Glass Brick Enclosures

[blupro]

Heya,

I'm new to the world of DIY, and have been wondering about building a set of speakers using cinder block shaped glass bricks as enclosures. The bricks are tinted - dark enough that I could put stuffing/wirings/crossovers in and they wouldnt be seen, but I have never heard of anyone using a glass block as an enclosure...

Is there any reason I shouldn't try this? I'm new to DIY but dont want to put together something that sounds horrible.

I've done a bit of reading on this, and it seems low frequencies would be better for glass enclosures, but I'm hoping I can get some decent high frequency sound as well. If anyone has any experience or ideas on something like this, I'd be keen to hear your thoughts.

Hope everyone's having fun...
Blu

[phase_accurate]

Not glass-blocks but glass boxes nonetheless:

http://www.waterfallaudio.com/indexhtm.html

Regards

Charles

[richie00boy]

Seems a nice idea. How are the bricks bonded together?

[blupro]

Charles - Thanks for the link. I'd seen those, so it gives me hope that glass isnt a no-no.

Richie - they're shaped like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinder_block. I was thinking a woofer in one opening, and a tweeter in the other.....or two woofers in the holes and a tweeter up top.

[richie00boy]

Link no good.

[Willitwork]

Originally posted by blupro
Is there any reason I shouldn't try this?

None that I know of but since glass blocks will have a different acoustic signature than say MDF, damping and crossover design will have to be adjusted accordingly. What I'm saying is that you probably wouldn't get optimal results by simply using a crossover designed for the same drivers in an identical box made of a different material.

[sploo]

blupro,

I would think that a reasonably thick walled glass block would have far fewer vibration issues than an MDF panel, so that would be a positive.

You can of course break glass with sound (http://www.physics.ucla.edu/demoweb/...ith_sound.html) but I don't think that'd be an issue for a brick (unless you're planning on going really loud).

What would you use for the front and rear panels?

Originally posted by richie00boy
Link no good.

Remove the full stop from the end of the URL (the 'auto URL' code that turns http... into a link often swallows up the full stop at the end of a sentence, and leads to dead links. Affects many forums).

[Willitwork]

Originally posted by sploo
You can of course break glass with sound (http://www.physics.ucla.edu/demoweb/...ith_sound.html) but I don't think that'd be an issue for a brick (unless you're planning on going really loud).

I think you'd need a sledgehammer to break one of those blocks or perhaps 40 F-18's breaking the sound barrier at once over your home, they are surprisingly sturdy, and heavy!

[blupro]

Charles - sorry about that. The period at the end of the link throws it off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinder_block

Will - thanks for the heads up. More for me to read up on....but thankful that I'm aware of it.

[blupro]

Sploo: I'm thinking along the lines of MDF. I'll figure out some way of getting an airtight seal. I'm anticipating I might be able to get a tight base, but have it in my head that it wont go low because of the small enclosure. I haven't even gotten to the point of picking drivers mind you; I've been doing a bunch of reading overall, but thought to make sure glass was ok to use before starting to pick out drivers.

Speaking of that...any ideas what I should be looking for in drivers for use in a thick, fairly solid, non-hollow material? I'll be using a t-amp with this - had originally considered high sensitive drivers in an open baffle, but the baffle size/look wont work for my apartment. I'm now thinking more tweeter/woofer combo.