If you care about true sound and maximizing your subwoofers performance
, it would serve you well to take a few moments to educate yourself on the basics of speaker box construction techniques. Right now, I want to talk about some simple ideas on reducing flex in your custom speaker box.
In order to minimize flex, we first need to look at the quality of materials and why it is important. Acoustically speaking, wood is the best material to use in constructing speaker boxes for total overall sub bass reproduction. However, different qualities of wood exist and to 1 MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) is the best. Thickness and density of wood is important in battling flex.
Flex is when the walls of the speaker box vibrate from high decibel sound waves generated from the subwoofer. This is not good because the flex of the walls are constantly changing the internal volume of the speaker enclosure . It also is detrimental to the longevity of the speaker box as the movement of walls turns out to be extremely hard on the enclosure joints.
Why is controlling flex so important? Two main reasons are vital in the long run. #1 your subwoofer performs safely and most efficiently at a manufactures recommended air space. That air space acts as a spring to keep the subs cone pushing/pulling motion, moving in a clean controlled manner. When the spring doesnt match the recommendations for the woofer, which is a result when the walls of the speaker box are flexing, the sub is in danger of blowing.
#2 is to protect and maintain the air tight seal of the joints in the speaker box. In a nut shell, flex weakens joints that eventually give way to air leaks. Air leaks weaken the spring that a solid air tight speaker box provides. And a weakened spring will cause the subwoofer to attempt to perform outside of the parameters it was designed. Damage to the sub is inevitable.