Woofin' up the Sequel
Re:
2. Isolate the woofer from the panel with some sort of sound dampening.
I'm not an engineer or physicist, but the woofer seems more likely to influence the panel than the panel does the woofer.
The bass was most improved on my Sequel Z's by:
1. Putting my tube amp on a Mapleshade 4' maple platform, with their recommended footers and supports, despite the fact the amp was on a slab floor. Made no sense to me that a slab could be a source of woofer degrading vibration, but the results were immediately apparent there and in the midrange.
2. Mapleshade Ver II Power cord on the preamp (just two days ago) distinctly making the bass more articulate and fast. Replaced another after market PC with this, a distinct improvement. I know this PC had gotten some negative comments some time ago in this forum based solely on its appearance, and it ain't impressive looking at all, but the results spoke for themselves to me --- and I had plans to sell it immediately if it didn't measure up. Now I may get more for elsewhere in the systyem.
3. Replacing the Chinese 12ax7's in my TAD 150 signature with Telefunken smooth plates. Again, more articulate bass, and benefits throughout the speaker's range. Now I wamt to try other tubes.
4. Different interconnects between various components. I won't get into this debate on the merits of different interconnects because everyone has opinions and favorites.
All of which suggests to me that there are lots of places within the system to improve this without getting into attempted mods to the speaker. Most all of the stuff I suggested, including the tubes, are for things that can be returned without any penalty other than S&H each way, so are easily and painlessly undone if they doesn't work.
If you consider how many variables there are to interact before the signal even gets to the speaker, experimentation makes it apparent that many things can affect the sound as it emerges in your listening room. Then there's room treatment, spikes, placement and Q-tips for yoiur ears...