Thanks man! I hear that about Metric from some guys, but I kindly disagree. You can be so much more precise with "standard". A millimeter just isn't a small enough unit of measurement. It could be just how I was raised but I can think in fractions really fast and you can double or half a measurement just by changing the denominator. Two times 3/8" is 3/4", half of 1/2" is 1/4", etc. What do you do if you need half of 25mm? How do you mark 12.5mm? Eyeball it?
@@wmwalkerco Yes, or you can use a ruler with 0,5 mm markings. As a European I think your system is stupid, but by watching this video, I realized that the stupid system makes you smart.
With woofers and tweeters I'd suggest you use a crossover. If you look at the old speakers, you'd likely find one in there that you could reuse in your build (should be the only electronics in the old speakers, a little board with capacitors and coils). The crossovers add a low pass filter to the woofer and a high pass to the tweeter. It will give you much better volume levels across the range.
You were totally right. It wasn't a little board only a capacitor with one end soldered to the positive terminal and the other to the positive lead to the tweeter. I'm assuming to limit the signal going to the tweeter so enough goes to the woofer.
The tinniness could be because the tweeters are playing too much of the mid-range. If your curious here are a couple good references, but basically you don't want both speakers overlapping in the mid ranges: www.bcae1.com/xoorder.htm www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Guide/WireSpeakerCrossover/ That wood looks awesome by the way... should have lead with that.
If the tweeters are still working, get those capacitors put back in series on the positive leads asap! You will kill them feeding the full frequency range to them like that. The capacitor limits the low frequency signal.
I've had a look around but all crossover boards seem to require like 300 watts to work?? is there any chance to make it work that routing with a battery? :(
I was looking for a DIY build with tools that a "regular" guy would have. (I am from the Philippines and the shop you have is extremely HIGH-END here) Initially, when I saw and heard about table saws, band saws, etc I actually cursed - but as I listened a bit more, I find the build relaxing and funny and relatable. Great job on the video, and an even more amazing job on the woodwork and speakers! I realize this was long ago I hope u have more videos.
Tape trick works better with really wide tape along the joint followed by longer strips parallel with the edge. Also yeah, really nice clean wood and no dust helps a lot.
Yass! all the hiccups and issues and yet it turned out great! I am definitely going to show this to woodworkers at the Makerspace, So many initiates don't realize that snags are just part of the deal, you fix and or adjust and keep going! Great Job William!
Don't you love it when everything goes exactly according to plan? Turned out looking beautiful and glad mom liked it. Many lessons learned here. Thanks for sharing!
Great build! Now you're speaking my language, my friend. Since you're working with moving air your best bet for future purposes is to use MDF or baltic birch ply butt jointed with liquid nails and held down w/1.25" screws so it doesnt resonate through. Most hard wood application are best suited as veneers for speaker builds
I did one recently using the same Bluetooth board I found out that it works better with 4omhs 6" coaxial speakers... And I built a 12v 3s 2p lithium ion battery pack using laptop batteries and passive radiators for clean bass.
Beautiful! Nice choice of Wood! I would be a little concerned that the white oak doesn't have place to expand and contract.... may be a good idea to put them in a floating dado next time or cut them much thinner (veneer) and glue them to so plywood... just food for thought. Looks great!
The speaker looks great! I recommend researching a crossover to improve the sound quality and avoid that "tinny" sound. The problem is that the tweeter is more efficient at translating the electrical power into sound than the woofer, so when you connect them in parallel the woofer doesn't get enough power to make the right amount of noise to sound balanced.
@@wmwalkerco In series? No. A crossover routes the "highs" to the tweeter and the "lows" (and midrange) to the woofer. A crossover also 'preserves' the impedance. N.B. - Two 8ohm speakers in parallel result 4ohms, in series they are 16ohms. Look for a two-channel crossover (one for each 'pair', don't get kits). [ It's curious, the speakers you gutted should have had them. ]
Definitely a science! I wanted to treat this one as just a fun build, with some science you could definitely make this even better. I did go back and add crossovers which helped a lot!
Nice channel! I've watched a bunch of your videos. You could try padding the interior. It adds low end and can stop it sounding boxy. Most subs have it and I did it to my 2x12 guitar cab when I sealed the back of it. It definitely helped. You could also make the back panel out of a thinner material and make it a semi floating baffle. Old Fender cabs have a really thin back panel that will actually move with the speakers, apparently this adds more low too, though that's just what I've read!
