What is a Dampening Material Kit

About NoRez

About Black Hole 5

Dampening Material Kits
A unique service we have not seen anywhere else is our custom cut dampening material kits. Our Dampening Material Kits are designed to save you time and money. We do the very laborious (and somewhat dangerous) task of measuring the cabinet and cutting the pieces. Each kit comes with pre-cut and numbered pieces as well as easy to follow installation instructions and diagrams. They are easy to install and make a big difference in sound quality!

Skiing Ninja™ offers Dampening Material Kits of NoRez and Black Hole 5 for just about every one of our speaker upgrades.

With a pre-cut kit DMK kit from Skiing Ninja Systems™, you never pay for material you don't need. This can save you lots of money and you won't have extra pieces laying around after.

About NoRez
NoRez is a damping material developed specifically for loudspeaker applications and in particular the functions of dampening and eliminating enclosure resonances.

With nearly all loudspeakers there are areas of the enclosure that will resonate while playing. Many speakers allow large unbraced panel areas to be greatly excited and create resonances not present in the original music. Some loudspeakers are well braced and are even made from thicker than average material to minimize resonances, yet enclosure resonances can and will exist.

NoRez is designed to greatly attenuate such resonances using a thick layer of damping material that is treated with PSA. The damping layer of NoRez is many times thicker than most that you will find in a loudspeaker.

The heavy damping layer of NoRez not only adds mass to the enclosure but it is comprised of a non-resonant material that effectively kills the resonance and greatly quiets the enclosure so that you hear the music and not the box.

The second layer of NoRez is a 1" thick layer of open cell foam, with a textured surface, designed to absorb standing waves and internal reflections in the enclosure.

Many other aftermarket products used in that application often suspend a barrier layer sandwiched between foam layers. This can have some isolation benefit, but does little to control enclosure resonances.

This isolation layer is typically used in noise control pads to keep sound in some frequency ranges from passing from one side of the barrier to the other. This is typically used in industrial applications to reduce sound produced by noisy machinery. This can sometimes have an adverse effect in some loudspeaker designs if used with heavy coverage as the suspended layer can mass load the woofer to some extent.

Some material sold for use in loudspeakers incorporate this sound barrier layer with no damper at all. It has little to no effectiveness in resonance control. While some of these barrier pads may cost very little, using it in a loudspeaker can often be of very little value other than its effectiveness to absorb internal standing waves with its open cell foam layers. If it has no damping layer then it will not be effective for resonance control!

So mass load your enclosure and not your woofers, and don't settle for less.

Skiing Ninja™ offers full sheets of NoRez as well as pre-cut kits. With a pre-cut kit, we measure your cabinet and cut all the pieces before shipping to you. This WILL save you HOURS. A pre-cut kit costs just a little more but the benefit for you is huge.

Measuring the cabinet can take a significant amount of time to get everything just right. Cutting NoRez can be done with a box cutter type of knife but realistically, a table saw is best. The peel and stick backing along with the diagrams we include makes installation very easy.



About Black Hole 5
One of the main contributing factors in the clean output of a sub is a solid non-resonant enclosure. Solid granite walls, sand filled walls, heavy bracing and heavy damped walls go a long way to provide clean output. Most of all colorations come from the enclosure itself. If you lay your hand on it while it is playing and feel vibrations pounding through the walls of the box then your sub is no longer reproducing the music it has become an instrument. Adding bracing and lining the walls with damping material can do wonders for cleaning it up. However all of that stuff takes up air space. You then have to counter that by adding more damping material like poly fill, fiberglass insulation, open cell foam panels, etc. This slows down the air flow in the box and makes the woofer act as if it is in a larger box.

Products like Black Hole 5 (BH5) and NoRez do take up space. At least the damping and barrier layers do, but the foam layer counters that and the end result is that the woofer sees about the same air space as it did before. Now BH5 has a damper and a suspended barrier layer. The damper controls the resonance of the panel that it is stuck to as it is a very inert and non-resonant material. It also has a barrier layer suspended in the middle to convert pressure into heat. It is a sound barrier and it helps to keep sound waves from passing from one side to the other. This works great for applications like subwoofers. However, it can have some negative effects when used with small drivers and used with heavy coverage as the suspended barrier layer can start to mass load the driver just like a port or passive radiator and this can have some negative impact on the midrange. Because of this effect NoRez was developed.

For subwoofers, Black Hole 5 is the way to go. You will find that your efforts are well worth the investment, including your time, as your sub will sound cleaner and tighter than you ever thought it could.