Speaker appearance verses musicality.


Every one of the hi end speakers has a great finish on the outside. Some like a car finish others like fine furniture stains. There are some beautiful speakers out there but at what cost to the quality of sound? To approach the very best attainable sound shouldnt the speakers be covered with acoustic dampning material? Maybe so you could take it off in pieces to tailor your sound. DJ speakers and car subwoofers are covered. One reason maybe it wont show scratches like wood. Has anyone ever tried enveloping their whole speaker except for the drivers? I have a top firing speaker with 3 drivers on top and I cut out some auto acoustic damping material for the top and it smoothed out the sound along with a pair of Grado earphone replacement pads attacthed to my front firing tweeters. I attached them with double sided tape. Looks nice except my front grill wont fit. The top grill fits. Clarity of bells and cymbels was enhanced. Here is my point. Or question. Has anyone wrapped their whole speaker in acoustic carpeting or foam. OK I know it might sound ridiculus. But shouldnt room tuning start with the speakers? How much impact would a dampened speaker have? Ive only tried a little of the way. Anybody done their whole speaker and what results did they get? Not many people would chance ruining their finish or resale price. I guess it would be room dependent on how much you would get out of it. Oh, that tweeter tweek was in Stereophile several months ago. The writer puts foam around his tweeters and he said manufactures are reluctant to do so because of attractiveness. He believed in that tweek. I do know Signet speakers had foam cut out like a star around their tweeters. B&W places their tweeter on top away from the encloser! Mike
128x128blueranger
Ok...I'll say it:

My guess is that, for the most part, sound quality is at best 50% of the buyer's decision. This hobby is not purely about aesthetics.
Some of the worlds best performing speakers do not have a fancy appearance. Magnepans, Vandersteens, plain flat black Merlins, Green Mountains are just a few that come to mind. All capable of amazing performance, but cosmetically bland.

I owned some stunning speakers that pleased the wife visually but never made the music magic. They were sold at a loss to buy the cosmetically bland.

Here is the best analogy, the EX-wife was stunning and gorgeous on the outside, but overloaded easily, spewed distortion, eventually wound up with a bloated midrange and despised the hifi music hobby!

Stick with performance and what's on the inside for true happiness!
DJ speakers and car subwoofers aren't covered with any special acoustic dampening material. it's called carpet. in the case of automobiles. it's meant to match car carpet, in the case of DJ speakers... DJ's move their equipment a lot and carpet works as a good lightweight protection for their gear. it has nothing at all to do with sound quality.