has anyone else seen the adhesive shrink and loosen. The best way I see to repair this is to screw from the outside of the cabinet into the bracing and maybe use some wood glue in/ around the joints. Does anyone have a better way? Also, has anyone done any additional bracing on these cabinets if so what was it and and what were the results? If any of this has been covered here before please supply me the links and i will be glad to read them. I have difficulty finding some specifics using the search feature here. I would just like to cover as much of the cabinets as possible as I have no plans of stripping them this far again.

flason

Can u post pics to show what you have done and are doing? I'm going to follow suite and Woold like to see what's in store. Thanks.

michaeljhsda2

I hot glued every cross-member and corner in my 1.2 TL's, even if hot glue was already there. The heat from the new glue will reactivate the old below it and reseal it. No need to add additional bracing.
I wouldn't drill holes and add screws in back of the cabinet to secure the cross members, just my opinion.

Another thing I did was hot glue the batting material to the top inside of the cabinet to hold it in position. Over time the batting slipped down in mine.

Since you have the cabinet emptied out I would add hurricane nuts for all the MW's and the passive radiator. You could also add them to the tweeters as well but you'll need to drill out the holes and buy the bolts that are similar to the MW's. You'll also need to buy bolts for the PR as well... just thought of that.

Toolfan66

I added cross bracing with 1-1/4 round oak going from right to left in my 1.2tl's and have no regretes. I put 3 pieces in each speaker, and like michaeljhsda2 I hot glued everything while I was that deep into it..

I wouldn't drill or add holes to the back of the cabinet either..

Mr. Bubbles

Can u post pics to show what you have done and are doing? I'm going to follow suite and Woold like to see what's in store. Thanks.

Will try to post pics as soon as I can find my card reader. I hope you don't have anything in store like I found. My cabinets were pitifully assembled. Not bashing Polk but disappointed to think these cabinets were able to leave the factory like this. Nothing too hard to fix though, once the cabinets are stripped to the bone. The vertical brace in the center behind the tweets was not bonded to any of the horizontal braces except the bottom one. None of the horizontal braces were bonded to the rear wall of the cabinet except the second from bottom on the left side. No bonding of the top plate to the back panel except where the vertical brace met the area and in the far right corner. However, sealant/ adhesive was gobbed on the left hand side of the vertical braces with heavy drips to the right hand side of the cabinet as if the cabinet was layed on its right side and sealant/ adhesive was placed on that one area (but not the right hand back corner, which would have been easy to do in that position). I could move the top panel/ back panel joint with my hands as I could the center vertical brace where it met the horizontal braces. The tweeter gaskets were virtually useless from the time they were installed; they had virtually no contact or compression anywhere except around the bolt holes. I will say that I keep reading about others that (from my understanding) have cabinets with wood screws holding drivers etc in. Mine actually has metal threaded inserts that are threaded into the baffle to hold all components. I thought these may have been added by someone later until I found an extra stuck in the gobbed adhesive from where the cabinet was built. This seems good but even one of those was not turned in flush and protruded approximately 1/16" out the front of the cabinet, preventing the crossover from mounting down flush on that corner. However, if I hadn't noticed that I probably wouldn't have pulled the crossover for some time and wouldn't have found the other issues.

and like michaeljhsda2 I hot glued everything while I was that deep into it..

I am not sure this is normal hot glue. It could be fooling me but it definitely looks stronger (where it is actually applied), and bonds better. As mentioned before; I was into car audio and specifically SPL systems for the most part. I used hot glue on particle board on many occasions and it never bonded like the stuff inside this cabinet. I am into sure what the pressure is inside this cabinet (probably not extreme, considering the large cabinet and limited excursion of the drivers, but with the low tuning of the passive, I could be mistaken), but I would be scared of any normally available hot glue. In car audio, when we got passed 163 db we started welding 1/2 steel plate together because stuff just broke. By the time we got to 176 db we finally got all that figured out. Anyway my point being that hot glue will not hold up under high pressures (at least any hot glue I have ever used). So for all the joints with little to no adhesive previously I am using a thinned carpenters glue in an effort to get it to run into the gaps between the wood and make a bond. once it penetrates and dries. i will use a top coat of un-thinned glue to further bond the panels. For any loose adhesive, I will remove as much as possible and be sure there is a good bond between the panels. Using carpenters glue in this manner makes the bonded area stronger than the panel itself since the thinned glued can penetrate the surface of the panel.

I added cross bracing with 1-1/4 round oak going from right to left in my 1.2tl's and have no regretes. I put 3 pieces in each speaker,

Can you be more specific about locations. Did you use screws to attach these from behind the side panels?

I plan on making rings for the MB and passive as well as the crossover. But I think the insets that are there now will be more than enough for the tweets since their strength is limited by their plastic faceplate.

Has anyone had any experience with damping/ bracing the crossovers?