hey, what do subs sound like when you take the foam/cotton wadding out of the sealed box?

Answer 1

It will sound slightly muddier and have a small gain at higher bass tones, and loss of the deep, hard hit. It will sound boomy (in a bad way).

Answer 2

Pollyfil is a sound absorption, dampening fiber that will deepen bass, provide cleaner midrange, tone down any unwanted reverberation and improve the dynamic extension of any speaker system.

It also helps eliminate standing waves, which is something like an echo inside the box. This will give you tighter and more accurate bass. It also helps to give a flatter frequency response to the overall sound, which is good. Besides this, it also helps reduce the vibration of the box, which results in less distortion. There is a big difference to the bass when you have an insulated box.

Damping also increases subwoofer efficiency by dissipating some energy that affects the sub, particularly the voice coil. It is advisable to put damping material inside a box. Pillow polyfill and fiberglass insulation are common, though polyfill is a lot easier on your skin. Polyfill also "tricks" a sub into thinking it is in a bigger box. Most sealed and vented enclosures require 1/2 lb. of dampening material per cubic foot of enclosure. For best results it is recommended to loosely fill the material throughout the enclosure.

As long as the guidelines of 1/2 lb. for every cu.ft., all will be well.

Answer 3

Like crap. The insulation is intended to absorb waves inside the cabinet before they cancel out some of the frequencies produced by the speaker.