Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions EP350V3 Subwoofer Rattle and Fix

I own an Epic 80 - 350 system and have been very impressed with one exception: specific types of base result in a rattling noise in the EP350V3 sub. Most recently, the opening thumps in the movie Cloverfield before the apartment scene begins (fix described at the bottom).

I tried a number of suggestions from other forum posts but none eliminated the rattle. These included:
1) Tightening the bolts on the front
2) Adding padding to the interior of the speaker (by removing the speaker)
3) Changing the orientation of the speaker (tried it on all 4 sides).

Finally, I removed the back panel and ran the sub woofer with the amp and circuit board outside the speaker cabinet. The rattle was gone.

The circuit board and amp are enclosed in a rigid plastic housing that vibrates when the sub is under heavy load. There is a long stretch of black and red lead wire that makes the connection from the circuit board to the plastic housing. This lead wire was the culprit as certain frequencies would cause it to vibrate against the black plastic housing.

The fix: I used a cable tie to collect as much of the lead wire as possible, then carefully tucked it behind some components on the circuit board as I re-inserted the back panel. The rattle is now completely gone.

I passed this on to jc @ axiom but wanted to share the fix for anyone else that might be bothered by this problem. Depending on where the wire settled during the assembly process for your sub, you may / may not run into this problem. This may also be applicable to other Axiom subs.

IMPORTANT: You should check with Axiom before doing any disassembly as you may void your warranty. There is a large power supply on the back panel so if you attempt this repair, do so at your own risk and make sure there is no source of power (speaker or wall outlet) attached to the sub.