speaker

115 Articles

A Modern Version Of Famous, Classic Speaker

July 25, 2025 by 12 Comments

Modern musicians may take for granted that a wide array of musical instruments can either be easily connected to a computer or modeled entirely in one, allowing for all kinds of nuanced ways of creating unique sounds and vivid pieces of music without much hardware expense. Not so in the 1930s. Musicians of the time often had to go to great lengths to generate new types of sounds, and one of the most famous of these was the Leslie speaker, known for its unique tremolo and vibrato. Original Leslies could cost thousands now, though, so [Levi Graves] built a modern recreation.

The Leslie speaker itself got its characteristic sound by using two speakers. The top treble speaker was connected to a pair of horns (only one of which produced sound, the other was used for a counterweight) on a rotating platform. The second speaker in the bottom part of the cabinet faced a rotating drum. Both the horns and drum were rotated at a speed chosen by the musician and leading to its unique sound. [Levi] is actually using an original Leslie drum for his recreation but the sound is coming out of a 100-watt “mystery” speaker, with everything packaged neatly into a speaker enclosure. He’s using a single-speed Leslie motor but with a custom-built foot switch can employ more fine-tuned control over the speed that the drum rotates.

Even though modern technology allows us to recreate sounds like this, often the physical manipulation of soundwaves like this created a unique feeling of sound that can’t be replicated in any other way. That’s part of what’s driven the popularity of these speakers throughout the decades, as well as the Hammond organs they’re often paired with. The tone generators on these organs themselves are yet another example of physical hardware providing a unique, classic sound not easily replicated.

Continue reading “A Modern Version Of Famous, Classic Speaker” →

Teufel Introduces An Open Source Bluetooth Speaker

July 24, 2025 by 33 Comments

There are a ton of Bluetooth speakers on the market. Just about none of them have any user-serviceable components or replacement parts available. When they break, they’re dead and gone, and you buy a new one. [Jonathan Mueller-Boruttau] wrote in to tell us about the latest speaker from Teufel Audio, which aims to break this cycle. It’s a commercial product, but the design files have also been open sourced — giving the community the tools to work with and maintain the hardware themselves.

The project is explained by [Jonathan] and [Erik] of Teufel, who were part of the team behind the development of the MYND speaker. The basic idea was to enable end-user maintenance, because the longer something is functioning and usable, the lower its effective environmental footprint is. “That was why it was very important for us that the MYND be very easy to repair,” Erik explains. “Even users without specialist knowledge can replace the battery no problem.” Thus, when a battery dies, the speaker can live on—versus a regular speaker, where the case, speakers, and electronics would all be thrown in the garbage because of a single dead battery. The case was designed to be easy to open with minimal use of adhesives, while electronic components used inside are all readily available commercial parts.

Indeed, you can even make your own MYND if you’re so inclined. Firmware and hardware design files are available on GitHub under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license for those looking to repair their speakers, or replicate them from the ground up. The company developed its own speaker drivers, but there’s nothing stopping you from using off-the-shelf replacements if so desired.

It’s a strategy we expect few other manufacturers to emulate. Overall, as hackers, it’s easy to appreciate a company making a device that’s easy to repair, rather than one that’s designed to frustrate all attempts made. As our own Jenny List proclaimed in 2021—”You own it, you should be able to fix it!” Sage words, then as now!

Who Needs 100K Speakers When You’ve Got A 3D Printer?

May 24, 2025 by 65 Comments

The B&W Nautilus is, depending who you ask, either infamous or an icon of modern design. Want the look but don’t have a hundred grand to spare? [Every Project All at Once] has got a Nautilus-inspired design on printables you can run off for pennies. He also provides a tutorial video (embedded below) so you can follow along with his design process and get build instructions.

The model was done in Blender, and is designed to contain a 3.5″ full-range driver by Dayton Audio — a considerable simplification from the array of woofers and tweeters in the original Nautilus. On the other hand, they cost considerably less than a car and have no production wait list. [Every Project All At Once] is apparently working on a matching woofer if that interests you, but unless he invests in a bigger printer it seems we can safely say that would require more assembly than this project.

Of course it would also be possible to copy B&W’s design directly, rather than print a loose inspiration of it as makers such as [Every Project All At Once] have done, but what’s the fun in that? It’s a much more interesting hack to take an idea and make it your own, as was done here, and then you can share the design without worrying about a luxury brand’s legal team.

Desktop 3D printing offers a wealth of possibilities for would-be speaker makers, including the possibility of rolling your own drivers.

Continue reading “Who Needs 100K Speakers When You’ve Got A 3D Printer?” →

Parametric Design Process Produces Unique Speakers

February 17, 2025 by 28 Comments

When building one-off projects, it’s common to draw up a plan on a sheet of paper or in CAD, or even wing it and hope for the best outcome without any formal plans. Each of these design philosophies has its ups and downs but both tend to be rigid, offering little flexibility as the project progresses. To solve this, designers often turn to parametric design where changes to any part of the design are automatically reflected throughout the rest, offering far greater flexibility while still maintaining an overall plan. [Cal Bryant] used this parametric method to devise a new set of speakers for an office, with excellent results.

