Gosh. Bob, the things you did were supposed to improve bass response and it sounds like it did, pun intended.
When hard work produces the results one wants, it's a zippety-doo-dah-day! Congrats!
Art
The results are now in!
1. Way back when I bought them I had the dealer install sound in one; it turned out to be Sierra, and he installed it with capacitors rather than a battery setup. Sound is good, I suspect he used card for RS-3, but what do I know? I think I like the cap setup better! It is a little wierd at first till they load power, and you can take it off track, put it away in cabinet, and it's still going!
2. I have learned that with any system, there will be times I wish I could turn the sound off completely; so now I want a cut off switch installed in any new sound units I get!
3. I opened up the RDC and found a cardboard liner(for want of a better word) that was in a v shape and very white on the underside (to reflect the lighting out the windows). This cardboard formed what speaker enclosure there was! I took some 1/8 thick plexiglas and glued it under on the white side or back of the cardboard from the speaker to stiffen it. You will have to carefully measure the length you use or it will interfere with an electronic board that sticks up from the floor.
Then I took some rubberized fiber gasket material I found at the hardware store and lined the speaker side of the cardboard with that to catch reverberations.
I also cut a cardboard flap from a box, marked it to the contour of the roof, cut that, then marked it to fit the v shape on the bottom, thus forming end pieces of the enclosure. Glued one in just shy of the mark the electronic board had made on the cardboard v, cut away a bit of the v board to better free up the area where the board used to strike the v cardboard.
After reinstalling the v board and making sure it was properly positioned, I then installed the other end of the enclosure through the "stack" opening. This is a close fit to keep it away from the smoke unit! Once I was sure of clearance, I glued it in place and buttoned it up!
While all that work didn't do much for volume, it did a lot to reduce tinniness, and vastly enhanced the throbbing bass of the prime mover! In all a pleasing result for the effort!
Captain Bob;
What are you using for a sound card in your RDC? I purchased an RDC at the end of last year but haven't put in a sound card yet. Also, are you happy with the sound it provides?
Mark
The head is gray, hands don't work , back is weak, legs give out, eyes are gone, money go's and my wife still love's Me.
Thanks Art, that sounds reasonable! I'm thinking of stiffening the enclosure behind the speaker in my RDC, and putting some material in there to try and enhance that prime mover sound!
Now I'm wondering if adding some tire tube patch to the inside of the enclosure wouldn't do both the thickening and absorbsion in one fell swoop?
If I remember correctly the basics from what I was taught some 50 years ago, keeping the sound emitted from the back of the speaker from reaching the front and cancelling out the front wave improved the bass response significantly and thus baffling was important, especially at low frequencies.
Unfortunately the large expanse of wood forming the baffle, unless very stiff (thick), would also radiate the sound and defeat the baffling. But putting insulation on the walls, inside the speaker, prevented the rear wave from reaching the wood and mitigated the problem without the expense of thicker wood.
The tender body will radiate some of the sound but it does not have the area that a 24 by 18 by 48 inch speaker enclosure would have, so I would not expect stuffing fibre-glass or sound deadening material behind the speaker would improve the bass much.
Of course that was the theory back then, but neither ears nor speakers have changed much through the years.
Age is only a state of mind, keep the mind active and enjoy life
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