Design a Bose-beater

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flaevor said:
First, would your wife appreciate the effort you put into building them let alone the increased quality? If so build 'em.

Only a few women will ever appreciate the effort when it comes to speakers. She only wants them to be small. Sound is an after thought.

If not buy her the Bose, if that's what it is, that she wants. I have made the mistake of buying what I knew to be better when my wife wanted something else. [/B]


Bad Flaevor. No Bose. If she knew anything about speakers, she would know not to buy Bose.

Dave, tell her to allow you to do the choosing in areas you are better suited. Don't be P-whipped in this one, put your foot down. It's like letting her decide on a car because it's the nicest coloured one on the lot. You each have areas in which you excel. You try not to cross that line don't you?. Time to remind her.

If all else fails, stick to your guns, because sleeping on the couch is kind of like going camping anyways. And besides she'll stop pouting just in time to see your wonderful new creation.

If you buy the Bose [/B]


Bad suggestion again.
just make sure you repent and offer a sacrifice to the Audio gods. [/B]


The sacrifice might be you Dave. God will not forgive such sins. Remember he is very familiar with the value of DIY.

Praise the god of speakers. Hear ye Hear ye.

Father Cal
 
When it comes to audio choices, women do not get to make the decisions. Input is fine, but the ultimate decision is yours. Are you going to let her choose your car, your golf clubs, your brand of beer? No, of course not, just like you don't get the final say on much of anything that goes in the house. She can help determine the budget and give opinions if you solicit them. Something you have to keep in mind is that she really doesn't care. Just don't try to put some unfinished MDF cabs in the house. Showing her the Bose was good in that it gives you more $$$ to work with. Explain to her that Bose is a rip off. They spend all their money on marketing to sell an inferior product. That's why they do not allow side by side comparisons. Then say "Honey, now that I know what you like, please leave it up to me. Stereos are a guy thing and I don't want US to get ripped off by fancy marketing".

If you go DIY, then the sky is the limit style wise. Solicit her opinion if you want, but keep in mind SHE DOESN'T CARE. The strawberries are of equal importance to her, so don't worry about being decisive. You can't screw up unless you really blow the budget. Just don't put something too big or ugly in her house. Get or build what you want.

I'm lucky, my young wife leaves it all up to me.
 
Thanks for all the marriage counseling. However,

A) We are not married;
B) We are not living together; and
C) Who asked?

After modeling all the little speakers, it would appear that to keep the boxes tiny, one is forced to make the same compromise that Bo$e did: to avoid directional bass, have a suckout at 200Hz. Better drivers would help on the distortion front, but still. The best thing would be to make the satelite boxes bigger.
 
Well - if she likes the small cube look then cut a few solid blocks of wood, paint them black and hang them on the wall.
Then make some speakers to fit into the ceiling or wall cavity as most women simply do not like large speakers in a room.

Or buy some non Bose small speakers, take her shopping ( they all like that ) and have a look and listen to whats available.

Just out of interest - are there any women on this forum ?

I have designed a " Bose beater "- it looks just like a baseball bat.
 
There may be a few women on the forum. I think I've seen at least one....


Here's what I suggest. Throw the tiny dimensions of the bose speakers out the window. If they were decent speakers, a clone might be a good idea, but since they're not we should try something different. I would suggest MTs for the 5 channels. You can get something between 4 and 6 inch midranges (something that will cover ~80hz-5k) and then for a tweeter I would want something you could cross over as low as maybe 3k, but if the midrange is good, cross over higher.

The cabs wouldnt need to be any bigger than .25 cubic feet for those.

For a sub you could build something inconspicous. Downfiring coffe table or end table. Infinite baffle would be awesome also if you can do it!

The point bose trys to make is that small speakers can fit in anywhere.

The point in DIY is to be able to fit speakers anywhere!

I'm sure your girlfriend wouldnt mind some elegant floorstanders. but I know she wouldnt like some scrap MDF boxes that arent even jointed nicely even if theyre small.

Let your girlfriend know, size does matter. If its too big women dont like it, if its too small they shouldnt either!
 
flaevor said:
If not buy her the Bose, if that's what it is, that she wants. I have made the mistake of buying what I knew to be better when my wife wanted something else.

While undoubtedly sats made with any of the above drivers and a small sub will blow away a 4-letter system, so will a KLH microsat/midbass system from Best Buy that costs 1/4 as much. The build quality is also no worse than the four-letter acousticmess.