You likely added another speaker in parallel, therefore reducing impedance (decreasing resistance). This will cause the amp to cut out and overload when the load isn't high enough for it. Usually you will have quieter volumes but stable sound if the impedance is higher
Well done... Exactly the project I am in progress of doing...looking for materials, method etc... It clarifies a lot...and the fact that you are using simple terms it is assisting a lot... Thanks for sharing...!!!
Great project! I'm rebuilding a vintage travel trailer with a maple and walnut interior and something similar would be perfect for when we camp. I was going to try and fit an old radio with Bluetooth but I like this idea better.
Awesome job! you could stuff it with some dampening material, this will help with the empty box feeling. also look at the old enclosures if you had them and measure the internal volume of those you could potentially install a divider between the two pairs and return the internal volume closer to what they came with. speaker science is a long and deep rabbit hole. cheers!
The tinny sound is from the high-density wood. I have experienced in the Years pass that Eastern white hard maple, Lacewood, Rosewood and others make that similar tiny sound, that is highly undesirable. Even with speaker insulation put to the inside.R13. What I found for good sound is simply Pine.
I started a speaking making company in 1971. I became an electrical engineer in 1977. I designed amplifiers and battery chargers. Now I am retired, but I still do woodworking. This video makes building something fun.
@@mudgem3742 25 years ago professors visited my house to give me an IQ test and blood test for a study on a bad spelling gene. Most of my family is engineers.
Great video !You should bevel and flare the holes for the tweeters. They are in a deep recess, so the frequencies are already beaming into the wood and conflicting before they ever make their way out of the hole.
Whoot whoot ! Good Job. Ive always loved this kind of stuff. Furniture meets the future is my favorite kind of stuff. Taking something very useful and fun, and making it into something that would be at home in a cigar club lol
thanks for posting. gotta love those happy accidents. the speakers ended up at a good depth for minimal distortion. 12:25, one big cleat to hold down two speakers. that's a hoot. what's with the under-sized holes for the tweeters. source of distortion. as you have learned, very often, small drivers benefit from some hf attenuation for more balance sound. fyi - if you want distorted sound, go ahead and incorrectly mount the speakers to the back of the baffle and use chamfered holes. cheers
Fun Video and a project I myself would like to do some day.Ages ago, my dad bought a Heath kit to make his own 100 watt tube amp amp and built his own speakers. I read his speaker design guide and IIRC, you definitely want to separate the cavity for the left and right channel speakers, as air pressure from one is likely communicating with the other. Also, you want to have surface insulation on half of the interior faces, with the opposite face bare. This prevents the sound from bouncing off the interior walls and then imparting pressure back to the speaker cones.
I did think about insulating the enclosure but wanted to see how it sounded first. I also thought about separating the cavities but that complicated the build a bit with spacing and where to fit things. This is definitely not the "Audiophiles speaker". Just a fun build. I've since made a second one with crossovers in the network and the new one sounds a LOT better.
I love the wood, color and how the speaker box finish, it would be a little nice if the switch is more of vintage stail and you could hear the bass a bit clear. Perhaps the choice of speaker. Just my opinion, overall, the visual look outstanding. Love the vintage looks 😎👍
Put the original capacitors in series with the tweeters otherwise they'll burn quickly with not much power! you can also experiment with a little polyfill inside the enclosure, that should make it sound a bit better
I think that you need to use a crossover for feeding the tweeters. Also you need to mount the speakers to the panel firmly to prevent panel vibrations and distortions
Nicely done, a mostly well thought out. 1. For the glue-up, I recommend using more tape than you think you'll possibly need. Also, you might want to try special brown binding tape...works better. Lastly, you should try dusting off the surfaces first with your vac. 2. Ever tried a premade kit? I just put together some quarks from DIY audio and am floored how great they sound. You might want to try the C-notes at Parts Express. Keep building!
Sealed speakers work with a small box. Yours is not small, and suits a vented system. Get some 2" poly pipe about 8" long and make a vent. It will kick then. And put an old woollen jumper in the box. And put about 3 times more screws into the back panel for tighter bass.
