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I would be interested in seeing the reply to that one.

Hi Alan, I have a quick question for you. I bought an EP800 about a month ago and had a few problems with it. First off the amp was bad so I had to get a new one. When the new one came I installed it and it worked like a charm. But that's when I noticed that at least one of the woofers was bad (the right one forsure). So I played the unit with the amp out so I could watch the back of the subwoofer work to see if I could see what the problem was. That's when my question dawned on me...

First of all let me tell you that the EP800 is an excellent product, and I'm not trying to imply that it's not a quality unit at all here. But you see I've always been a tinkerer, I like to maximize the performance of the things I own, much like my heavily modified motorcycle. It was a great bike right out of the crate, but I wanted to see how far I could push it!

So what dawned on me when I had the amp off and was watching the drivers work was that I might line the inside of the box with Dynomat to further insulate and deaden the soundfield inside the box. But I wanted to check with you first to ask if there would be any ill effects of doing this? I'm not talking about any additional bracing, just applying regular Dynomat to the walls, floor and ceiling of the box. I did this with a JL audio subwoofer box that I had in my car and it worked great. Of course it was a much less expensive unit, so before I go modifying a $2300 dollar piece of equipment I figured I should at least hear your opinions on the matter to see if this type of material had already been experimented with and found to be detrimental to the sound at all, or if you thought it couldn't hurt, and may even improve it even slightly.

Thanks in advance.

Micah.

Hi Micah,

Sorry you had trouble with the EP800 amp. I also wanted to point out that the woofers in the EP800 will "work" very differently with the amplifier removed because then it is no longer a sealed system (acoustic suspension). In the latter design, the air pressure inside the box works as an acoustic "spring", unlike that of a vented (ported) system. In the EP800, both woofers are driven, but the excursion of each (the back and forth movement) may not be identical. I hope your woofers are back to normal.

Anyway, I'm not familiar with JL audio subs, nor with Dynomat (from its name, I assume it's an absorbent material that you use to line the interior of the enclosure with) but of course if you want to try it, you can do so. Technically, that would violate your warranty. It also might reduce the performance of the EP800 by changing the resonant frequency of the drivers and the system. You don't want to absorb or deaden too much of the interior energy radiated at the rear of the woofers because it will alter the performance of the sealed system.

I'll foward your inquiry to Ian Colquhoun, the designer and owner of Axiom, to see what his thoughts might be.

I understand your urge to tinker. I've been doing that for years, especially back when I built some transmission-line subwoofers in the late 1970s. While at the time I was thrilled with their performance (especially because I'd built them), I hasten to add that the performance of the EP500 and its brethren greatly exceed that of my home-built subs.

Regards,

Alan