Wool Felt Pad Recommendations

[jtt]

I'm in the process of building a set of 4 RL-p15 d2 subwoofers (6.5 cubic feet, ported with 6" aeroports and tuned to 18hz) and was wondering if using felt pad in them would be appropriate (and why) or if using a cheap acoustical foam would be just as good.

If the felt is the way to go which SAE Grade No./Thickness should I look at? (Looking on McMaster-Carr website) and approximately how many square feet per subwoofer should I use?

Thank you.

[ThomasW]

Wool felt gasket material is quite good and VERY expensive. You'll get equally good results using batts of plain old fiberglass insulation from the local home center store...

[jtt]

I'm not as worried about the cost. Which grade felt should I be looking at?

Also has anyone tried the Auralex mineral fiber product?

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_mfi/sound_isolation_mfi.asp

It might be easier to deal with then fiberglass installation.

[ThomasW]

Don't know anyone who's used that for anything. It reminds me of the compressed (aka semi-rigid) fiberglass now popular of making bass traps.

You can use the regular old acoustic foam sold by PE. The thicker stuff works fine....

[Mark Seaton]

Don't know anyone who's used that for anything. It reminds me of the compressed (aka semi-rigid) fiberglass now popular of making bass traps.

Same stuff. It's a lot more dense than the standard pink, fluffy fiberglass. You might be able to get away with using less of it than fiberglass, but I don't think (don't know for sure) it would work as well or any better than standard fiberglass.

Just grab some of the cheap face masks and some longer cuff gloves when packing it in.

[noah katz]

The purpose of stuffing a sub is to increase the effective volume and absorb higher freq.

Rigid fiberglass is worse on both counts.

[jtt]

If I use loose fiberglass do I need to worry about it getting shot out of the port? I figured wool felt would be more expensive, but less issues to deal with come install time.