Not sure if someone has mentioned it, but as someone who has worked in a glass shop for around 5 years I've used A LOT of that weldon stuff. The best way to apply it is to actually put your parts together and then apply the weldon to the seam and let it wick in. You'll instantly see it starting to melt the acrylic together.
Wire strippers at 13'27" - A little tip for you. When you strip the end of the wire, leave the excess insulation ON and use that between your fingertips to twist the strands, THEN pull it off. That way you don't get finger grease all over the strands and it makes the solder joint more reliable. Great video btw!
Also, those type of wire strippers are pretty trash in my experience. Get some Jokari or if you have a lot of money to waste some Knipex or Wiha ones. The Jokari cost me €12 and were well worth it. Great Scott! recommends them as well.
Wow, not sure how I didn't know that trick. You learn something new every day. Thank you for that comment. Whether he learns from it or not, I just did.
My Dad taught me this when I was a nipper. It also makes it much easier and quicker to twist the strands as you can just roll the insulation between your fingers.
The C-Note MT kit has the cabinet panel dimensions laid out for you - figuring out the interior dimensions from the MDF plans is pretty trivial. The crossovers and ports are part of the kit too. I suspect the mismatch in resonances between the hardwood and the acrylic might actually help his sound out, but I'm not sure. I do wish his skyline diffuser was down at listening level where it's supposed to be though 19:02. That's not just decoration...
can we talk about how cool the post mortem aspect of these videos are? like no one else does that, and its really helpful to see how to improve something.
It's a good outlet for me because I always find 10 different ways I could've done a project better by actually building it. Designing is one thing, but going hands on makes things a lot more clear
@@ZacBuilds yeah i just finished my first project, and it had so many ups and downs so it was literally a roller coaster of happiness and sadness while making it lol.
Yes, I totally agree. I had stumbled upon a few Zac Builds videos, but was never compelled to subscribe. (No offense, I am more of the long-time Adafruit customer, "RIP Philips Hue & Govee" type than I am the "tear the guts out of a Philips Hue" type.) However, it was the Post Mortem aspect of the videos that finally earned my Subscription.
+1 for the post mortem! "Lessons Learned" is essential for everything from fabrication to car repair to gardening to IT because if you don't do that, you'll never be able to improve on future designs. This is a perfect example: Now you know you need to measure ... well, "everything" so that you don't have to cut away wood to make room for LED or crossover assemblies should you ever decide to do another speaker project. And I have an idea for another project. Make a set of speakers similar to the old "Magnaplanar" ones that don't need "box-shaped" enclosures, resulting in speakers about as thick as a framed painting. That would be truly space-saving, and I'm sure you could figure out a way to go completely bonkers with the LED rigging!
The reason the applicator looks like a needle is because you actually push the acrylic together and use the needle to apply the Weldon to the corners. Because it's so thin, the Weldon actually seeps into the corner and spreads itself out. You can look up people build aquarium tanks :)
Underrated comment. Just think of the soldiers' lives who could be saved if we made tanks out of acrylic. It's like permanent camo...and if they can travel under water, that's even better for those sneak attacks!
As an audiophile, you don't have to have the best quality. Sometimes it's about making yourself and your setup happy. Just because I wouldn't do doesn't mean you can't.
Too many people wast money on fancy hardware and psychological cables just to use their set up at 1/4 the power in a non treated room not even respecting speakers positionning requirements.
@@simonrano8072 Yep. The rest of us think "That sounds nice" and then just enjoy the music. While drinking the wine that we bought with the money we saved by using ordinary mains cable to connect our speakers. 😁
Seeing someone wearing PPE when it's probably not necessary is very relieving with so many makers not using it when it really should be used. Major kudos.
The cool thing about RU-vid instructional videos is that you can see and avoid all the mistakes made before giving it a go on your own. And if desk space is at a premium, make panel speakers and hang them on the wall.
Part of the problem imho with videos on speaker building on youtube is that they always show the build process. And never the design process or talking about why they do something. Actually building the box is usually the easy thing to do.
I absolutely love when we make mistakes in making furniture or stuff like this, moments like this truly show how adaptable a person is, improvise, adapt, overcome🤣
I absolutely love the dual purpose with the lighting as well. That thinner acrylic probably isn't the best for sound, but there are trade-offs in design. If you think they sound good, that is all that matters!