The bulk of the speakers were designed with OpenSCAD, with the parametric design allowing for easy adjustments to accommodate different drivers and enclosure volumes. A number of the panels of the speakers are curved as well, which is more difficult with traditional speaker materials like MDF but much easier with this 3D printed design. There were a few hiccups along the way though; while the plastic used here is much denser than MDF, the amount of infill needed to be experimented with to achieve a good finish. The parametric design paid off here as well as the original didn’t fit exactly within the print bed, so without having to split up the print the speakers’ shape was slightly tweaked instead. In the end he has a finished set of speakers that look and sound like a high-end product.

There are a few other perks to a parametric design like this as well. [Cal] can take his design for smaller desk-based speakers and tweak a few dimensions and get a model designed to stand up on the floor instead. It’s a design process that adds a lot of options and although it takes a bit more up-front effort it can be worth it while prototyping or even for producing different products quickly. If you want to make something much larger than the print bed and slightly changing the design won’t cut it, [Cal] recently showed us how to easily print huge objects like arcade cabinets with fairly standard sized 3D printers.

Building A Subwoofer Box Out Of Decking Material

September 12, 2024 by 8 Comments

When you go to build a subwoofer box, wood is the most common choice. When it came to his project, though, [Startup Chuck] decided to go a different route entirely. Rather than the usual plywood or MDF, he decided to try Trex decking instead. Why? He had some lying around, and he suspected it might just sound good.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, Trex decking is a composite material made of recycled materials like reclaimed wood and plastic film. The best part, though? Trex decking is twice as dense as MDF. That makes it good for speaker box use because it flexes less and thus absorbs less energy from the subwoofer. [Chuck] walks us through cutting out the parts for the box and the subsequent assembly. Ultimately, it’s not dissimilar from building a speaker box out of wood; the material is simply not that different—just denser.

[Chuck] also puts his new sub through some quick little tests, demonstrating that minimal vibration is passed through to the enclosure itself. He reports that the final build has a “nice, deep sound.” Meanwhile, if you don’t like working with your hands, you could always 3D-print your speaker enclosures instead.

Continue reading “Building A Subwoofer Box Out Of Decking Material” →

How To Turn Cheap Speakers Into Something A Little Better

July 5, 2024 by 25 Comments

[Adam Francis] bought some cheap speaker drivers from AliExpress. Are they any good? Difficult to tell without a set of enclosures for them, so he made a set of transmission line cabinets. The resulting video proves that a decent sounding set of speakers shouldn’t have to cost the earth, and is quite entertaining to watch.

The design he’s going for is a transmission line, in effect a folded half-wave resonant tube terminated at one end and open at the other, with the speaker close to half way along. There is a lot of nuance to perfecting a speaker cabinet, but this basic recipe doesn’t have to be optimum to give a good result.

So after having some MDF cut to shape and glueing it all together, he ends up with some semi decent speakers for not a lot of money. The video is entertaining, with plenty of Britishisms, but the underlying project is sound. We’d have a pair on our bench.

Continue reading “How To Turn Cheap Speakers Into Something A Little Better” →

Simplest Speaker Oscillator, Now Even Simpler

April 30, 2024 by 21 Comments

It never fails. Lay down some kind of superlative — fastest, cheapest, smallest — around this place and someone out there says, “Hold my beer” and gets to work. In this case, it’s another, even simpler audio oscillator, this time with just a loudspeaker and a battery.

Attentive readers will recall the previous title holder was indeed pretty simple, consisting only of the mic and speaker from an old landline telephone handset wired in series with a battery. Seeing this reminded [Hydrogen Time] of a lucky childhood accident while experimenting with a loudspeaker, which he recreates in the video below. The BOM for this one is even smaller than the previous one — just a small speaker and a battery, plus a small scrap of solid hookup wire. The wire is the key; rather than connecting directly to the speaker terminal, it connects to the speaker frame on one end while the other is carefully adjusted to just barely touch the flexible wire penetrating the speaker cone on its way to the voice coil.

When power is applied with the correct polarity, current flows through the wire into the voice coil, which moves the cone and breaks the circuit. The speaker’s diaphragm resets the cone, completing the circuit and repeating the whole process. The loudspeaker makes a little click with each cycle, leading to a very rough-sounding oscillator. [Hydrogen Time] doesn’t put a scope on it, but we suspect the waveform would be a ragged square wave whose frequency depends on the voltage, the spring constant of the diaphragm, and the spacing between the fixed wire and the voice coil lead.

Yes, we realize this is stretching the definition of an audio oscillator somewhat, but you’ve got to admit it’s simple. Can you get it even simpler?

Continue reading “Simplest Speaker Oscillator, Now Even Simpler” →