This?
http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-mca2250e-21-channel-class-d-plate-ampl...

Does it need to go very loud?  Party box?  Nearfield?  Fill a room background levels?

Target project cost?

$52 each Tang Band 5" paper fullrange  8 ohm  0.2 cu ft sealed
http://www.parts-express.com/tang-band-w5-2143-5-paper-cone-full-range-driver-8-...

$43 Dayton 6.5" "subwoofer" 4 ohm  0.2 cu ft sealed/0.5 cu ft vented
http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-dcs165-4-6-1-2-classic-subwoofer-4-ohm...

Well, I have gotten myself into another project that may or may not work.
We have to do stretches at work every morning (Because we are industrial athletes, lol) by the direction of a video.
If you can imagine 25 tool makers and a half dozen engineers grunting and groaning in an fairly large space trying to hear the counting on the video coming through a sound bar on a monitor, you would soon figure out that we would need some sort of sound reinforcement.
So a project was assigned to me to "up the volume" as cheaply as possible, using materials that we have available to us.
I came up with a plan of building a simple wedge shaped speaker box and using 2 GRS 8" Bofu full range drivers being driven by a cheap chip amp, all from Parts Express for around $60.
I had a extra sheet of MDF laying around my place that I would donate to the cause, and plans were made for a group project on a Saturday to knock it out.
Well, this is where the project fell off of the tracks!
A idea was brought up of cutting the MDF panels at work because we have some really nice machine tools at our disposal.
Well all of a sudden it was brought up that an aluminum top on the speaker would look nice and by the end of discussion it had turned into making the whole damn thing out of aluminum!
So currently we have a apprentice tool designer drawing up plans in Creo CAD, a sheet of scrap 10mm aluminum, a water jet, two apprentice tool makers, and myself working on this project.
It will be a 4 cubic foot 60 degree triangle mounted to a 10 foot I beam when done. I really hope that it is louder than the sound bar!

This project is gaining traction. The drivers and amplifier arrived this morning, the CAD files were finished and transferred to the water jet.
The Apprentice that is in charge of this project promises me that I will be listening to the completed speaker tomorrow. I figure that it will be closer to Friday, but I don't have his youthful exuberance.
As a training tool, this project has been very useful. The Apprentices get a taste for putting in the needed work to detail something out.
I gave them my basic idea for the speaker, they had to figure out how to manufacture it, how to assemble it, and how to finish it out.
I don't think that we will be getting into the speaker business any time soon, seeing that we used $12 drivers and a $30 amplifier and put them into $1200 worth of aluminum with around $1500 of CAD time!
I'll get some pictures as the cutting and assembly get rolling tomorrow.

We got the speaker up and running today. It sounds remarkably good for a big aluminum wedge with a real cheap chip amp.
The sound was echoing all over the shop, and it is a very large shop!
We hope to get it mounted to the 10' pole Monday.
The Apprentice did a more than passable job.

 You know, it would be very easy get customer base with products like those! Water jetting is endless for ability to manufacture.   still makes my head spin.

There are currently 5 engineers designing new speaker designs in my cubical. It is a slow day at work.
The current design is a open baffle/ downward firing sub hybrid.
They are also talking Omni's.
I wonder if Corporate would approve.

My Sonotube speaker building projects are gaining traction.
Calculations have been made on a transmission line subwoofer using a 10" Dayton driver. It looks like a 10" tube should be 89.13" long to achieve 37.7hz. Nothing like a 7.5' tall sub.
I'm planning to use this in my garage stereo. Most likely building a pair because it would annoy the neighbor more!
I am pondering on how to power these things. Do I use a cheap crossover and connect them to my Wadia DAC amp, or do I go with some sort of outboard amp with an adjustable crossover?
If this idea lives to fruition the next project would be using larger diameter Sonotube to make a full range speaker using the drivers from my DM clones. My CAD Monkey drew up a horn idea inside of a 24" tube. Real interesting but somewhat difficult to make the shape of the baffle. No hill for a climber.

Wow, that is quite a sono-sub!

Did you calculate the airspace at all? Wouldn't a single 4' tube have been enough?

