Speaker cloth!!!!!

[Pete Rosenbohm]

Need sources for speaker cloth for an entertainment center . Thanks

[Doug Jones]

As I do not have any recommendations to a source. I can suggest that a "GOOGLE" search for speaker cloth or speaker grill cloth should produce a good number of sources.
Good luck,

[Chad Young]

I have never used them but this was the first hit on Google.

http://www.simplyspeakers.com/11speakergrills.htm

[Chris Padilla]

Rockler has a nice section devoted to speaker stuff...cloth included! :)

[John Davidson]

Places I have used are Madisound, Zalytron and Parts Express all can be found by doing a web search or just adding thier resepctive names and .com.

[Jamie Buxton]

Pete --
You can use ordinary cloth from a yard-goods shop. Look for knit polyesters in dress weight (that is, not upholstery weight).

[Wes Bischel]

Pete,

I'm not sure what style you're looking for, but grillecloth.com and tubesandmore.com have repro cloth for old radios etc. I've ordered from tubes before and had good results.

Just thought I'd put it in the mix just in case.
Wes

[Bill Roland]

Try This link.
http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?webpage_id=3&SO=2&&DID=7&CATID=48&ObjectGroup_ID=140

[Chris Padilla]

Pete --
You can use ordinary cloth from a yard-goods shop. Look for knit polyesters in dress weight (that is, not upholstery weight).
Cool! This will make the wife happy for choice of colors! She wasn't happy with some of the colors I showed her online and in various catalogs.

Now she can match curtains to the speaker cloth...she'll be thrilled! :D

[Jamie Buxton]

Cool! This will make the wife happy for choice of colors! She wasn't happy with some of the colors I showed her online and in various catalogs.

Now she can match curtains to the speaker cloth...she'll be thrilled! :D


Chris --

Yeah, more colors and patterns is a big help in satisfying both halves of a couple. I suggest knit fabric because it is a little stretchy, and pulls itself nicely flat across the front of the cabinet. However, knits are not often used for draperies. Light-weight woven cloth can be used for speakers. It is just a tad more difficult to tension. You might ask her to consider different but coordinating fabrics for the two applications.

Jamie

[David Wilson]

Try madisound.com There a company which sells speaker components. Have purchased stuff from them at work and they are verry helpful .

[Gary Whitt]

Radio Shack carries small rolls of speaker cloth.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I found enough to cover four doors for $2.83 at Cloth World...To do the same thing using Rockler's woulda cost me $60!!http://sawmillcreek.org/images/smilies/eek.gifhttp://sawmillcreek.org/images/smilies/eek.gif

[JayStPeter]

Cool! This will make the wife happy for choice of colors! She wasn't happy with some of the colors I showed her online and in various catalogs.

Now she can match curtains to the speaker cloth...she'll be thrilled! :D

Chris,

I sure hope the "president" fabric is still available for your shop speakers. :D

Jay

[Lee Schierer]

Speaker cloth and ordinary knit fabrics are not the same type of fabic. Speaker cloth allows far more air movement through the fabric. Just hold a piece up to the light and you will see the difference. You will get better results if you use speaker cloth. We recently needed some speaker cloth for a project we did at our church. We were able to get a wide selection of colors from a local automotive audio shop. They had a catalog with lots of choices and they ordered the cloth for us. As I recall the price wasn't unreasonable either.

[Chris Padilla]

Chris,

I sure hope the "president" fabric is still available for your shop speakers. :D

Jay
Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy....:p

[Pete Rosenbohm]

Thanks to everyone for the help, with all these answers i should be able to find what i need. Thanks again:)

[Hal Flynt]

Not meaning to start an argument, but after a number of years following postings on audio web sites and some previous experience building speakers, I want to offer some suggestions and observations.

Let's start back in Okinawa during the 70's. We used to have outdoor parties, and since Japan was the Mecca for high-end audio equipment, we had a lot of good stuff. We would run 50 to 100 feet of heavy gauge cable outside to power the speakers, and it was a high humidity environment to say the least. Also rain squalls could crop up in a very few minutes. One day, with rain threatening, we decided to protect the speakers by placing black plastic trash bags over them. A very interesting thing was observed. If you closed your eyes while someone enclosed the speakers and then took them off a number of times, no one could tell the difference in the sound. This phenomenon opened up a lot of discussion and more parties outside. The speakers move air back and forth and not like a blower so the bag was almost (I can't say 100%) transparent to sound.

Now a lot of audiophiles will take whatever grill they have off of the cabinets and claim that the sound is "clearer", "better highs" and all that stuff, but I can not tell the difference.

From what I have read (no scientific data here) speaker cloth is usually polyester, polypropylene or some other synthetic material and isn't much different from what you buy in the fabric store although some "speaker cloth" is more rigid so as to lay flatter.