Thanks man, I appreciate you being with me long enough to see the change! It sometimes gets tough finding stuff to make I actually need/want, the house is starting to get pretty full 😂
Oh dear, this is an "audiophile's" torture! Even I feel mildly infuriated, but I really enjoyed the aesthetic! The last "I'd like to incorporate more things within the speaker", tho, was the final nail in the coffin, like a stab in my chest when i thought triggering was done 🤣 Keep up the good work!❤🔥
Pretty much this. I'm not an audiophile but if we're going to take the time to build speakers we may as well do it properly. I'm still not sure why he needs to save space on a giant, empty desk.
@@alphaforce6998 well, my guess is "clean-desk aesthetic", which i Also enjoy! That said, one can use newer speaker technologies such as hard shell and mechanical bass drivers to shrink their size! Introducing lighting and other AC and/or PWM power sources within a noise-sensitive piece of equipment is generally considered a bad practice
The video is all trolling. Not just audiophiles, but really it's designed to drive mildly negative engagement from a variety of domain enthusiasts (cabinet builders, expert makers, LED lighting fans, etc.) while pretending to be maker-ey / tinker-ey enough to elicit a warm fuzzy counter argument from people with less of a clue of how they've been manipulated by the fast talk method. Most people trying CA glue the first time on acrylic are in for a bad time when it frosts splotchy and ugly, when other adhesives work. "Oh look I forgot about the crossover!" is just as fake as any other reality TV bit. It just goes on and on with trolling. Even the initial premise is bs. People who value desk real estate put their monitors on adjustable mounts and speakers either wall mounted or on other elevated platforms, leaving the desk space clear for other uses. Heck the old school PC Hifi Logitech Z-560s had stands that pivoted into wall mounts 22 years ago and probably sound better.
Hi Zac! I do appreciate the Idea behind the build, as well as the quality of the work. You do however have some technical issues of varying degree. First of all, you NEED some kind of dampening material in the cabinets, I realize that it might interfere with the lighting idea.. But there's pretty fluffy white poly filling that does the job just fine. The reason behind this is to absorb the back wave from the driver. Not doing this will result in pretty iffy resonance issues as it 'bounces' off the rear panel. Second, A baffle that thick with a small midrange driver should have the rear of the cutout rounded or chamfered on the back side to help the driver 'breathe'. This can otherwise impact the midrange response. Depending on driver and baffle thickness, this might be an issue. It's good practice to just do it and be safe. Third, Plexi as a material is fine actually.. Honestly most common materials are fine if it's structurally sound and thick enough, as long as it has proper bracing/support. These do not have proper support and are too thin though. So, you'll likely have resonance issues there as well. Your hardwood is fine, nothing wrong with it. Otherwise, great job on the build and keep doing things! If you for some reason decide to do more audio things, feel free to reach out.
The number of comments on this video stating he did it wrong are baffling yours is the first I've seen with genuine advice. I have seen speaker cabinets with void space and no dampening but this space's volume and surfaces are specially designed to act as wave guides for each individual driver. This from my limited knowledge seems very complex to design around but definitely does seem to improve sound quality based on the speakers I've seen that implement them.
@@jackmarshall2496 Thank you! I try to offer sound advice and constructive criticism. I was speaking about his design mostly. But in general.. you cannot get away from some kind of damping behind the a driver covering the midrange unless it's.. open baffle or sealed back drivers. There are other creative solutions with varying degrees of success. The main thing is that the rear wave needs to be addressed, how is less important. For speakers only covering bass, it's another story and not necessarily needed. :)
I heard you talk about this on the podcast. It turned out really nice. I like how you integrate technology with woodworking. your channel seems to have a taste of DIY Perks with a strong focus on walnut instead of aluminium - which I like.
@@ZacBuilds stainless for me. Aluminum for the jobs that aren't terribly needing in aesthetics. Normal steel if I'm either on a budget or doing something indoors in a dry room. House fires just aren't my thing. I have maple floors and I regret it. 'can't trust a medium income set of renters to not damage it whenever I leave.
18:27 "They are only 40 watts". The 'watts' don't say how loud a speaker can play. There are horn-systems out there that will provide rock-concert volume with only 20 watts or so. It's the level of efficiency that can give you a hint (a speaker with 85dB will get not the half as loud as a speaker with 95 dB when provided with the same input power). These Speakers actually turned out pretty nice. Much better than i've expected in the beginning. Well done.
