Soffits........"the basics"........more questions

[Ausrock]

While there's an abundance of information on construction methods, etc., the only "essential" rule that I've seen, is that the front baffle must be decoupled from the rest of the structure. This leaves me wondering about a few other aspects of soffit mounting, particularly when dealing with a small or relatively narrow mix area, so here goes...............:

1) Is there a minimum distance between monitors where soffit mounting just isn't going to work?

2) Relative to the bass driver size, is there a minimum size (height and width) for the front baffle to be effective?

3) Does the size/capacity of the chamber/box have any bearing on the overall performance?

Hmmmmm.......that'll do for now.

Cheers

[gullfo]

the minimum distance isn't so much an issue as much as ensuring there is enough baffle based on the monitor size.

generally this is about 2x the diameter of the low-end driver on each side. a 5" driver would need ~10" on each side or about 25" total width/height. a 12" driver would need ~24" on each side so around 60" total. so if you mounted the 12" monitors on a flat wall, you'd want them spaced apart 60" as a minimum (which would imo be very close, you'd want big monitors about 8'-10' away or they're too much in your face...)

in most designs though, the "baffles" continue onto the walls and ceiling and sometimes floor to give it an "infinite baffle" effect.

the size of the enclosure is more of a function of the size of the baffles, depth of bass trapping you add, etc. for the most part, the enclosure isn't what the soffit depends on for performance...

on the front panel, i think you want it isolated from the monitor, and if that means isolated from the framing, then thats what it is... if the monitor is properly decoupled from the frame though, then you only need to worry about air-borne vibrations (rather than both mechanical and air-borne) causing the soffit construction to resonate incorrectly...

[Ausrock]

Glenn,

Thanks for that, you've clarified a few things for me.......and probably raised a couple of new questions for me to resolve .