It is a quarter wave transmission line subwoofer. So yes it is more or less open, the driver on the bottom.
I stuffed it 2/3 of the way up with fiberglass and it helped it a lot.
The plan now is to make a box on the bottom to face the woofer out and help seal the whole thing up better.
The combined length of the line needs to be 93 inches.
I don't foresee any lacking of bass with two of them.

Donnie,
Those remind me of something I once saw in a Cheech and Chong movie I do believe.  

 Got a kick out of these. Same idea as my bucket bass project. Just stuff that I had laying around, and a real deal on an 18" woofer.
 BTW, I hope that heart stuff works out good for you. There are too few of us staying young these days.

Dam good job cleaning out the garage! That was the project, right? Speaker projects are endless and a rest is ok for now, however.... Try something out of your regular stuff. No not explosives, but something in audio. I did. Cool thing is, you learn from the new experience. My new thing for now is headphones, and I had no idea how much they have improved.

I'm pretty sure I could even design something that's just foam insulation. Anyone can cut that without special power tools or hot wire...assuming your careful (unlike my recent incident).


Something like this could be done:

I have a pile of Lepai LP2020TI amps laying on my desk right now. I have not a clue of what I am going to use them for.
Because of shipping charges it was within a couple of bucks to buy 2 instead of one, so what the heck?
Has anyone ever messed with these things, maybe hot rodded one?
I'm open for suggestions.

I got busy the last few days and built a pair of Pass transmission line speakers.
I broke down and bought some tools to help speed things up, a Kreg Accu-Cut and a nice new Bosh circular saw. My quality definitely took a big jump forward.
I modified the design by using two drivers in each speaker and adding a tweeter.
So far I'm pretty happy, it is looking like I over stuffed them but that is a easy fix.
Right now they are a little bass shy, but some break in and playing with stuffing will see if they wake up. If so then I will doll them up and give them to someone.
I need to find someplace new to host pictures so I can show them off.

OK, I'm trying Imgur. Sorry about the sizing!
These are pictures of my Pass Bofu T-Line speakers that I modified by using 2 8" GRS drivers and a Peerless tweeter with a cap on it.
The Bofu's run without any crossover.
They sound pretty good in my room, not too bad for $12 drivers.
I still have to finish them, I'm thinking veneer on the front and satin black for the rest.
If anything they kept me off of the streets for a couple of days.
BTW, I screwed up something the other day and have been locked out of the forum from my home. At work seems OK. Weird.
Construction pic.


One in the Garage



And one in my listening room.

Perhaps an Imperial SO?    

I like your idea of stupid.  :)

Nice! The Deathbox is fun!

I had Steve's original one, made with marine grade particle board, and one of his 10" hand built drivers...hell, I had it for about 16 years I think, used in home theater and mostly on my computer as a small subwoofer setup. I sold it last year I think to a guy who read about Decware, and was blown away that I had this sub that he just happened to read about. Too bad he never posted in the forums though!

Looking forward to pictures of your project!

Well tonight 3 4'X8' sheets of 3/4" MDF were cut down to manageable sizes for my next project. A very large pair of Bigger is Better speakers.
They are going to be 6'4" tall!
I'm trying out all of my new tools, hope that I can figure out how to operate them without cutting off any more of my fingers. Life is difficult enough with only 9.

Looking good, having the correct tools makes a world of difference when trying to build something. I made a pair of these a long time ago for the Fostex FE127 drivers. Have fun building them.

Donnie,
It did not happen without pictures!  ;D

I've been on a tear the last few weeks making stuff.
I did the Deathbox and then started on my next project.
I'm going on vacation in a few weeks, we rented a house on a lake in the mountains of Tennessee. I decided that I wanted to have a somewhat mobile stereo and looked at what drivers were laying around the house.
There were a pair of Dayton 4" full rangers and a 6.5" Dayton Classic sub driver.
So I bought a couple sticks of 1"X 6" mahogany ( Why is it only .750 X  5.5", If you sold steal like that you would be sued out of business) and designed a system with 2 speakers with a separate sub box.
Everything ended up being 12" X 12" X 5.5" boxes and I have been pounding them out the last few days.
I sure hope that they sound OK. They are going to be powered by my little Wadia DAC-AMP and a 100 watt Dayton sub amp.
The mahogany is shellacked and MDF is being painted stop sign red.
I haven't quite finished yet and still haven't listened to them.

In process pics :