I have been building speakers for a long time now. The de facto wood to use is chip board. My first project was a transmission line speaker with floor tiles to deflect the sound through the tunnel at the bottom. But chip board is difficult to work with and when it gets wet it crumbles like wheatbix.
Supawood is better but too heavy. That 15"
Bass box for a guitar requires two men to carry it.
Now I use low cost 12" wide pine shelving that is 20mm thick. It is very easy to work with all you need is a jig saw and power Sanders for a very professional looking speaker, once varnished with a clear marine varnish. Due to the wood grain no speaker box can look the same.
No fancy joints, butt joints lots of recessed screws and wood glue stops resonance. I use twin Helmholtz resonators and loosely packed geyser blanket to make the quart high speakers sound bigger. Just ensure that the the resonators are not blocked.
My reasoning was simple - no guitar is made out of chip board!
For speakers I use car audio three way coaxial speakers. The bookshelf speakers are Sony Xplod 5" and the main Boom box uses side firing 6x9" Pioneer speakers.
I also used PC speakers those lovely 2" inverted aluminium dome types with a 100uF cross over capacitor.
Each bookshelf speaker has one. That makes it four speakers per box and the stereo Boom box with a Pioneer car deck has four in front or ten speakers in a portable box. The sound is awesome good none boomy bass and crisp clean top ends.
I have not included plans just low cost ideas for discussion.
Supawood is better but too heavy. That 15"
Bass box for a guitar requires two men to carry it.
Now I use low cost 12" wide pine shelving that is 20mm thick. It is very easy to work with all you need is a jig saw and power Sanders for a very professional looking speaker, once varnished with a clear marine varnish. Due to the wood grain no speaker box can look the same.
No fancy joints, butt joints lots of recessed screws and wood glue stops resonance. I use twin Helmholtz resonators and loosely packed geyser blanket to make the quart high speakers sound bigger. Just ensure that the the resonators are not blocked.
My reasoning was simple - no guitar is made out of chip board!
For speakers I use car audio three way coaxial speakers. The bookshelf speakers are Sony Xplod 5" and the main Boom box uses side firing 6x9" Pioneer speakers.
I also used PC speakers those lovely 2" inverted aluminium dome types with a 100uF cross over capacitor.
Each bookshelf speaker has one. That makes it four speakers per box and the stereo Boom box with a Pioneer car deck has four in front or ten speakers in a portable box. The sound is awesome good none boomy bass and crisp clean top ends.
I have not included plans just low cost ideas for discussion.
Use a sonotube. As the sound pressure inside increases, the integrity of the tube gets stronger.
All my speakers are in either cardboard sonotubes or PVC. Much lighter, and easier. And then, if my wife wants a box I just enclose them in something easy. The PVC ones have glued end caps that are as strong as the PVC tube itself.
Volume of a tube is Pi x r2 x h, BTW. There is an online calculator.
All my speakers are in either cardboard sonotubes or PVC. Much lighter, and easier. And then, if my wife wants a box I just enclose them in something easy. The PVC ones have glued end caps that are as strong as the PVC tube itself.
Volume of a tube is Pi x r2 x h, BTW. There is an online calculator.
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Thanks, that looks really interesting! I might get some PVC tubes down the road and test out this path.
Many years ago Wharfdale had a speaker with sand in the walls. I would tend to use vermiculite concrete which is 15% of the weight of regular concrete.
I have used PVC water pipes for a Helmholtz resonator. In the sub woofer I am building. But never as a speaker box. It's an interesting concept. However, I love doing wood work, to create wooden speaker boxes, that you cannot buy unless you are willing to pay many $$.
I have listened to speakers that are two boxes with sand between them and wasn't very impressed. IMHO supawood is the same. Too heavy to cart around for gigs.
I have listened to speakers that are two boxes with sand between them and wasn't very impressed. IMHO supawood is the same. Too heavy to cart around for gigs.
IF I had a shop to do the work I would be more likely to enclose the tubes rather than leave them in the "Modern Art” mode. But at the moment I don’t have a shop. I would need to put a room in my garage, insulate it, run electricity into it, put in heat(I Live near Canada). I don’t know if its something I should do at my age, but it may happen--since i am really a veteran of the ’60’s.
Actually there are lots of benefits to using tubes especially for the midranges. I spent about 18 months doing the research back in 2006 before the internet got so commercialized you can’t really find information as easily. They are especially useful for eliminated the 180 degree out of phase sound coming back through the speaker cone, and eliminating all fluffy muddy even order harmonics(since in a closed tube there aren’t any). Also in a box the back wave just goes all over the place, but in a tube it travels in a direction to the back of the tube, so its more easily managed and controlled. Also both the resonance of the sound wave and the resonance of the tube itself is easily calculated, so you can use the resonance point to augment the sound at the natural db depression at the crossover. Of course, when I start talking about the physics of sound waves in tubes, I lose everyone.
Now wait a minute - how can you talk about sand filled speaker walls and call yourself "Lowmass"?
Ha yea that name came years ago before age started its mass centralization effort on my mid section. I need the sand as a counter balance.
Yep weight can be an issue for sure. The sand works so well because its not a solid riggid structure and the movement of the grains produces enough friction to develop a damping component.
I never tryed but wanted to use two tubes about 1/4 inch apart with a layer of memory foam between. Should be light, extreemly riggid, and well damped.
It does not really matter what the speaker enclosures are made of. Car audio speakers are good quality and low cost. PC speakers even cheaper with audio and USB cables and 5 volt amplifiers for less than $6 a pair.
Tonight while chilling out, I was listening to those side firing 6x9" and front 5" speakers and the bass was awesome, out of three speaker enclosures. A mere 12" tall.
Tonight while chilling out, I was listening to those side firing 6x9" and front 5" speakers and the bass was awesome, out of three speaker enclosures. A mere 12" tall.
Actually tryed that. Problem is those foams turn to liquid if not in enough contact with air. There are two part foams that will work however. As a side note they likley are not going to damp the mid range well wich is why I wanted to try a foam similar to memory foam.
Exactly right! very simple to build and quite hi perf I expect.
Years ago I was talking to the guy who made the "Gold Ribbon". He told me the best cabnet he ever made was two layers of mdf with a similar foam sandwiched between . I think foam from a company called EAR. Like the foam ear plug material.
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