DR. GIZMO’S TOP SECRET SAND TWEAK

INSPIRATION FROM A TOPLESS BEACH

Like you, I love wandering around nude beaches with my high powered binoculars. When I find a good location I just sit down and check out the Dionysian impulse that is found everywhere that humans gather. A number of years ago while I was analyzing a gaggle of David Hamilton type nymphets I remembered something important from my past...In the 1960s I owned a pair of Wharfedale speakers that had bags of sand inside their cabinets.

This began my serious investigation of sand as a tuning tweak for my Tannoy Westminster Royals that now have enough sand in them, about 300 pound each, that I no longer have to go to naked beaches.

Sand is a great cabinet tuning substances because it is so adjustable.

Here is one element of my sand tuning tweaking secret and it is very simple and may help Lowthermaniacs:

In effect you are adding another wall to your speaker cabinets that has an empty space...about 1/2 inch that you can fill with sand. To accomplish this all you have to do is nail 1/2 inch wood spacers on your side walls and back of your speaker cabinet....BE SURE TO LEAVE THE TOP OPEN. Then you add a piece of MDF plywood, which can be very thin. You nail or screw  the plywood to your spacers, and you now have a 1/2 inch empty space that you can fill with sand.

You will immediately notice a big change in the tonal character of your speakers because you have dampened the walls...mostly in the midrange and higher frequencies.

Be warned...THIS MAY NOT BE AN IMPROVEMENT because you may like the tonal quality of very alive cabinets. On the other hand you may love it, and it is a cheap, fast tweak. If you don’t like it, undoing this tweak is also very easy.

And yes, you can make the empty space larger or smaller by using different thickness space and add more or less sand.

To my ears the sand from Maine beaches sound best, but there is nothing wrong with the sand you buy in 60 pound bags in your local hardware store.

Post your results in the chat room.

And yes, this tweak can work on any speaker cabinet as long as you don’t mind the “hot rod” look of them with your addition.

Over and out from Music HyperSpace©

 

 

 

Back to The Triode Guild©               Back to Meta-Gizmo   

e-mail Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg: drgizmo@meta-gizmo.com

Copyright© 2005    Meta-Gizmo.com™ and Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg      All rights reserved.
All the material contained within the above articles may not be reproduced without his express permission.