Hi guys I am at the stage in the control room where I am looking at building the soffit to hold my monitors. I have searched through the various threads on this and just have a couple of questions. Around the parameter of the speaker box would it be okay to use an 8mm rubber to help isolate the speaker from the frame? Also would it help to use this rubber on the top and bottom of the front soffit frame? I will attach pic of rubber.
Also in Johns design the speaker box is fixed to the front frame. In that drawing you can see the space left behind the speaker for it to breathe, does the front frame stay isolated from the back framing altogether? How big does the hole at the top of the soffit box need to be for air circulation? Would 2 to 3 inches be enough?
One last thing. As it has been mentioned the 824's have a switch that allow you to select the placement of the speaker within the room, but it also has a 80 hz cut. Would you recommend to engage this when soffit mounting or is that going to cut out to much of potential low end information? I work mostly with singer songwriter material.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Fra
Soffit mounting Mackie 824
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frasands
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Re: Soffit mounting Mackie 824
Yes, definitely! Provided that the rubber is of the correct type. The best is Sorbothane, but it's a bit pricey. Second best is Neoprene or EPDM. Your picture does not look like any of those, so double check what you have, and if it is not the right stuff then forget that and buy the right stuff.Around the parameter of the speaker box would it be okay to use an 8mm rubber to help isolate the speaker from the frame? Also would it help to use this rubber on the top and bottom of the front soffit frame? I will attach pic of rubber.
Not necessary. It's just a "slot" cut across the top and bottom panels at the rear of the box that holds the speaker in place, inside the soffit.you can see the space left behind the speaker for it to breathe, does the front frame stay isolated from the back framing altogether?
Depends on your speaker, but if you make it as wide as the speaker cabinet and at least an inch high, that should be OK. If your speaker is rather large, or runs hot in normal use, then make the slot and it's "chimney" bigger. That chimney has to be the same throughout the entire path, with no restrictions along the way.How big does the hole at the top of the soffit box need to be for air circulation? Would 2 to 3 inches be enough?
Just set the "Acoustic Space" switch to -4dB, and see how that goes. It should be fine like that. If you still find too much bass boost in the low end, then try setting the cutoff to 47 Hz, and see if that helps. It might not, so be careful with that. Worst case, you can always add a cross-over unit or phase-linear parametric equalizer in the path and use that to get your roll of adjusted exactly.As it has been mentioned the 824's have a switch that allow you to select the placement of the speaker within the room, but it also has a 80 hz cut.
The only way you can tell for sure if it is adjusted correctly is to test the room response with REW with the switches in all possible positions, and see what produces the best results.
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frasands
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Re: Soffit mounting Mackie 824
Thanks very much for your help Stuart! That cleared up a lot of things for me.
Since then I realized that I wouldn't actually have room for the 824's in my soffit so I was left with the choice of just covering them up or using the budget pair of tascams vl-x5s that I bought 6 or so years ago. So not wanting to waste the space I decided to go with sticking in the tascams, if nothing else they could be used as a reference. So here are a couple of photos of what I did.
As you can see I have still to add the insulation at the bottom of soffit and material to cover.
As for the soffit mounted tascams they honestly took me by surprise. The stereo image is great and being soffit mounted seems to tighten things up quite a bit.
I think I will have to experiment with placement of free mounting 824s and perhaps get a decent pair of speaker stands, struggling to get a good stereo image with them.
Over all I was really surprised by the tascams and am glad I didn't just cover up the area with ply.
Any tips on placement of 824's for a better stereo image?
Since then I realized that I wouldn't actually have room for the 824's in my soffit so I was left with the choice of just covering them up or using the budget pair of tascams vl-x5s that I bought 6 or so years ago. So not wanting to waste the space I decided to go with sticking in the tascams, if nothing else they could be used as a reference. So here are a couple of photos of what I did.
As you can see I have still to add the insulation at the bottom of soffit and material to cover.
As for the soffit mounted tascams they honestly took me by surprise. The stereo image is great and being soffit mounted seems to tighten things up quite a bit.
I think I will have to experiment with placement of free mounting 824s and perhaps get a decent pair of speaker stands, struggling to get a good stereo image with them.
Over all I was really surprised by the tascams and am glad I didn't just cover up the area with ply.
Any tips on placement of 824's for a better stereo image?