What do you guys do about the MM12 Grill Hitting Issue?

[Jordan]

Ya well i've got an mm12 off of a rockford fosgate 500s(500rms 1000 max), i finished my break in period this week and have started cranking it up some, but now the rubber its the grill and makes a terrible weird noise... i know this is a common issue since i ahve read about it in the polk mm12 review on polkaudio.com .... but wtf can we do about it? i thought about just taking it off, but if i take off the grill the sub will come out too, which polk clearly states will void the warranty..... i also thought of possibly dremmeling parts of the grill off so the sub would have more clearance, but i'm not quite sure if i want to risk cutting a hole in my sub to do that... can you guys give me any ideas?

could some autorized polk warranty person just tell me its ok to to take off the grill evne though in doing so the sub will be temporarily be removed?

please leave your thoughts, thanks!

[exalted512]

they say it will void your warranty?
thats a stupid move on polk's part...
ive had the same problem with mine, i just turn the volume down...not much you can do other than dremeling the grill down
-Cody

[Jordan]

ya, in the booklet that came w/ the mm12 it says if you ever remove the subwoofer from the enclosure(which would be a result of removing the grill, your warranty is void, but w/e, i guess i'll just have to go for the dremmel option... has anyone tried it? i know i wouldn't let myself do it until i sorta retrofitted something metal to put between the sub and the part of the grill i was cutting out...

[AustinKP]

Just be very careful when doing it. Seems to be the only plausible option for now...

[jordann]

ok, so i grew some balls, and went for it this weekend, and i'm glad to say, MY SUBWOOFER DOESN'T HAVE ANY HOLES/RIPS/TEARS IN IT! haha.... it just took some patience, i used a thin 'grinding stone' tip on a 35,000 rpm dremmel, it wasn't easy at all, the plastic keeps trying to melt and glue back to where it was, it was a very tedius process, unforunately none of te dremmel 'sanding' tips i could find were thin enough to fit between the sub and grill so i could make my cutting job look half decent, so as of now the parts of the grill that i cut are sorta jagged and fugly, but w/e, i haven't heard that rattle of rubber+grill yet, so i'm happy, and as a note, these last two days i've had to constantly be vacuuming off plastic dust that keeps falling out from the cracks onto the rubber surrounding lol, this was definitel yworth doing imo

[exalted512]

sounds good, when i finally get around to doing mine i have the luxury of taking the grill off without voiding any type of warranty...
but hearing you do this makes me want to do it quicker...i wonder if i can find a dremmel anywhere around this house...
-Cody

[LittleCar_w/12s]

If you have a harbor freight, they have a few cheap ones (not dremel) for like $14. If I werent so broke, I'd get one right now. They also have a neat 2aa powered pencil one tht takes the bits, it's a great engraver and would be an ideal toolbox thing to engrave owners names on every piece of installed equipment (it's like $3)
Aww well...
-Jerry

[LittleCar_w/12s]

oh, you can go to harborfreight.com too. Not the top quality of tools, but very cost effective
-Jerry

[Jordann]

hmmm duno if this would be considered very ethical... but you could just go to wallmart or something, but a dremmel use it and take it back if your really really strapped for cash

and as for taking the grill off, now that i think about it, i think it might actaully be easier with the grill on it with the grill off it would be hard to keep in a good position for grinding/cutting, attached to teh sub box is about the best place i've found since you can just rotate the box and it gives you fairly easy access to all of the spokes, but if you go w/ a dremmel, the piece you need is thin and has a green tip called a 'grinding stone', small enough so its safe for the small area, and its very effective, just be sure to get the 35000 rpm dremmel and not one of hte cheaper ones.... i made the mistake of originally buying hte battery opperated $20 dremmels that does like 10k rpms, i htought it would be enough... but nooooo, took forever + the battery died after doing one spoke, and the battery takes 3 HOURS to charge!

anyways good luck, and its definitely worth it

[exalted512]

i dont think spinnging my 80lb box is very efficient...lol
-Cody