I've noticed this. I had a Dali Spektor 1 and a Bill Fitzmaurice Omnitop 12 connected to the same system and I had to turn the perceived volume up 3 times as high to get the Dali to be as loud as the Omnitop 12. The Dali sounded nicer (at least without the EQ module) but small bookshelf speakers with 4" woofers will suck down power to make them loud compared to a 12" and 1" compression driver.
As a desktop speaker you may not get into this situation, but ideally you don’t want the sides of your speakers to vibrate. At louder volumes and at certain frequencies you my introduce distortion from the thin and low mass sides. An acrylic rod say 1” diameter could be glued in the center of the panels as side bracing to help mitigate this.
At first I thought based on the title that you were going to do DML type DIY speakers and wall mount them, but these are pretty cool too even if they don't exactly save any space :)
It looks like the only desk space you save was from putting your lights inside the speakers. In fact, it almost looks like your new speakers have the same or slightly larger footprint as the speakers you replaced.
Those speakers look absolutely amazing. I have always loved the idea of people building their own speakers for that personal touch but this is a pair I haven't seen with lights be used like that. Very nice work.
from what I recall weldon is basically a solvent that melts the plastic. it would have been easier to hold the joint together then put the adhesive in the joint. it then melts the plastic together. you cant use it in the way like you would other glues. thats why its so thin.
I like the idea of incorporating desk hogging components into the speakers. However, I feel like you would benefit greatly from lifting the speakers off of the desk with some stands. I have my speakers mounted on a hacked together combination of $30 computer screen stands and speaker wall mounting brackets. It works beautifully. I can move my speakers side to side and rotate them in and out on the fly. The biggest drawbacks are that height adjustment is a complicated process, there is no way to slide the speakers forwards and back, and the speakers don't like to stay perfectly level on this stand. I need to revise this idea to make it easier to move them around and make them perfectly level. But still, I'm very happy with this solution even with the small drawbacks. My speakers are just floating above my desk, not wasting space, and I didn't have to drill holes in the wall.
Same, I have my speakers lifted onto some monitor arms (The type with the clamp and the bar that goes straight up). Now they take up no desk space plus they're at ear level.
Awesome project and amazing results! I made an acrylic speaker a while back and I'm still working to get rid of the rattling, glad that wasn't a problem in this build!
I love the space saving feature above all else in this build. Very clever, I have a similar setup with a custom made soundbar and these same Philips Hue lights and I wish we had this video a few months back, I probably would have tried integrating the lights for a big fat behind the screen defuse ambiance.
In this exciting episode, Zac sort of plans out something awesome without planning ahead somehow, again. I'm messing with you bro, beautiful work as always.
with that particular glue the pieces to be glued are first moved into the final position so when the glue is introduced to the joint it spreads evenly via capillary action
All solvent welding relies on introducing precise amounts of the solvent to parts already fitted together with sufficient gap to allow capillary action to draw the solvent through the join. Then after sufficient time for softening of the surface, mild pressure is applied to force them together and as the solvent fully evaporates over time you have a fully fused 'welded' joint.
I've designed and built easily 300 to 400 loudspeaker boxes in my time, I guess I therefore know something about them. These here look nice, what I'd call good conversation pieces, but that's about all. I seriously doubt they have anything near good audio characteristics. My main peeves are the materials. Never ever use hardwood for a box. Sure, hardwoods look cool, but best to leave them for your furniture. The best material I've so far found is low grade MDF that, thick enough (about 2 inches), will readily absorb the echoes in the box. Acrylic sheeting is also a very good material for boxes, I've seen it used on quite a few loudspeakers, but at least an inch thick, not the fraction of an inch used here. There is a problem with transparent sides though. With all the wiring and dampening material needed inside these boxes maybe you'd rather hide that mess instead of letting everyone see it. I've built boxes out of concrete and terracotta. My dream is to make some out of cast iron, I think that would be the ultimate loudspeaker box. You'd need a crane or at least a forklift truck to move them though.
I just built a desktop organizer/soudbar with 2 4" drivers and 1 5" sub. It's 7" tall, 7" deep and runs the lenght of my desk to make the speaker volumes work. It looks gorgeous since it's made from walnut.
