LSi Tweaks

Dynamatting the 9s and Center

Pros:
Tightened my bass response
Clarity was much improved
Everything sounds more cohesive
Deeper soundstage

Cons:
Takes a lot of time (3+ hours per speaker for me)
Voids the 5-yr warranty
Can get cutup by exposed screws

The info that follows is for a lsi9 speaker

Ok, now to perform this tweak you need some tools like a screwdriver, a knife, and preferably scissors. You will also need some dynamat extreme, or other dampening products. I used dynamat extreme because it is supposed to be more effective at dampening then the regular dynamat, and it does not need to be heated before applying it. In the rest of this post anywhere I say dynamat, I really mean dynamat extreme, I am just to lazy to write it out. The first step was to un plug my speakers and take them down of their stands. Then I used the screwdriver and undid all of the screws, 4 for the tweeter, 6 for each midrange, and 4 for the crossover. So 20 screws later, I had everything undone, now for the fun parts.

I used a flat head small screwdriver to pry out one of the drivers, and then let gravity do the rest. A better way to do this, which I realized later was to use a knife to pry the crossover out of place (doesn't take much effort), and then use the handle of the screwdriver to push the driver out. Ok either way now you have one driver out, next step is to unhook both of the wires and put the driver off to the side. It is important to grab a sheet of paper, rip a piece off, and write down bottom driver, and the color of the wires that hook into it, for easy hook up later. Now that you have one driver out it is easy to pop the tweeter out, and unhook it, and then pop the top midrange out, and get that piece of paper to label it. Size wise the connectors for the tweeter are smaller then those for the midranges, so there is no way to hookup the tweeter wrong. Pull the crossover out after the drivers are out.

One more thing, both my front left and right speakers had a paper attached to the edge of the basket, which was also attached to the enclosure. It looks like this is how they tell if you open the speaker or not, because when you take the driver out the paper detaches from the speaker, and sticks to the enclosure. It looked like it was supposed to do this, since the paper was lightly glued to the enclosure in four spaces.

OK now all of the drivers are out and unhooked (some may not unhook which can be trouble, you'll have to just live with it), the next step is to take out the insulation in there. There is some white insulation top and bottom, it must be removed. Remember how it was in the box because your going to want to put it back the same way later.

So now we have a empty box, its time to get busy. The first step is to measure out the internal space in the box, If my memory serves me right the top and bottom where 11.5in x just under the size of a pen. Yep that’s how I measured, I put a pen inside, and the width was about 1/4in less then the size of the pen. So cut a piece 11.5 x 1/4in less then the size of a pen, then cut another piece the same dimension. Now look inside the box and check for screws, I got cut many a time trying to push down dynamat and my finger landed on a screw. Now your going to take the backing off the dynamat, and then fold it almost in half, so the sticky stuff is exposed. You need to fold it to get it through the hole, now once it is inside in fold it, get it to the very back, and press down. From here you flatten it out, push out any air bubbles, and make sure it is on their very tight. I used a small hammer to bang it on, to make sure that it was really covering everything.

OK so that is basically how you dynamat the enclosure, just check dimensions, watch for screws, and watch out for the bass ports. I personally covered everything, including outside of the ports, all exposed wood, even a little on the inside front of the enclosure (not much room here). After the enclosure is finished then you move onto the next step.

OK the next step is dampening the actual drivers and the crossover. To dampen the drivers I cut very small pieces out and put them on the inside and outside of the basket. Small squares of dynamat work for the inside and the outside of the basket, there are (if memory serves me) six areas that can be done with squares. I also cut a long piece to go around the lower area of the basket, making sure not to let the dynamat get to close to the speaker terminals. I then dynamatted the next portion down, not really sure what its called, it may be part of the basket, or the metal shield for the magnets. Either way dynamat went on this section to, and I also cut a small round section to place on the backplate. To do this I placed the driver on the dynamat, pushed down, and then cut where the indentation was. I did not do anything for the tweeter, just a small amount on the inside and outside of the face plate. I tried dynamatting the magnet, but it got in the way, so it was removed.

So now we have the drivers dampened as well as the enclosure, the next step was the crossover. Since all of the drivers were detached it was easy to just pull the crossover out the back of the speaker. I then decided to separate the speaker wire, and dynamat that to. All that was involved here was cutting the small piece of electrical tape holding the positive and negative together, and then cutting strips of dynamat to the length of the speaker wire. I dynamatted from roughly three inches away from the crossover, to two inches away from the clip. Make sure when you do this you don’t cover up the color of the wire, if you do it makes it difficult to figure out which goes to which midrange. This makes the wire harder to work with, and stiffer, but it is still easy to hookup with a little work. Lastly I dynamatted the actual crossover a little, but there is not much room here. A little on the top and bottom, and a little inside, and that’s about all there is room for.

The next step is putting it all back in but before you do this put that insulation back in just like it was before. Once that is complete all that is left is putting the crossover back in, the top midrange on top, and the bottom midrange on the bottom. Connect these before you place them in, and do the tweeter before the other two. Once this is complete screw them down tight, hook them back up, and see the results.

A few things about the center, there is more area to dynamat, but it is more difficult to do. The left right and top are easy, but the front is harder, bottom is harder, and rear is harder. It is also more difficult to get the drivers out, I had to use the screwdriver as a wedge to get one of the drivers out, not very fun. I also couldn't get the tweeter out of my center speaker, I couldn't unhook the cables, I had no issue with any of the 9s drivers detaching.

In the end I was much more satisfied with this tweak then doing the same thing on my Supernova. I think the differences were much more noticble with the speakers then the sub, and I was also very pleased with these speakers internals. Good stuff going on in there.

Jared