Boat making techniques in Speaker Cabinet making....

[sansterre]

Hey Guys, this is a question I've wondered about for a while. There's a course offered out my way at the trades school teaching cabinet making, and as part of the course they do a section on boat and canoe building. If you approached building a speaker cabinet in this way, with a round back like the hull of a boat, do you think you could get some interesting effects? Think it would have any effect? I know i've got a round back ovation guitar, and the design has kept up because it puts out more sound as a general rule. Is the same true for speakers? Think it's worth checking out? Thanks!

 

[chrisb]

It wouldn't take long to find much weirder design and material/construction approaches by DIYers over the years, so certainly, why not.

As to the sonic effects of any particular design / material / technique, good luck finding consensus on that

 

[kevinahcc20]

I would expect that fiberglass boat building techniques would be better applied to speaker cabinets than wooden boatbuilding techniques. The structure of a boat hull is designed to provide flotation, balance and resistance to hydrodynamic forces, not to be acoustically optimum.

 

[chrisb]

define "acoustically optimum"



these innocent queries have a habit if devolving into polemics, the short-cut to an answer for sansterre might include the question - do you have a particular application / aesthetic in mind?

 

[kevinahcc20]

In a boat acoustically optimum is when you only hear the sound of water rushing by the outside of the hull!

 

[Rajapruk]

The JBL Ti10k speaker cabinets were built with technique from danish boat-builders.
Very nice sounding speaker. Looking a little bit like a canoe, especially if you glue two of them together.

 

[chrisb]

In a boat acoustically optimum is when you only hear the sound of water rushing by the outside of the hull!

 

[chrisb]

The JBL Ti10k speaker cabinets were built with technique from danish boat-builders.
Very nice sounding speaker. Looking a little bit like a canoe, especially if you glue two of them together.

FWIW, having primarily a woodworking industry background my personal favorite "non-standard" (non-monkey coffin) design / construction methodology for speaker enclosures is that employed by B&W in the Nautilus series. It's rather tricky for a DIYer to emulate the production engineering of even the wooden enclosure portion in entirety (& I've tried more than once ) .

 

[Cal Weldon]

If you have a speaker that sounds good and floats, you are approaching nirvana.

 

[Speedskater]

The boat building WEST System (Wet Epoxy Saturation Technique) is a wonderful way to DIY curved plywood objects.

WEST SYSTEM | Project for Epoxy

 

[sansterre]

ah, i guess that's right. pretty easy to find way crazier ideas.

I would say that I am less interested in making my speakers boyant (though with global warming...), and more on the effects of round backs (steaming?) and the difficulties of keeping them airtight, etc...

 

[hellonwheels]

I plan on making my next horn in stitch and glue out of doorskin, epoxy, fg tape and wood dust fillets.... also green glue or dumdum, and another layer, for constrained damping.

 

[jacco vermeulen]

I would expect that fiberglass boat building techniques would be better applied to speaker cabinets than wooden boatbuilding techniques. The structure of a boat hull is designed to provide flotation, balance and resistance to hydrodynamic forces, not to be acoustically optimum.

Wrong, and wrong.

 

[Cal Weldon]

What is meant by fiberglass boat building techniques? Is that laying mat over ply, multi layered matt in a mould or chop strand and roving?

 

[jacco vermeulen]

mat over ply is composite.