whadyasay Posted February 7, 2004 Share Posted February 7, 2004 Hello, All. I mentioned this briefly in another thread, but I figured it was worth sharing on its own. There have been quite a few that have gotten the 'bad batch' of RC-25/35 center channels several months back, including me. Yet even after finding a good one, there's still a bit of a 'boxy' characteristic to the sound. This is pretty evident when you compare it to an older RC-3II, which is generally a bit clearer sounding. If you want a good example of the 'boxy' sound, listen to the voice-over narration at the beginning of "Royal Tennenbaums" or "X2", which both have deep male voices recorded very up close and dry, further enhancing the boxy feel. Anyway, after a while of listening very closely, it seemed that there was a bit of resonance coming from the two front ports. So just for kicks, I put some poen-cell weather insulation foam in the ports (like the stuff they use in the cabinet itself), and it improved the tightness of the speaker....essentially turning it into a sealed cabinet (like the RC-3) rather than a dual-ported one. The dialogue through my RC-25 is now a bit cleaner and concise, and in terms of overall output, it only went down by about .5dB when checking individual levels with an SPL meter. The foam was put in there pretty tight and deep, but it's easily removeable. It seems to me that these ports give the speaker some extra bass extension, but its design seems to add coloration to dialogue, kind of like port-noise on a badly designed subwoofer. Stuffing the ports has helped my RC-25 more closely match the timbre of me RB-25 fronts, even though it's not spot-on. It may be worth a try for those out there who feel the same way about their RC-25/35. If done carefully, there will be no harm to your speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterT Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 Thanks for the tip Whadyasay! I'll give it a shot. Where did you pick up this foam from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whadyasay Posted February 9, 2004 Author Share Posted February 9, 2004 Simple Ace polyfoam weather strip for air conditioners (about 2" x 2" cross section), picked up at a hardware store. I wouldn't call the difference completely night and day, but it seems to make a difference on some of the particularly deeper male voices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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