Building off of last weeks post, I have an update to share on the materials that I’m going to be using for this project. I have two 6 1/2″ midbass woofers, two 2 1/2″ tweeters, a 200 watt power supply that I’m hoping to pair in parallel with a sealed battery I had from a previous project, two 2″ ports, a high and a low pass crossover (just passive filters) and an amplifier with two (L & R) 150 watt channels. I have another 8.5″ woofer that I could use if I wanted to go for a 5 speaker set up.

I have two possible designs. The first design is using the above components to build a 4 speaker setup, where I have the two woofers on either side of the enclosure, ported below, and the two tweeters in the center with one above the other. The tweeters would be in a sealed section and the woofers would each have their own vented chambers with corresponding ports. The key here will be designing this well to eliminate the possibility of crappy sound. Additionally, I’m going to have to do this twice which will be time consuming to get done properly. A sketch of this design is below:

The other possible design would be having 1 vented section in the middle and two sealed sections on either side. The side sections would each have a tweeter and mid-bass woofer and the center section would use the sub-woofer. This would likely be a maze type design rather than a ported design, because I would probably be able to get that more correct than I would with the port. This is because the maze type enclosure would more easily allow for a bigger path length than the port would. (Note: for more detail on what I’m talking about, see my post in the Main Project Inspirations category.) For example, at a 50 Hz frequency boost:

f = 100 Hz, C = 343 m/s, lambda = c/f

L = 0.5*lambda

L = 0.5*(343m/s)(1/100 s)

L = 1.72 m

Which is way too long to do in any ported enclosure. So if I’m going to get an amplitude boost anywhere near this range, I am going to need to have some kind of a maze in my sub-woofer section. 

 

The intent of this blog post is to explore two aesthetics that could be related to this project, but are totally unrelated to each other. This will help spark inspiration in alternative ways to bring this project to life. The first aesthetic that I selected is the punk rock aesthetic, and the other one that I selected is woodworking and joinery. Both have implications for how I might be able to design my project but they couldn’t really have less to do with one another.

Aesthetic 1, Punk rock aesthetic:

Part of the punk rock aesthetic is having things look worn out, beat up and even abused. My impression of this style is that things ought to look like you’ve put them through hell. Like if you haven’t basically destroyed your amp, you haven’t used it properly. This style goes along with the music that fuels this aesthetic, which is harsh, undeveloped and intentionally not finely tuned. I could leverage this aesthetic by including tattered acoustic fabric, sharpie graffiti, dents and other signs of wear and tear from a harsh life. 

Image courtesy of [1]

Image courtesy of [2]

Aesthetic 2, woodworking and joinery:

The second aesthetic is one that I’ve already put some thought into. In this case, the idea of ornate woodworking and even joinery is really appealing to me. This aesthetic is one that I find really pleasing and totally opposite from the tattered look of punk rock amps. I think that these two could be combined to some extent in a way that I like still. I think joinery would be really cool, but probably outside the scope of what I am trying to do and the scale that I am trying make this at. The idea of having exposed wood is really appealing to me, so maybe using some kind of clearly reclaimed wood would be a good way of merging these two ideas. Over the next week or so I’m going to have to seriously rack my brain to come up with an idea that I find satisfying. 

Image courtesy of [3]

Image courtesy of [4]

References:

[1] Image courtesy of Pinterest 

[2] Image courtesy of Pinterest 

[3] Image courtesy of Handyman 

[4] Image courtesy of Pinterest