Another point. I built a center channel speaker a couple of years ago that I though sounded a little harsh or shrill on the high end, so to "tone" it down a little, I smeared some RTV on the dust cap and placed multiple layers of felt in front, and the felt (3 layers) didn't do much; whereas, the RTV did the most.

Here is my suggestion. Experiment. Play some music or DVD's and place different material over the speakers and see if you can really tell the difference. Try screen door material (metal and fiberglass), foam (My JBL Century 100's had foam grill covers); all sorts of fabric, then pick what you like.

[Steven Wilson]

Hal,

I've built a couple of small project recording studio's and a couple of mobile live broadcast rigs and ones choice in speaker screen material does have a number of effects on the sound radiating from the speaker(s) as well as sound reflected from near and far surfaces. Usually the most noticeable effect of a change in speaker screen material is a very distinct change in imaging, another typical effect is a change in midrange frequency response. The imaging is hard to quantify but frequency response and interference patterns can be measured (pulsating white/pink noise generator and a RTA).

The studio monitors I use now, and most of those that I have used in the past don't have speaker screens. However, I remember purchasing a small pair of studio monitors some years back (20) for use in a portable recording rig where the manufacturer (Mordant Short???) produced frequency response curves both with and without the screens and made specific recommendations on setup for using them both ways. I've also come accross (this is also awhile ago) documentation on soffit installation where a manufacture will recommend different crossover settings (usually external) based on the type of screen material being used.

Yes you can throw trashcan liners over PA speakers to protect them from the rain and they will generally still sound OK but having mixed in that setup I can tell you that the feedback points in the PA system will change and imaging will get all smeared; which isn't a problem for almost any outdoor venue (hey you generally run a mono PA system setup anyhow so imaging is moot).

As for entertainment centers, I have yet to hear one that really sounds good. Almost all suffer from one or more of the following problems - wrong speaker chosen to be enclosed in a cabinet, speaker placement not optimal, multipath distortion effects from interaction with the cabinet (weird reflection, refraction effects off of nearby surfaces), uncontrolled and very sloppy bass response due to speaker/cabinet coupling. For an entertainment center I wouldn't really be concerned by what material is placed in front of the speakers because they're going to have other, more serious, problems.

By far the best sound is usually obtained by locating the speakers out in the room, at least a few feet away from walls, save the cabinetry for the back wall.

[Hal Flynt]

Steve,

I can not argue with anything you said. I personally can't hear those nuances. I can go hear a BOSE Demo and go wow, then listen to the same demo where other speakers can be compared and change my mind.

I also agree on entertainment centers. I have seen some pretty restrictive setups. I want my JBL's out and my wife doesn't want to see them, so I will attempt to camoflage them some way. My center channel sounds better and voice matches better with damping, so it's going in the cabinet. The sub woofer on the other hand I want to leave out too as I am not confident that I can keep the Entertainment center cabinet vibrations out of the equation.

Right and Left rears may be another camo job.

But my basic point was that sound is subjective to the listener, and to me, most of the things I have used add very little coloration from what I can hear. (now flying jets for 5 years has something to do with what I hear anyway). :D

[Chris Padilla]

I also agree on entertainment centers. I have seen some pretty restrictive setups. I want my JBL's out and my wife doesn't want to see them, so I will attempt to camoflage them some way. My center channel sounds better and voice matches better with damping, so it's going in the cabinet. The sub woofer on the other hand I want to leave out too as I am not confident that I can keep the Entertainment center cabinet vibrations out of the equation.

Right and Left rears may be another camo job.

But my basic point was that sound is subjective to the listener, and to me, most of the things I have used add very little coloration from what I can hear. (now flying jets for 5 years has something to do with what I hear anyway). :D
Hal,

Bingo on the WAF (wife acceptance factor)! :D My wife does not want to see speakers...not at all. To that end, my subwoofer is in the corner of the room, surrounded by a cabinet that is stuffed with a TV and all the electronic goodies--you can't even see the subwoofer, only hear it. Only last night with the Return of King going full-bore did I finally get some vibration in the cabinet. I haven't noticed this problem until that soundtrack (must've been some really low-freq sounds or I had the volume up particularly high) and the sub has been in there 5 months or so.

I also have the rear surround up in the ceiling more or less hidden. I don't have a particularly high-end HT system but for the money we paid ($500), it sounds awesome and we love it. It really feels like we are experiencing a movie theater.

[Jim Kilburg]

Pete, I found speaker cloth on E-Bay for a grandfather clock project. I don't Remember how much I paid for it, but I know it was cheap.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I am one who doesn't keep the speaker cloth inserts on, at least those that are removable anyway. I know to most it may seem trivial, but when at high volume listening levels, it can make a difference....less resistance for the sound waves results in a more 'pure' sound.