I have been eyeing the Parts Express website pretty closely since hearing the boom box.
It used a 2.1 Bluetooth amp board, PVC pipe, a 6"? sub on one end and a passive radiator on the other end and 2 3" drivers handling everything else.
I'm trying to figure out how to put my twist on it. Maybe 16" pipe with some 12's in it!!
I'm sorry that I don't remember who made it, but I'm thankful that he let me play my music through it.

Dominick,
You mean something like this? LOL
I have 2 subs in my garage that use Sonotube!

If I did the sonotube thing, I think this time I'd go with PVC or whatever material they use when they run drainage along the highways. When I was a kid I asked a construction guy for a cut off and put a pair of 10" drivers in a 12" tube and used it in my early home theater setups (before I even owned a car otherwise it would have gone there). I've been kicking around the idea of doing that again if I can find a good cutoff of some 12" or larger tube again.

That said, unless some large PVC falls into my lap like right now, I'm leaning towards something smaller and all wood. Maybe do a long throw 6" that can go down to 40hz in a small folded horn, then some of the sealed box Betsy speakers.  

That might put it out of my budget doing all that, but it would be a fun experiment!  

Hey! Maybe make a tiny imperial SO like that clear one we saw on the workbench at Decfest, and stuff a 6" in that! Ha! It would probably be the size of a mini-fridge then, but that would be fun to try.

I of course have no idea what you mean by "knock you off the chair"  :)

LOL, oddly enough, I've heard that more than a few times!

I might have to paint it to match.

Ok, I've got more parts coming in. I've had the 2.1 amp for a few days now, but haven't been home much, so I've not even taken it out of the box yet. But since it's the season for me to be working inside the house rather than outside, I'm finally going to get back to reorganizing my garage so I can actually get at my tools and finish projects! And with that in mind, I did some poking around on Amazon and ordered the cheapest 14.8v LiPo RC car battery they have in stock, and a meter for it.

I've decided instead of agonizing over what speakers to use, and hoping/waiting for that guy with the killer Boombox sticks his head in here, I would just slap something together with stuff I have on hand...then when we get more info I can just rebuild my boombox with better speakers, or if I really like my beater boombox, build a better one with tweaks learned from slapping my first one together.

Yeah, that's a lot of stream-of-thought bla bla bla...I know, typical of me. But my point is I plan on slapping something together soon, and as we get more info, building a better box. And once Tom and I both build better boxes, I'm sure we'll be sharing parts lists, plans, and ideas with you all so you can build your own Bluetooth BoomBoxes. (I'll wait for Tom to come up with a clever name Ha!)

That....is a great idea, Donnie!

How about this - here is the amp I picked.

https://www.parts-express.com/tps3116d2-class-d-21-bluetooth-40-amplifier-board-...

It's only $40 - let's say we start with that (or similar if you find something else you like), and it needs to be battery powered, and have enough juice to run at least 5 hours...think like a typical night around the campfire or grilling in the backyard or something.

Beyond that...I guess we could call it open class.

We can meet up this winter for some audiophile listening, show off our project Boomboxes, share notes, ideas, and post our adventures here in the forums.

Sound good?

I have my mind in full eviltron mode right now, devising a method of using drivers that I currently own. My 110 db garage stereo may be going on hiatus for the winter.
8" Silver Flutes, HiVi tweeters and 2 12" Goldwood woofers might fit the bill.

Here are a few boomboxes I have built that are the well known boominator design.  https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/class-d/104402-boominator-stab-ultimate-party-ma...

Each one has 8 drivers (4 woofers, 4 tweeters).  The big one has 4 10" pro woofers.  The small ones use the aurasound neo woofers that Steve recommended as a low cost replacement for the Tang Band in the original DNAs.

The smaller ones sound better than the larger one, but the large one was built for LOUD.  I have measured it at 109db.  Add a small headphone amp and it plays louder.  I have hosted beach dances in Michigan and filled the beach with dance music.

They all use the same $20 t-amp and LIFEp04 batteries.  They will play all weekend.   I bought a little Bluetooth receiver and use that where I can get a signal to play TIDAL.

What these lack is lower end bass.  I think around 80hz is as low as the big one goes and that requires some equalization.  That's why the one at the fest caught my ear.  Even at lower volumes it had bass in the 50hz range.  It was also light weight (the big one weighs 65 lbs).

The first one I built had a subwoofer and it sounded pretty good.  Unfortunately the 2.1 amp didn't have any circuit protection and I fried it.

BOOM!!!!!

My first plan was 2 5 gallon buckets. Then storage totes. Neither had enough volume for the drivers I am using. Then as I was looking at the Lowe's website  i had a epiffiny.

Wow, well, that does make it portable. This should be fun!

LOL, that's so awesome!  I'm honestly curious and excited to see what happens, Donnie.


I cleared off my tablesaw and made a little room in the garage/shop to hopefully get to work on my Boombox this weekend.

I'm going out on a limb and saying that it was one of these, I think:
https://www.parts-express.com/tang-band-w6-1139sif-6-1-2-paper-cone-subwoofer-sp...
He also had a passive radiator on the other end. I think that the math says that the radiator has to be bigger than the driver, again, I think.
You would think that I would get a book or something about speaker building since I've built almost 10 pairs in the last couple of years.
A little knowledge might go a long way.
Funny thing is that every pair that I've built so far sounded pretty good.

I wish those were more efficient for what I had in mind, but I think I might be going for that 6.5" sub.

I can easily drop an inexpensive 24v battery in. For my prototype I went with a 14.8v LiPo RC Car battery. We'll see how that works as my sub design is going to be really inefficient.  

I'm thinking 2, 12 volt  motorcycle batteries strapped in series will do it.
I need to get my enthusiasm back up on this project.

I'm very excited to see what you do Donnie!

I'm still on pause, too much work stress right now - I don't want to go into the shop when I'm exhausted or angry - it's not very productive and I usually wind up hammering the wrong nail or with sharp objects intersecting flesh.  

This is shaping up to be interesting.
I can't see mine sounding great, but I can see it being loud!
So far there are 2 12" woofers and soon to be a couple of 4' full rangers. I will have some work figuring out how to keep it from vibrating the lid off as it does now. Sounds like a job for duct tape!
My order with Parts Express does have 2 12" subs in it, I paid upwards of $45 for BOTH, real quality stuff I bet. They may migrate their way into the garbage can. Trash in, trash out.

Yeah I have visions. Just one too many motorcycle crashes does that to you.

Quote:


LULZ.

But I like "Donnie Vision" - it's like the grownup version of a 5 year old designing robots and stuff.  :)

I just opened a email from Parts Express, it looks like my amplifier board shipped yesterday.
As soon as the weather breaks enough to make it semi-comfortable in the garage I will get to work.
" I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!"  

Same here. In the heaviest of gusts part of an old tree fell over in the wild life preserve directly across the road from us. . . an interesting sight to see and scary when you think it might have been closer to your home. A big sound as well!

Yep! My Yukon finally arrived!

Way too windy today to try it out. Grrr.

I'll check on mine.  I usually get things in a day or two from them.