The two things that really stood out to me that you should consider in any future build is that when porting a speaker, you never want to run a straight port aimed directly at the back of a speaker. I don’t know if you actually calculated the port size and length that should be used in your build to get the best sound out of your drivers, but if you didn’t, you should. And after calculating, you should keep that number in mind when sticking a 90° elbow on the end of the port. So that the port wouldd stay within the best recommended size for your speaker, but no longer would you be running a straight port aimed directly at the back of your driver. The other thing that I saw that you should keep in mind for future builds is bracing. The reason people don’t use acrylic for their speaker builds very often is because it can flex easily with the speaker playing. You mitigate vibrations and flexing by bracing your cabinet. So it would have been helpful if you could have braced all that internal space with maybe somr acrylic arches, running front to back, left to right or vice versa. they’re cool speakers. Just a couple things to keep in mind next time when building a pair. Cheers.
Of all the issues that did exist with this project, a lack of stiffness is not among them. He did (apparently) neglect to use gasket material in the channels so air will seep through even if the channels are tight. Bracing is really only needed in high-power applications or where the cabinet is large such as with subwoofers. Thick acrylic sheets are actually very stiff. Here he is using a cheapo chinese 40w amp that is probably not going to reach its rated power anytime soon.
@@alphaforce6998 thanks for the insight. I wasn’t aware, or don’t pick up on, the amp size. That all makes sense. Yes, thick acrylic is stiff. Is it thick acrylic though? It appeared to be pretty thin acrylic To me. And I contend that it’s highly likely that that acrylic is relatively resonant. It’s no where near as effectively damped as if it had been just a normal speaker box the same size. And I also contend that you can’t exactly go wrong with more bracing. You may be right that the amp is just so mildly powered that it’s not going to push the driver to the point where resonance is an issue, but personally, I would rather go overkill on bracing and damping Than to just not even consider it within the design. There are speakers with much stiffer enclosures than this speaker with 3 acrylic sides that still brace their enclosures well. It may have taken away from the aesthetics of this build so it wasn’t worth sacrificing them at all for what the speakers are. You’re probably right there.
@@kilgoretrout4461 I've been building speakers for a while and have made some excellent-sounding original designs. I have also tried some ideas that I ultimately didn't like. My suggestion for anyone that wants this kind of speaker with clear side panels and LED lighting is to internally enclose the speaker drivers in a wooden cabinet, then on the outside you can put the acrylic panels and lighting. At least that way, the aesthetic elements will not hinder the sound quality. The lighting can be accomplished with an LED strip, and with the strip you have more options for placement. It can still be made to sync with that lighting system he was using. You are correct that acrylic does not offer much in the way of dampening so it will definitely amplify resonances inside the box, which will make certain sound frequency ranges sound "muddy" due to the interference.
13:14 Those globs of solder are indicative of "cold soldering". Heat the workpiece, not the solder! That way you won't have exposed conductor that will corrode, and you'll have a stronger mechanical (and ultimately electrical) connection. Also, using fasteners instead of glue might make this easier to open up in the future, for upgrades that you were considering (or fixing those solder joints).
You might want to add air vents the unit to allow the heat from the LED's to dissipate. The life of you LED is be shorten quite significantly from the build of heat. Seems a lot of builders that include LED into their projects over the importance of air flow for LED's
I wonder if everything will go as smooth if you just bend the acrylic with heat to avoid making them miters & using the weld-on stuff. It would definitely be seamless. But then you would need to round over to match the curves of the corner bend 🤔. I'm actually working on a portable boombox as well and ordered my BT large ammo speaker kit Friday from Parts Express. My version also includes frosted acrylic AND walnut. No bending though as I'm doing something different & do not require much
clamp your parts then add the weldon to the seam, capilary action will cause it to flow into the seam. also, squeeze your applicator bottle and a SLIGHT constant release of pressure keeps it from dripping when you turn it upside-down.
People loose their shit over wattage in speakers... unless you live in a stadium, there is no need for crazy powerful speakers. Beautiful build by the way.
Looks good and nicely executed but I build spekers myself and know what a cabinet should or shouldnt do and there is absolutely no way that this is a good one. There might be no rattle but the acrylic is flexing and therefore essentially acting like a driver when it really should be as stiff as possible!