Sweet build and good choices. I love the TPA3116 amp chip but those TDA's are pretty good too, they just seem to run a lot hotter (when non switching) than the class D at not too much of an improvement to make it worth it IMO, assuming battery power and desired run-time. I've found that without any good preamp or extra EQ action going on the addition of tweeters can often introduce too much piercing highs IMO. I found that using something like a 5K dual potentiometer (I snag them from other boards with gain knobs) in series with each tweeter is an easy way to trim them down a bit just volume-wise. All the way up sounds bad to me but a nice in-between can be found where it just adds that extra ambiance. Normally not a good idea to do this unless on the line side but I think so long as the tweeters are filtered with capacitors they shouldn't be pulling so much power in a system like that to where the pot will burn out, at least mine hasn't. Also assuming they are filtered by placing the tweeters in parallel with your main drivers they shouldn't actually be halving your impedance like that. The series capacitors and filtering out of low frequencies will cause the tweeters to draw very little power. So for example I run one setup with the TPA3116 that wants 4 or 8 ohm loads but I run each driver in parallel with each tweeter which brings the impedance to around something like 3.6 or so which it seems to handle fine. This isn't absolute I suppose as it depends on the tweeters and the filtering but I'd think it would be fine so long as the tweeter isn't trying to handle anything mid range or lower.
Nice looking project, Will. Always love the dark and light contrast with wood/splines. Turned out beautiful. Kudos to you for admitting your "happy" mistake when you could've played it cool! :-) Troy
i am about to make a similar speaker.. though with larger drivers, and a much bigger battery. a nice big 20k MAh battery, so it can last for a few weeks on a single charge. however, due to lack of funds, i am not adding a charge port, instead i am just making it so i can open it to charge/replace the battery. i am using a prebuilt, slightly banged up flight case, where i will need to fix a corner which is broken a bit, and rivet it in place, and cut out some foam to make space for the drivers, i am going for two full tone drivers, from a car audio kit, that can take 80 watts, and a big 12 inch sub i found in my dads storage, with an unknown wattage. a way you could possibly fix up the speaker is to add some foam or other sound absorbing material inside the speaker. along the sides and on the back is best, but along the sides is fine for a test of the sound, and since you can easily open it up, it should be okay for you to try it out. a possible reason for the cutout you mentioned with the full 100w output, is likely due to power, try adding a step up to 22-24 volts, and see if that fixes it, i have a few of the boards by now, since i found a great deal on them, but they only want to work with full power, if i add a step up to around 20 volts. unless i keep my volume below 25%. but who would want to do that :)
That came out beautiful. Love the oak on that one. I had the same issue with my lunchbox planer recently. I was planing several pieces of the same wood, and one piece refused to feed through the entire time. Same piece over and over. It was weird.
This video was freakin Awesome! I love the honesty, showing the common ground for us all, as mistakes are a HUGE part of the craft. You might have inspired me to build something similar. And as always, unbelievable cinematography!
Looking goood I really liked the idea Whit the rabeting bit but what you could so next time is taking a piece of scrap sheet good an chuck it up on the lathe Whit. Faceplate turn the size hole you need and use that as an router template worked great fore me in the past And as far as the glue up longer pieces of tape are better and I personally prefer to take the wider clear tape do one piece along the joint and . then some some pieces across the joint
Not certain how you wired the tweeters, but if they are wired in parallel with the speakers the overall impedance will go down which will allow to much current to flow out of the amp shutting it down.
You should separate the speakers pairwise..put a section of wood in the middle. Also, stuff some sound dampening inside. It will kill the resonance frequencies of the cabinet. Some of those glue on pads that can be used for cars are excellent for this. I have the exact same amplifier board and it also pisses me off with the delay. Now solder a piece of wire to the Bluetooth antenna ( "ripples" on the blue board) it will improve the range of it. Otherwise, a very well done project..I love the use of fine wood as the speaker is a piece of furniture and not just a plywood box.
Hey Just to let you know that the amp has a volume up button on it And for louder sound you need to increase the volume on the amp every time its turned on
The speakers actually cut out because you actually halved the impedance when wiring in parallel ++ and - -. and assuming all the speakers are the same nominal impedance. Wiring in Series, or speaker A + to Speaker B - negative on the other speaker, doubles the impedance, again assuming that all speakers in the circuit are the same impedance. The amplifier has a minimal load it can safely operate at, before failing or going into protect a protection mode; when playing at louder volumes. The amps are creating more wattage, thus drawing more current and based on the sophistication of your amplifier most likely shut down to protect itself. Also, lack of sufficient current draw (or amperage) during transients, can shut down the device.
the produce was awesome and the video was very interactive.....would like you to upload more videos with limited tools....you were having a wood working workshop with you but i don't have a workshop.....and i definitely need a powerful speaker
as a speaker designer i cannot approve that X-D. but glad to see that it came out that good looking after that troublesome build. you did half the impedance by paralelling both drivers. i would suggest you put in the crossover from the speaker you salvaged the drivers from, which will correct the impedance and should safeguard the drivers from frequencies they aren't supposed to process. that will still not be ideal, but should gain a miles better result than now.
