[sr20de4evr]

I looked in about 10 different dictionaries, and that one you linked to is the ONLY one that made any mention of heat. Now I'm not saying that you're wrong, I just think it depends on their interpretation of damping. In my mind there are atleast 2 ways to think about it, one way is for some device to apply a restraining force on an oscillating object to try and settle it. This will dissipate the object's kinetic energy in the form of heat, and this is the view I think that photonics dictionary is taking. The other way is to add mass to an object, so it takes more energy to get it to oscillate in the first place. This isn't an active type of "damping" like the first way is, it's more passive, and since all you're really doing is making it more difficult for the panel to oscillate in the first place, no energy is released in the form of heat since no energy is stored in the panel in to begin with.

Now that that's out of the way, the only thing Ant said in that link in regards to Dynamat is they had a good formula and it was patented, that's it. In the past he very well may have said Dynamat was better than his Damplifier, I'm not going to go searching around to find out for sure. What I do know is that it is much more cost effective to go with any of the dynamat substitutes (there are many, not just ss, I would be willing to spend my money on rammat, edead, brownbread, etc as well). If your time is so valuable that it's simply not worth it to spend an extra hour or 2 putting on an extra layer of the "cheap stuff" to get better dampening for cheaper, then by all means go with Dynamat.

The fact that their ratings are so grossly overrated is even more sketchy IMO. Their peel strength and acoustic loss are both less than 1/3 of what they claim it is, which strikes me as a little odd coming from such a "respectable" company.

hmm, the website is down so I can't make my post, guess I'll just type a bit more then....

Dynamat seems similar to Bose to me (except not nearly as bad). Bose charges rediculous prices for horrible products, yet because of their insanely high prices, wide array of patents, and vast amounts of advertising, they managed to get a name in the industry as being the "best" (atleast to the uninformed). People think that because something is patented and it costs a hell of a lot more than the other options, then it must be the best, but it's all a marketing gimmick. Dynamat is still a good product unlike Bose, but their approach seems very similar. They went and got a few patents, slapped their name all over their product, did a lot of advertising and marketing, and charged a rediculous amount of money for their deadener. This gave them a name in the industry as being the best, now no matter what happens they can just ride that reputation out and make a killing, charging whatever amount they want for their product no matter how good or bad it really is (up to a point obviously). These tests just confirm that in my mind.

You don't have to agree with anything I'm saying, I'm really just rambling because it's 2am on a Friday night and I'm not doing anything....