Hello Everyone, I'm a new post, but I've been reading for a while,  I was wondering if there are any adverse effects of not leaving the backside of the WO32 open.  My problem is that I have hardwood floors in my listening space and if placed on the floor would be extremely leaky vs on carpet. So I was wondering if anyone has:
closed the open side on one, and if so were there any compensations that had to be made.
-or-
should I just get really small carpets to go under the cabinets. and if so does shag or low pile work best.

About the Wo32 on carpet
from steve in his write up
It can also be used without the lid by flipping it over on a 1/2 pile carpet with pad.  The floor becomes the lid at that point and seals up the box.  The Q-Loss through the carpeting creates an action similar to a varo-vent allowing the box to breath.  Direct coupling to the floor through carpet raises the efficiency, lowers the cut off frequency, and offers the richest sound.

It will not work well laying open face down on the wood floor unless  you added a thick gasket to the all the panels so it will seal to the floor effectively coupling it directly and making the floor the lid. But in this case you would not get the varo-vent effect.

INMHO

Jet

I did not mean for my post to come off that way.

Sorry man.  :(

If it came off like you know nothing and I know it all it was never intended that way.
Besides that you know that would not be true anyway.

Us creative types have to stick together and keep the faith

The gexter

here you go man... just make a top/lid for the box, cover the top/lid with shag carpet, put 3 or four dozen screws in and BAM got yourself the same thing... wonder what would happen if you treated BOTH top and bottom?

[quote author=gexter  link=1136480094/0#7 date=1136984598]Hmmm   how do ya figure that?
IMHO of course. [/quote]
if you got the tension right on the screws it would kinda be like a varo vent? and both sides is interesting?

Well, you floor also has padding underneath the carpet.

What if you:

Use some spray adhesive ($5) and stick some padding to your board, then do the same with the carpet. Now lay your board on the ground carpet side up. Lay your box on the carpet as you would in your home. Use some decorative brackets to now secure the box and carpet-board at the correct "tension", which is actually the weight of the box, as it would be in the actual setting.

Flip and repeat, lol.

[quote author=DirtDawg  link=1136480094/0#11 date=1137018973]Are you guys on kRaK?
Building a WO32 and making the top and bottom flex in response to internal pressures will create a higher order cabinet with 2 large out of tune passive radiators equalizing most of the pressure the drivers can create.
The response would not follow the original signal's waveform very closely. (Enormous group delay)
The main reason to use the floor instead of ONE side is to better load the floor. Coupling the cabinet to the floor is a tricky process and may not be desirable in all cases. [/quote]

there is 2 people im not ever gonna argue with, 1 is steve d  the other is you dirt

Settle down Dirt. Just kidding Dawg, they prolly are on crack.

These guys are talking about making "floors" and attaching them to both top and bottom of the WO.  The simple answer is that the WO works well on plain carpet floor because the floor extends the horn's effective mouth increaseing efficency.  Hence the "coupling effect."

Then the carpet allows some air, very restricted air, to go in and out of the box making it easier for the woofer to move the air masses, yet keeping the movement under control.

If you simply attach "floors" (wood, padding, then carpet) to the WO32, you get no coupling effect and alot more air moving in and out, decrease the woofers ability to pressurize anything and hold its course(play music). In essence moving the woofer from a sealed, controlled enviroment to a unrestricted Free Air enviroment.  

SO no benefit that I can think of, although one side with a floor and perhaps a floor with a 3/4 in deep cutout would allow the wo to "couple" with the floor and maintain a similar "varo vent."