Build A Pair of Stereo Speakers

Step 2 Designing the Box: Part 1: Type of box and its volume

After the speaker drivers and crossover unit have been acquired, its time to design the enclosure( which i will call the box from now on). It is exactly what it sounds like (a box) except has a few holes in it for the speaker drivers.

Type of Box
There are two kinds of boxes we could construct: A sealed box or a vented box. A sealed box is completely airtight and allows for a smaller total volume and a decent bass response. A vented box has ports allowing airflow out of the box. These usually have larger volumes and a better bass response. These are more complicated to construct because finding an ideal port requires more measurement and calculation. Because I don't have much space (and I'm lazy :P) i will be constructing a sealed box speaker.

Finding the Volume
First we need to determine the most ideal volume of this box. It is quite important construct a box with a volume suited for the woofer. A volume excessively small or large will cause the speaker to sound "loud" or "hollow." This table gives approximate box volumes for corresponding woofer sizes:

Woofer Size........Enclosure Volume
4"...........................0.25 - 0.39 cubic feet
6"...........................0.35 - 0.54 cubic feet
8"...........................0.54 - 0.96 cubic feet
10".........................0.96 - 1.80 cubic feet
12".........................1.80 - 3.50 cubic feet
15".........................3.50 - 8.00 cubic feet

I have a 10" woofer but since space is an issue, I'm going to make my boxes as small as possible. The volume of my box will be slightly less than 1 cubic foot. here is a more detailed guide for finding enclosure volumes

The next step is to design the box in complete detail.