WiiM Amp Ultra Users Experience

[DazST]

Here's an example. These are the exact ones I bought:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Oatey-Gripper-2-in-Plastic-Mechanical-Test-Plug-33401D/100346775

They come in various materials. I found these to give an excellent and secure seal with no leakage and do not come loose from vibration.

It goes without saying that they should only be tightened until snug, don't go nuts cranking these things down.

-Ed

That link wouldn't work for me for some reason, but I did a quick google search and can now see the kind of plug you're referring to. This looks like it would completely seal off the port, compared to a foam bung that only tends to reduce it. Is completely sealing the speaker really a good idea though? Does it not detract from the speaker's performance in any other ways? Or is it more of a 'net gain' kind of scenario?

 

[adias]

Here's an example. These are the exact ones I bought:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Oatey-Gripper-2-in-Plastic-Mechanical-Test-Plug-33401D/100346775

They come in various materials. I found these to give an excellent and secure seal with no leakage and do not come loose from vibration.

It goes without saying that they should only be tightened until snug, don't go nuts cranking these things down.

-Ed

Socks not good enough?

In any case, if the speaker has any design credibility, blocking the vent is an affront to its proper design. And no, stuffing vented speakers ports does not miraculously convert it into a sealed acoustic suspension design. Those require different drivers, namely woofer surrounds and spiders.

 

[Eddie Spaghetti]

My advice with subwoofers: the wrong subwoofer won’t integrate well and/or won’t really improve or add much to your system’s overall sound. The right one will integrate cleanly and completely transform the sound of your system to a level you could not have imagined. Take this from a guy who has played A LOT with A LOT of different subwoofers over the years.

And it’s not just about the brand. That can tell you nothing sometimes. For example, my dad, who has a pair of Magnepan LRS+ quasi-ribbon floorstanders, started off with a Rel Tzero. It added nothing to his system. It’s a toy, not a proper sub, Rel labels on the enclosure notwithstanding. Waste of time and money. But jump up to something like an HT/1205 and now suddenly that’s a serious sub. This can transform your system.

I am not sure how far your speakers extend down in your room, but you would be absolutely surprised at how much music actually exists below 30Hz. Additionally, many speakers, especially smaller standmounts, while capable of output approaching 30Hz, will begin to compress and strain to get down there, affecting the quality of sound higher up in the spectrum and inducing problems like intermodular distortion. High-pass filtering your speakers and allowing the subwoofer to cover that higher energy bass can dramatically improve the quality of your speakers’ output from just this alone, even more so if you have ported speakers and seal the ports since they’re no longer needed to boost low frequency output.

-Ed

I did not know this! I know there was a noticeable difference between my sealed sub and the ported one it replaced, but I never thought to apply that to my mains. There are two big ol’ ports each in the back of my Paradigms; crossover is already set to 120 hz in the Amp Ultra. Would blocking up those ports in the mains really make that much of a difference?

 

[EddNog]

I did not know this! I know there was a noticeable difference between my sealed sub and the ported one it replaced, but I never thought to apply that to my mains. There are two big ol’ ports each in the back of my Paradigms; crossover is already set to 120 hz in the Amp Ultra. Would blocking up those ports in the mains really make that much of a difference?

Depends on the speakers. The nice part is that this is fully reversible.

-Ed

 

[EddNog]

Socks not good enough?

In any case, if the speaker has any design credibility, blocking the vent is an affront to its proper design. And no, stuffing vented speakers ports does not miraculously convert it into a sealed acoustic suspension design. Those require different drivers, namely woofer surrounds and spiders.

Pretty sure Andrew Jones has decent credibility.

But I don’t think he’d consider it an affront to his design of the SourcePoint 8s—he even includes a pair of bungs with the Master Edition upgrade to the original SourcePoint 10s.

-Ed

 

[adias]

Pretty sure Andrew Jones has decent credibility.

But I don’t think he’d consider it an affront to his design of the SourcePoint 8s—he even includes a pair of bungs with the Master Edition upgrade to the original SourcePoint 10s.

-Ed

Yes Jones is a top speaker design. I advise setting your speakers as he advises,

 

[slartibartfast]

I did not know this! I know there was a noticeable difference between my sealed sub and the ported one it replaced, but I never thought to apply that to my mains. There are two big ol’ ports each in the back of my Paradigms; crossover is already set to 120 hz in the Amp Ultra. Would blocking up those ports in the mains really make that much of a difference?

If the crossover is set to 120Hz or even 80Hz there won't be much activity at the port frequency so bungs shouldn't really make any difference. Easy to check using the "Evaluate" feature or REW. I do have bungs in mine though so when I get a chance I'll do some measurements.

 

[dominikz]

If the crossover is set to 120Hz or even 80Hz there won't be much activity at the port frequency so bungs shouldn't really make any difference.

I tend to agree with this.

A while ago I played a bit with plugging the ports on my Revel M16, I've documented the exercise here. With 90dB SPL at 1m there was no appreciable difference in distortion level >80Hz between ports plugged vs unplugged. Between 35-80Hz distortion is lower with the ports open (which is IMHO expected):

In my case plugging the port made the subwoofer integration slightly worse so I kept it unplugged - though I do believe in some cases the opposite may work better. IMHO best to try both variants and see which results in a smoother response around the crossover.