My DIY center channel home theater speaker, turned out GREAT
Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 12:11 pm
Alright, I'm an industrial design student. Originally I designed a box and calculated everything to the nth degree and got chastized for it being so boring... so i threw out my idea, and went back to the drawing board. I then just held onto these few concepts:
1. Very rigid mounting surfaces for the speakers
2. Curved surfaces= good, because less resonance due to reflective waves.
So, here's what happened:
Alright, so we had to design a dispenser, and I chose to do a 'sound dispenser'. It was also a plastics project, so I had to use primarily plastic in it's construction, which kinda stinks, because I wanted to do the cabinet out of wood, due to it's better acoustic properties. That said, my project was originally a box with a funky front end, which got slaughtered during critique, so I went back to the drawing board and did a TON of thumbnails. Eventually I found a design that I really liked, and decided to wall mount the speaker above the display (after xmas I'm getting a 24" iMac to use as a main machine and the entertaniment hub. Out with TVs, in with big ass computers! ).
The front face plates are really thick acrylic, and the back pods are all vacuum formed. The silver pieces are also acrylic, bonded together using plastic epoxy. The two pods are held together by a center section with massive bolts, which are also the terminals (I drilled them out to accept wire, and used washers). So basically, the bolts that hold it together are doing double duty; strength and they're conducting the power to the crossover. The speakers were hi-vi 3" extended range drivers purchased for $8.95 each, and the tweeter was a rear mount style purchased for $4.60, and the crossover was made for 2 8ohm woofers and a 4 ohm tweeter (perfect) which only cost 59 centers, all from parts express. I spent more on the paint (carbon metallic) and bolts than I did on the actual audio parts, but that's okay.
A crap speaker mounted well will sound better than a good speaker mounted poorly. Anyway, enough babble. Here are the pics:
The acrylic was lined with rubber adhered with super 77, and I also used padding for a pillow instead of expensive audio padding. The best part? It sounds freaking fantastic!!! I replaced my regular HTIB center channel and the difference is striking! Shell casings, dialogue, and anything that isn't a super low frequency has just so much more clarity, it's just freaking awesome.
Aggressively good or bad comments welcome! Rip it apart if you like, but I'm pretty stoked about it.
1. Very rigid mounting surfaces for the speakers
2. Curved surfaces= good, because less resonance due to reflective waves.
So, here's what happened:
Alright, so we had to design a dispenser, and I chose to do a 'sound dispenser'. It was also a plastics project, so I had to use primarily plastic in it's construction, which kinda stinks, because I wanted to do the cabinet out of wood, due to it's better acoustic properties. That said, my project was originally a box with a funky front end, which got slaughtered during critique, so I went back to the drawing board and did a TON of thumbnails. Eventually I found a design that I really liked, and decided to wall mount the speaker above the display (after xmas I'm getting a 24" iMac to use as a main machine and the entertaniment hub. Out with TVs, in with big ass computers! ).
The front face plates are really thick acrylic, and the back pods are all vacuum formed. The silver pieces are also acrylic, bonded together using plastic epoxy. The two pods are held together by a center section with massive bolts, which are also the terminals (I drilled them out to accept wire, and used washers). So basically, the bolts that hold it together are doing double duty; strength and they're conducting the power to the crossover. The speakers were hi-vi 3" extended range drivers purchased for $8.95 each, and the tweeter was a rear mount style purchased for $4.60, and the crossover was made for 2 8ohm woofers and a 4 ohm tweeter (perfect) which only cost 59 centers, all from parts express. I spent more on the paint (carbon metallic) and bolts than I did on the actual audio parts, but that's okay.
A crap speaker mounted well will sound better than a good speaker mounted poorly. Anyway, enough babble. Here are the pics:
The acrylic was lined with rubber adhered with super 77, and I also used padding for a pillow instead of expensive audio padding. The best part? It sounds freaking fantastic!!! I replaced my regular HTIB center channel and the difference is striking! Shell casings, dialogue, and anything that isn't a super low frequency has just so much more clarity, it's just freaking awesome.
Aggressively good or bad comments welcome! Rip it apart if you like, but I'm pretty stoked about it.