Great work. My comment is not so much about your incredible woodwork, but more about the battery. I’m building a Bluetooth speaker just for kicks. Possibly, it they are well-liked, I’ll start gifting them to my family and friends. I have a prototype finished, but it is plugged into the wall for power. I don’t know much about electrical and I am trying to find info on RU-vid, but I’m not getting very far. I would like to know more about rigging the rechargeable battery and power switch. Any help you (or others) can provide would be very appreciated. Thanks.
ur woofers and tweeters are all playing full range thats why u get that tinny sound i recommend buying 2 passive crossovers and wiring right and left to there own crossover and wiring the low pass to the woofers and the high pass to the tweeters
I've since gone back and salvaged the crossovers that were in the original speaker. I just missed it the first time. I was so focused on figuring out the battery situation I neglected to learn more about speakers. It sounds much better now.
Great build. Since you have a router table, I highly recommend using a round over bit or even a chamfer bit to profile the tweeter cutouts, that could improve high frequency dispersion and tame the combing effects from playing through what's currently a shallow tube.
Great video! I like the way everything is created so much easier when you have the right tools. I didn't... Although I didn't bumped in your video at the time I've done one similar to yours and the sound is quite decent, I would've learned a few things. I didn't use solid wood. I had a reclaimed pc desk made from laminated chipboard :( . I've added crossovers and separated the speakers which created a better sound. I am considering in adding 2 passive radiators to enhance the lower end. The other thing that let me down was the battery. Same like yours but I had a 12v 4A battery but it doesn't charge anymore. Inside I found three 3.7v 1650mah Chinese imitation batteries. Need to look for a different model. Again, really informative video to watch.
So how did you determine the cubic centimeter enclosure chamber for the optimal speaker performance. This factor can dramatically affect the all around sound quality of your build. You want it to sound as good as it looks.
That's too bad that the walnut cupped on you. Because the kiln dry moisture content is measured at the center of the board, when you resaw it, the new faces will cup. Still turned out for a fantastic project despite your walnut woes!
Hey! What a remarkable project! However, when I heard you said you would make another one, I thought I would give you some suggestions. The first is that it's not just due to the fact that you opted for a sealed enclosure. No, it is mainly due to the fact that you used such a small amplifier. I believe those speakers were about 3 or 4 inches and the tweeters are 1 inch. They need a bit more power to effectively drive them compared to the amp you are using right now. If I remember, the amp you are using requires 5 volts. So, I understand that it can't get any bigger. You could always switch to a 12v board or a mini car amp to power the speakers. Along with that, you could get a small sealed car audio battery like the Kinetik Car Audio Battery brand. You can find them on Amazon. Also, if you are going to end up porting your box, then remember that not every port will make the box sound the best it can. Experiment with different ports. If you want, reply back to me, and I'll explain further. Although, given what you've done so far, I doubt you didn't know this already. Anyways, sick build though!
Oh Yes, I might as well add one more thing. The addition of the tweeters aren't increasing the impedance, rather, it's lowering it. However, this causes the amp to output more power. And, in your case, it was too much so a sort of "failsafe" kicked in on the amp.
And...I'm stupid. I rewatched it and I realized it was already 12 volts. If you want, you may want to get another one of those batteries and install it in parallel. If you want, that is if you see this and respond, I could give you a few suggestions on the amps you could use to get more power.
If I ran another battery in parallel, wouldn't that just double my capacity not increase power? I'll definitely look into the Kinetic Car Audio Battery brand! Thanks!
Wm. Walker Co. Yes, but what I mean is that the battery has to be able to supply enough power especially at full tilt. Meaning that if the system is pulling more power than the battery can output, then it will be limited and may start to stutter a little or completely shut off.
Hey bud. Quick note, try putting some batting inside the enclosure to dampen the sound. It should alleviate some of the tinny sound by cancelling those frequencies. Amazing project and that curly oak tho! #OAKGAINS!
Another problem can be that 12 volts is to little for the amp, try using a voltage booster to something around 19 volts. Had the same issue with my sanwu Chinese amp...
