Ballistic Sound Deadeners

Ballistic Sound Suppression Systems is a brand of car electronics mothership Metra, whose scions include Axxess Integrate, Connects2, Raptor, Shuriken batteries, Tsunami, Install Bay installation hardware and the Metra Home Theater group, Audio solutions and Ethereal. With this big a footprint in the car audio industry, it's no small wonder that they know what's required to manufacture a superior-performing line of sound-control materials.

The ideal enclosure for a speaker is a very large box made of some very stiff material, like thick steel or ceramic. The theory says that this box should not move at all when the speaker is alternatively pushing air into it and sucking it back out. Any movement of the enclosure is energy that doesn't go into the air outside, and consequently into your ear.

Unfortunately, car doors aren't a good replication of that ideal enclosure. They're just about the right size internally to make some bass notes boomy while others disappear, and they're made of thin, springy sheet metal that vibrates to the music, stealing power and introducing distortion. Add in the traffic noise from outside, and it's a wonder our music sounds as good as it does. Proper use of damping materials can vastly improve your sound.

That sound dampening material also keeps road noise out, by using the same properties: it lowers the resonant frequency of the springy steel panel it's glued to, and absorbs a lot of energy, eventually dissipating it as heat. There's a third advantage: the rubber and aluminum sandwich Ballistic uses will reflect heat in either direction, while the rubber acts as an insulator.