Filling voids? What do you use..

[Chris12]

What are you guys filling voids with?...

In your car of course..

I've been using Denim insulation (in dry areas), but its so damn messy.

Are there any unconventional options out there?

[geolemon]

Do you mean voids like acoustical spaces like the inside of doors or inside of enclosures?

Or do you mean areas you don't want sound to potentially develop negatively, like the space between the door baffle and the inside of the cosmetic door panel, or under-dash?

For enclosures, polyfill is tough to beat.
I know some people use rockwool, or the board version to line enclosure walls.

For the inside of doors it's different - it's moist, there's moving stuff inside...
I just line it with CCF on top of a layer of standard damping material, to simply dampen reflections inside. That's not going to cause an isothermal reaction but that's fine in that case.

That void inside the door panel is interesting since your speakers are mounted not on but behind them, so some sound energy can resonate in there, potentially destructively.

I think the best way to prevent that is to buy foam rings to direct the sound out the door panel grilles - and ideally they'll actually make contact with the door panel so all the sound energy is directed out. Then, filling that void beyond that isn't really necessary but if you were like me and bought way too much CCF you might have also filled up most of that space with CCF again to soak up stray reflections.

Then under dash - I've really never tried to address the reflections under dash but some cars do have voids that are open to the footwell - many cars have trim panels blocking those voids off, and I think that's a great way to address that - if you have a panel, dampen and stiffen it. If you don't, make one and possibly address it like the area inside the door panel.

For just "filling up space" with hopes of suppressing reflections in random places - CCF works well and is adhesive and inexpensive.

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[Chris12]

Thanks for the extensive reply. I was referring to the door card/ door panel.

Everything you said makes sense. I’ve been meaning to cut the door plastic in front of my door speakers so I can cut down on resonances, and I guess I should really just focus on that rather than trying to stuff more crap into the door trim. I haven’t completely figured out how I’m going to restore the OEM look to the door after I cut it, thus the reason I haven’t done it yet, but I have some ideas

Thanks again!

[geolemon]

No problem - share a pic if you don't mind.
Don't you have OEM grilles on the door panels?

If you just need to enlarge them, there might be a way to do that without cutting a big hole and finding (or making) a grille for it.

And I have a ton of CCF. I have plenty to give away if you need it. Maybe cover me for shipping or something.

[Chris12]

Thanks for the generous CCF offer. I also have plenty of CCF sheet - I bought a bunch from second skin within the past year (excellent stuff )

Here are some 2015-2017 Camry door panel pictures I pulled from eBay. They’re identical to mine except for some trim color differences:


Like most other newer Toyotas, these Camry’s come from the factory with 6”x9” in the doors. I currently have 8” JL zr800’s installed, and they actually align with the perforated areas of the door nicely.

To allow the increased amount of sound (air) to exit the door cavity/reduce resonance, I was going to cut the plastic in front of the cone area. Then, I was thinking of supporting the area with metal mesh, prior to covering it with speaker grill fabric (I have the nice stuff from parts express).

I guess it would be easier to just drill some holes into the factory grill (then cover it, of course), but I’ve already spent a lot of back-and-forth time on these doors.

I’m certainly open to suggestions though.. Any ideas?

[Chris12]

I’m also thinking of lining the door card with sm600l (1.6” thick) 3m thinsulate. I have a surprising amount of space in my door card cavity (some areas have 2”+ of depth), so it certainly won’t hurt anything.

[DubScientist]

Hard to tell from the image, but to me the airflow through the door panel doesn't look terribly restrictive.

Before you start cutting, I'd add as much mass as you can to the panel and make sure the different pieces of it (joined by those black circles in your pic of the inner panel) are tight and don't flex against each other. Using hot glue or silicone on top of the join points and along the seams can help.

Then use the Thinsulate you have to help make a tight fit between the panel and the car door so that rattle point is taken care of as well.

I agree with Geo about using foam to make rings as a waveguide of sorts. I did that with the midranges in my current car, since they're in the stock locations. I had some left over foam panels from some PC part boxes that worked well. Cut them into strips and hot glued them in place around the midrange, then put the door panel back on, which compressed the foam enough to make a good seal.

But I bet you'll still hear a rattle at some point! I run my mid basses in kicks now, but when they were in the doors of my last car (granted, it was a '93 Civic sedan with manual windows, not a Lexus), it was a never-ending chase.

[geolemon]

For those door panels - I think I have a far easier and more invisible method.

Looking at that grill area on the door, I would just find the correct size drill bit that matches the tiny holes in the grille area, then move down and drill out the "fake holes" below what's open now. Turn that fake portion of the grill into more real grille. There's a pretty good amount of potential opening down there, it looks like.

With a careful job, it'll look 100% OEM, too.

If you have any noise/chuffing after that (which I don't expect, even with eights), then a more extreme approach might be needed, but I'd try that first.

I think the Thinsulate would be a great idea - I haven't ever had that available locally, so I haven't used it. It should be better in all ways than my "multiple layers of CCF" including it'll block more sound, not just absorb reflections.
Still mostly high frequency content, but that ain't nothing, as they say!

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[Chris12]

Thank for the advice guys!

[BigAl205]

Jason has a really good tutorial for doing door cards 110%