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Acoustic instruments radiate sound in a wonderfully complex, 360 degree fashion, while conventional loudspeakers radiate in a much more boring, spotlight of sound. You could spend a ton of money on fancy products:
Hemisphere from Electrotap
Experimental Meyer Array
or you could follow these instructions to build a cheap array out of IKEA salad bowls and surplus automotive speakers. It won't sound as "accurate" as those other speakers, but it's surprisingly good and looks pretty cool on stage.
Special thanks and apologies to Dan Truman and the researchers at CNMAT, who's scientific work directly inspired this project.
P.S. Here's another cool loudspeaker array.
P.P.S The Stanford Laptop Orchestra built some nice ones here.
P.P.P.S. This one is nice, too .
Hemisphere from Electrotap
Experimental Meyer Array
or you could follow these instructions to build a cheap array out of IKEA salad bowls and surplus automotive speakers. It won't sound as "accurate" as those other speakers, but it's surprisingly good and looks pretty cool on stage.
Special thanks and apologies to Dan Truman and the researchers at CNMAT, who's scientific work directly inspired this project.
P.S. Here's another cool loudspeaker array.
P.P.S The Stanford Laptop Orchestra built some nice ones here.
P.P.P.S. This one is nice, too .
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Signing UpStep 1Acquire the Materials
The goal of this project was to be as cheap as possible. You'll want eight (8) loudspeakers. I would have used these speakers:
$5.50 speaker
but All Electronics was out of them. I got these, instead:
$7.50 speaker
The important considerations were an impedance of 8 ohms (which is normal for home stereo speakers) and good frequency range. (in this case 70-10k Hertz). Sound localization is more acute at higher frequencies, so response >1k Hertz is especially important. It would be better to add a sub-woofer to make up for thin bass, than to have no high end.
While at All Electronics, get some Speaker Terminals.
I used four (4) "quad" terminals, but the four-pair ones look good.
(NB: If all electronics doesn't have these anymore. Try Parts Express or Radio Shack)
The other major elements in this project are the bowls. They cost $5 at IKEA:
Reda Bowls
Insanely cheap. Get two (2) sets because you need two of the biggest bowl. They also come in white. I imagined using one of each color, so this project would look like a big fishing float. Ultimately, though, solid red seemed best.
UPDATE: These bowls are no longer sold by IKEA. Sorry.
Finally, the miscellaneous hardware. 8 speakers x 4 mounting holes = 32. My local Ace hardware provided 32 machine bolts, locking nuts, and washers. Also, pick up 8 small nuts and bolts for the terminals. Most of the speakers were fine with 1/2" bolts, but the top and bottom ones needed longer (1 1/2") ones, as you'll see later. This may vary, if your parts are different.
Also:
- weather stripping
- speaker wire ( I had some 18 gauge stuff lying around the house, the project only needs a few feet.)
- heat shrink tubing
$5.50 speaker
but All Electronics was out of them. I got these, instead:
$7.50 speaker
The important considerations were an impedance of 8 ohms (which is normal for home stereo speakers) and good frequency range. (in this case 70-10k Hertz). Sound localization is more acute at higher frequencies, so response >1k Hertz is especially important. It would be better to add a sub-woofer to make up for thin bass, than to have no high end.
While at All Electronics, get some Speaker Terminals.
I used four (4) "quad" terminals, but the four-pair ones look good.
(NB: If all electronics doesn't have these anymore. Try Parts Express or Radio Shack)
The other major elements in this project are the bowls. They cost $5 at IKEA:
Reda Bowls
Insanely cheap. Get two (2) sets because you need two of the biggest bowl. They also come in white. I imagined using one of each color, so this project would look like a big fishing float. Ultimately, though, solid red seemed best.
UPDATE: These bowls are no longer sold by IKEA. Sorry.
Finally, the miscellaneous hardware. 8 speakers x 4 mounting holes = 32. My local Ace hardware provided 32 machine bolts, locking nuts, and washers. Also, pick up 8 small nuts and bolts for the terminals. Most of the speakers were fine with 1/2" bolts, but the top and bottom ones needed longer (1 1/2") ones, as you'll see later. This may vary, if your parts are different.
Also:
- weather stripping
- speaker wire ( I had some 18 gauge stuff lying around the house, the project only needs a few feet.)
- heat shrink tubing
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1 Does the one speaker do stereo ? Or am I missing something. If it's not stereo = 1, why are there 2 sets of terminals?
2 I live in Mexico and you can buy bowls like that everywhere for a dollar or 2. About how big are the bowls in diameter ?
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~njb/research/slorkSpeaker/index.htm
Great work by the way!
A speaker (when in use) sends sound waves to the front but also to the back. SO when you put 2 or more speakers with the backs +- facing each other in the same space, you get a loss of sound and quality.
In such a project, the space in which the speakers are needs to be divided.
Also, the casing is to light for such and so much speakers, the vibrations will cause the casing to resonate, and resulting in a a unclear sound. It will just work well on low volume... but with these kinds of speakers i do not suppose you want to turn the volume down!
http://www.nextag.com/speaker-distribution/compare-html
will they be connected in parallel then, and in that case would it still be sufficient just to connect to your amplifier?
You can take two speakers and connect them correctly then play some music... switch one and the music will sound flat and "hollow" because of missing spectra due to cancellations.
Jerry