Speaker Baffles - Yes or No

Hello, I am now upgrading my stock 08 non JBL system with a new Alpine headunit, infinity Kappa speakers and a Alpine amp. After I got all this stuff a friend of mine is telling me to put in foam speaker baffles around the speakers. I am not sure about this - what does the baffle actually do? How does it change the sound? I am not planning at this time to install a sub so I do want a bit of bass coming out of my front 6 x 9s. Thoughts?

 

Read reviews on the sites that sell them, like crutchfield.com. I have not heard a lot of good thing about the foamy type of baffles, like killing bass responce and sucking into the speakers during loud playing, but please keep in mind I have no hands-on experience with them. I only know what I have read.

 

Thanks..... Anyone else have any experience with them

 

Foam baffles, no. Wooden baffles from Mr. Marv... YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

 

Wooden baffles?

 

Yeah... PM Mr Marv and he can get you some. They are made from MDF, but Marv cuts the hole specifically for YOUR speakers. And the craftsmanship is second to none! *********.com sells them, but I think they are plastic and they don't custom cut the hole for your speakers.

As Marv always says, "an 'ok' speaker installed properly will sound 10x better than a great speaker installed improperly"... (ok, I paraphrased a bit ). But a "proper installation" includes a good set of baffles.

 

Ahh.... I am talking about the foam or plastic cup you can put around a speaker to fully enclose it. I have a set of mounting rings from taco tunes.

 

Ahh... Never mind then..

 

remember, sound comes from both sides of the speaker. why do you want to enclose the back side of the speaker? it needs that free air space in your door to perform properly.
there is a foam material that acts more like a sound deadner to tighten upo your highs that could be installed over dynamat or ramaat or whatever - maybe this is what your talking about?
call marve - he'll get you straightened out....

 

The baffles are to protect the speaker cone from water damage. Of all the reports I read, fully enclosing the rear of the speaker with a foam baffle messes up the sound. When I installed my Alpines, I cut the baffle in half and mounted the top part to shield against any water coming down from the window.

Fritz

 

That is absolutely correct and a good idea for what to actually use those foam baffles for. There is sometimes confusion concerning the "baffles" I make and the foam baffles referred to. A baffle "separates" so a fully enclosed foam device like that could be considered a baffle however as mentioned this not a good idea since the vast majority of mobile audio speakers are designed to work in "infinite" baffle (how's that for confusion! ). What I make could technically be called a baffle "adapter" since it not only separates the rear wave from the front wave but it allows you to adapt a different size speaker into that large hole.