Alternately, nice small hybrid prefab/DIY system would be to find a used pair of NHT SuperZeros (6"x6"x9" or so) and a DIY midbass bin with an Adire Koda 8 in it. Unlike the KLH system, that would also be a serious system capable of reproducing music at a decently high resolution. Maybe there are other cheap n' cheerful minimonitors today that are better than Ken Kantor's classics, but I don't know the current contenders.

To DIY, the Aura NS3 or HiVi drivers are the best bet, but if size is more of a priority than the Aura Whispers sound very pleasant and a double-stack of those would only need about 16 fluid ounces of airspace.
 
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Joined 2001
Dave:

Size has a great deal to do with how much you are going to get out of the system, but so does enclosure type, etc. Which leads to drivers with different Q's, and all the rest.

I do think it is incumbent upon you to tell us the size of the Bose satellites, and the bass module, so that we may make a fairly good guess at what is just "a little bigger" than the Bose model, but which might well have real sonic advantages due to better design, etc.

I do have in mind something a little bit bigger that would be able to output significantly more-that IS the main problem, right? But I have to get a good idea of how large the satellite may be.

If you have to put the project on hold until you find out, so be it. Because until we can get some definite limits on size, we're all just throwing out generalized ideas of units that would be useful in enclosures of "small" size-"small" meaning in reference to 1 cu ft or so.

Perusing some specs here, I think I might be able to come up with something that would give significant benefits over the Bose satellites that is a 4 inch cube on the outside. I would hope for a little bit bigger, but taking a quick guess, I think I can do it with a 4" cube-don't hold me to it, it's just preliminary ideas.

But that is as far down as I can see the satellite going and still be part of a sound system anyone can term "reasonably good".

Don't forget the hifi world can stretch a far piece, and a little 1/4 cu ft speaker with a 5.25" woofer can still be considered a hifi speaker with a hefty price tag. Everyone knows that it won't pump bass with the big boys, but it can still meet a criterion that characterizes it as hifil

Similarly, I believe 4" cubes with a sub can meet a criterion that most would characterize as a genuine hifi sound system. Nothing that is going to pump out huge volumes of sound, but something that meets minimal standards for a hifi fan's AV system.

But first we have to know-how big can the satellites and subwoofer actually be?

For the satellites, I would suggest that you just mock up a cardboard-and-scotch tape 4" cube, and a cardboard 4" by 4" by 6" box, tell your girlfriend that you can make as sound system that will sound significantly better if allowed to make boxes such sizes, and get her ideas on it.
 
Apparently ladies don't have the same fascination with pairs of round objects that we do, so if you can make the system unobtrusive, it will help. My 2 cents, use the Hi-Vi B3S or Aurasound NS3 and go shopping, find some very nice ceramic objects to hide them in. The appearance will matter much more than sound quality so don't sweat the volume too much. Dare I say that upfiring into foliage will aid dispersion? The sub can go in a found ceramic object too. Some BSC does wonders for the 'midbass' from the sats.
 
Dave,

First off, is this a system that you are going to listen to. If not I would just buy her the Bose system. Or if you just want the engineering challenge try to built something similar.

Now if you are also going to be using the system then there has to be a compromise that suits you both.

There are a couple of things you can do. But remember that to a woman the way it looks is more important than anything so if you decide that this is a system that you need to listen to there are two approaches. One make a system only slightly larger with a 4'' two way in small but maybe .1 ft boxes. Make some really nice finish and good looking unobstusive stands that blend it with the rooms decor.

You may also consider a very slim line array built of tang bend 2 or 3 inch wide range drivers. There is some guy dong this with good results.

The other thing that works well is to have all the audio gear in a closet instead of in the room on a rack. This leaves more space for her furniture and artwork and nick-knacks or whatever she has.

Also don't overlook the simplicity of the audio gear. This might be her main issue as the Bose is an all in one type of system.

The biggest problem with most of us guys is that we only think in terms of the engineering aspects. You must think in terms of the artistic integration first if you are to build something that she will like.

Hezz
 
Dave,

At the risk of more girlfriend counseling...

My wife said she wanted speakers "just like the cute little Bose cubes". After some panic, I pulled up Zaph's site, showed off his small speakers, and confessed,

"Dear, I'm afraid I'm just not good enough to build something as good as the Bose cubes. But I can build these, are they OK?" ;)

Haven't done them yet, but they're On The List.

Good luck.

cheesehead
 
Greets!

FYI, here's a measured plot of an AM-15 from several years ago so it shouldn't be too hard to take a small hi-Q driver, stick it in whatever size cab you want, stuff it and aperiodically tune it to suit by gapping the driver away from the baffle. The sub can be a small BP or folded pipe using an Adire Extremis 6 or similar.

GM
 

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