You did not piss off just audiophiles, you pissed off everyone who understands how speaker cabinets are designed. You either got extremely lucky that your speakers did not turn sounding like utter crap or you did not show a crucial part of the design process. Like, why did you use that specific bass reflex tube and not a shorter or longer one? What did you do to eliminate internal reflections in within the cabinet? You have absorbers in your room but have nothing in the speakers, even the principle is the same. This could have been a fantastic video if you hadn’t decided to leave out key points of info.
13:32 A nice example of so called "cold solder" where you have too little heat in the material and all the heat in the solder. This may work for a short while but it will typically crack in the long run and you'll have to resolder it again, hopefully right next time.
Experiment: how about horizontal panel speakers inside of your desk, surrounded by a rubber seal? Air holes in the back offer a great way to get rid of bass resonance.
I like the idea but I noticed some aesthetics you maybe missed. I would have channeled the mid range driver a bit further to ad a cover plate over. (Which may be in your next video for a speaker grill.) I would chamfer the three edges on the front so more elegant styling would really make the build stand out. Maybe print a signature on the back and clear coat the front and back with matte clear finish.
If anyone wants to do DIY custom speakers keep in mind you can cut the driver holes with a router and a circle jig. It's kind of a pain but you can cut really nice accurate circles. My DIY speakers have overlapping drivers and that's how I cut them. The left and right speakers look identical.
You could add tiny balls to increase the surface area. Also, you want mm accuracy because it changes the sound (you can use acoustic simulation models)
Good test to see if your speaker case is rigid enough is to gently knock it with your knuckles. It should sound similar to knocking a rock instead of hollow container. If it sounds hollow, it's too weak if you want high audio quality.
Those Irwin wire strippers are the bomb! I've been using them for a year or so and will never go back to stripping wires using the old-school wire strippers.
Nice Build , thought you where gonna gonna reduce the space your speakers took up. Also the smaller speaker on top looks too big for cabinet. The speaker are over lapping to you probably not getting the optimal sound. Also perhaps the reason is not a lot out there for around acrylic , because it's not optimal material for acoustics. Other, than that I did enjoy the video and your presentation. The upgrade ideas are really cool as well.
@@fivish the C-note speaker that his build is based on is a very good design. The port is necessary to get a reasonable bass response out of such small drivers. How do you know what the optimal dimensions are? Have you measured and calculated the ideal size for these drivers? Additionally, the "cones" do not overlap. The tweeter waveguide overlaps with the frame of the woofer. This brings the drivers closer together which may be important depending on crossover frequency. I'm not a fan of the protruding woofer just for the sake of time alignment, but it is not a bad design. agreed about the internal damping, though.
I also got caught up in the whole "studio monitor" nonsense. Almost all of them are garbage. They use cheap amplifiers. Now I'm just waiting for the right moment to switch to a Topping LA90, and some passive speakers to go with my DAC.
If you wanted to save desk real estate you could have gone with flat panel speakers on the desktop or better yet a pair of transducer/flat panels hanging off the wall or ceiling. You could even go 5 channel and add a little sub tucked away on the floor.
Your biggest mistake is gluing it all together rather than having some small screws so you can open it to make changes. To prevent rattling, you would insert either K-Flex insulation or even cardboard into the grooves of the framework surrounding the acrylic side paneling. This would make for good tight-grip slide assembly and disassembly and possibly eliminate the need for screws. Attach some sort of small hard plastic extrusions at the base of each speaker for proper handling/carrying.
For future speakers, consider using a Dayton Audio KAB amplifier with DSP. You can eliminate the passive crossovers along with the associated downsides. Each driver will get its own tuned amplifier and you can order mounting and control hardware. To save desktop space in my own setup, I bought some ART RM5 studio monitors. They are especially thin powered speakers with VESA mounting holes. I removed the stands and attached monitor arms to each, so that they are completely off the desk and positioned perfectly to the sides of my monitor.
Yes, it's 100% something I'm working on. I need to set up the infrastructure to do it and that's the main road block, but I'm in talks with a web developer.
Ref the wire strippers...when the strippers leave the stripped bit attached to the copper strand, use it to twist the copper strand and make a nice uniform and tidy twist. The insulation will pop off since the core reduces in diameter when twisted.
The space a given speaker takes up is is to match your speaker drivers to the box itself and to the room. Its probaly the leas wasted space you may ever experience. Everything about a speaker is very complex unlesss you try to to save money and build a lemon. Lots of testing, listening, simulation and, leave it to the pros ;-)
