The Pringles powered hi-fi loudspeaker system! :^)

[River757]

Not sure how good it sounds, but I think I'll take a chance and order one.

Self-powered speaker

Probably sounds pretty lo-fi, but what the heck, it's free...well, you have to buy four cans of their chips, so not exactly free but oh well........

FYI: there are many Pringles un-boxing videos posted on Youtube: YouTube - ‪pringles speaker‬‏

[DrDyna]

I'll bet it's great at reproducing the sound of a top popping.

[Dr.EM]

Ha, that's quite an amusing promotion! So, this is a closed end, straight half-wave TL?

Wonder if they chose a driver with suitable TS parameters for this style of loading? Maybe they should ship some lambswool with the speaker so you can stuff the line, cut down on internal reflections a bit

[DrDyna]

Next up will be projects on putting mark audio 3" in there.

[Radugazon]

Maybe they knew that some people were alreday using their can for WiFi/broadband antenna. Coincidently the name of this design is "waveguide", because except the shorter wavelength it's all the same. BTW, I wonder how it works as the can looks in cardboard.

[hkingman]

Or... for an investment of $20 worth of speakers, you can have a *real* Pringles speaker ;-)



Sorry for the crappy photo.

these fit to the mm, and silicon caulk holds 'em in:
Aurasound NS3-194-16A 3" Paper Cone 16 ohm: Madisound Speaker Store

Caulk also holds the cans inside the holes. A 3-inch hole is perfect. If you wanted grills, you could use the Pringles lids, which fit, albeit a bit loose, on the speakers' front flange. just cut a hole in the lid, and glue on some cloth. I never got around to it yet.

The amp is an Amphony microFidelity:
The World's Smallest Audio Amplifier: microFidelity 200

As line arrays, they are insanely directional. The dispersion pattern is a horizontal plane, so they are decent outdoor party speakers. The sound is... pretty bright, but I'm hoping they'll mellow a bit with breakin. But the presence and image are very, very good, especially at low volumes. Would be a good tv/theater speaker! Very 3D soundstage (no crossover!)

The bass? Well, it might be worth experimenting with ports in the back of the can. There isn't a whole lot of bass. I guess a down-firing woofer could be built into the bottom base...

They took one afternoon to build. The stock is just 1x4s, glued and screwed. The bases are short (1 foot) chunks of a 6x10 beam.

I think the hardest part was eating all those chips ;-)

[AllenB]

Great. Reminds me of things I used to do with pvc pipe.

Originally Posted by hkingman

it might be worth experimenting with ports in the back of the can.

Yes or maybe transmission lines, although they may not be the ideal length as is.

The sound is... pretty bright, but I'm hoping they'll mellow a bit with breakin.

These have a narrow baffle which would encourage brightness, and they already have a bump at around 2kHz. They may be wanting some EQ in this region, maybe knocking the treble down to reduce the 10kHz region for this driver.

[hkingman]

Yeah... multiplying a real cheap driver times eight doesn't necessarily create a miracle. Unless your name is Bose, and you ship cheap EQ units with your cheap arrays ;-)

So yeah, you're probably right about EQ, AllenB.

But I find the same thing happening that happens with my Alpine car stereo... listening to my ipod with this, I run through all of the EQ settings ("small speakers" profile isn't bad), and then wind up just turning the volume down and going back to clean. Even when flawed, it seems like the less-processed signal sounds better.

OTOH, if a really simple little circuit could notch down the key peaks, that might be interesting. It might be software-based EQ my ears rebel against. I know in computers anyway, doing something in hardware is usually orders of magnitude faster than doing the same thing with software. The depth of the sound field just collapses when that EQ kicks in, so I always go back to clean.

In general, I am appalled by the crappy sound systems kids today use. They actually listen to the speakers in their phones! Or plug their systems into cheap $99 plastic docks with no stereo separation at all. So, I wanted to make something that would cost less and sound way better.

Another idea I had was to build a hyperbolic parabolid reflector -- i.e., a Pringles shape -- to focus the dispersion pattern even more, for "edge of stadium" type applications. ;-)

[mondogenerator]

haha ive been running in my tb w2 800sl in a pringle can, except mounted about a 5th from the closed end, tapered ie open end squashed almost shut, and stuffed with polyfibre. I doubt my efforts would make much improvement to end loading the tube, but it doesnt sound AWFUL