Hybrid Audio Technologies Imagine Series Components - Manual (Page 18)

no sonic benefit to your Imagine installation. The Imagine drivers are long-throw midbass, and the
plastic mounting baffles that come from the factory in virtually every vehicle will lead to buzzes,
rattles, vibrations, and resonances, all of which negatively affect the Imagine installation. In other
vehicles, you may have attached the Imagine midbass’ directly to the door metal (hopefully with
a layer or two of self-adhesive sound damping in between), but this is still not entirely ideal.
In whatever scenario you have installed your Imagine midbass, there are certain “tricks” and
techniques that may be applied to get the most out of your Imagine component set, specifically
the midbass installation, as follows:
Mounting the baffle, sound damping, and “decoupling”
The mounting baffle or mounting location should either be secured extremely well to the vehicle’s
body, or completely isolated from the vehicle’s chassis. The reasoning is that the speaker baffle
panel will vibrate and will radiate sound. Even small vibrations can result in the baffle itself
radiating more sound than the actual speaker at certain frequencies. The mounting baffle or
mounting location should be damped with a layer of typical sound damping to reduce the Q of
the baffle and lower its vibration resonance frequency below the range of the driver’s frequency
response. In many cases, using thicker baffle panel in concert with self-adhesive sound damping
can also be advantageous, provided the rearward wave of the speaker has no obstructions created
by the baffle itself. Finally, if possible, the speaker should be mechanically decoupled from the
baffle. This can be something as simple as a layer of self-adhesive foam tape, to more exotic
examples of decoupling, including rubberized rings or multiple-layer septum shielding.
Building solid mounting baffles
In many cases, it is advisable to mount your Imagine midbass’ in high-stiffness wood or
high-density fiberglass (or wood treated with fiberglass resin). Hybrid Audio Technologies
recommends the use of a solid hardwood, such as birch or oak, namely because these woods are
stiff and help to dissipate resonance, and screws can be inserted and removed multiple times
without stripping. Avoid Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF), particularly in wet environments
like the door, as the MDF will act like a sponge with humidity and moisture, and not only that, the
MDF is a dense, but not stiff type of wood, and the results may not be particularly noticeable if
you use MDF. Once your baffle is built, it must be covered in one or two layers of a good-quality,
brand name self-adhesive damping product; a solid wood mounting baffle with sound damping
treatment will augment the Imagine installation by eliminating resonances.
Section II • Moving Forward
Lesson Four: Point-Sourcing
The term “point-sourcing” is often used to describe the technique of having a single pair of
speakers in an installation cover the majority of the critical middle band frequencies. In many
installation scenarios, the Imagine midbass could be considered a point-source speaker driver,
because it has the ability to reproduce six octaves of tones. Point-sourcing, if done correctly,
can lend itself to a variety of valuable attributes, including precise image definition and stable
sound staging character. By applying Lessons 1-3 above, the Imagine midbass can be used as a
point-source driver to achieve excellent staging and imaging results.
The lesson to be learned here is that the Imagine midbass, given its wide-bandwidth design, can
faithfully reproduce as much as six octaves of tones, and would make a valuable addition to any
sound system as a point-source driver for the spectrum comprising vocal imaging cues.
Lesson Five: Reference
One of the most important things to do before completing your Imagine installation is to get a
reference for your future listening tests. To really know what a snare drum sounds like, you must go
and listen to one, in person, live and un-amplified. There is no substitute for the visceral impact and
emotion of live music. Nothing else in life can touch your soul the way music does. Whether it’s a
200-member orchestra, or a four-piece fusion band, nothing compares to the phenomenon of live
music.
Take this as Hybrid Audio’s official request: become a student of music and your mobile audio
sound system will be better for it. We want nothing more than to know there are great sounding
audio systems around the world using our products, and you’d make us all very proud if you
became a student of music and learned its beauty and passion.
Advanced Installation of the Imagine Component
Systems
Mounting Baffle Considerations
Now that we have revealed five of our most important “Lessons Learned”, we can now apply these
lessons to the Imagine installation. The first important matter is the physical installation of your
Imagine midbass, and more specifically with respect to improving the Imagine midbass’ mounting
baffles. Most vehicles’ factory mounting locations for speakers are less than ideal. In most cases, the
OEM speaker mounting flanges are likely nothing more than flimsy extruded plastic, and provide
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