Introduction: Retro Noise-o-box Speaker

This is a little project that aims at transforming old PC speakers into a stylish box in order to make it far easier to forgive the poor sound quality !

Step 1: Skills Needed

To put it simple, what we're going to do here is taking apart an old speaker set and put its components in another, decorated casing.

Depending on what you have, need, or want, different skills will be used. At its core this type of project is very begginer-friendly, but if you want to cast your own box out of quantic steel, go for it !

However, you may surely be required to cut through plastic and wood, and you might also need to perform light soldering. And as always, you will need to learn how to correctly brush your teeth, though it has nothing to do with this instructable.

Step 2: Taking Apart the Speaker

Depending on the speakers you use, you may just need to unscrew some bits. If some parts are glued or wathever, don't be afraid to cut or break these filthy bits. Your goal is to retrieve the two speakers, the electronic board, the power supply (for me it was a simple USB cable) and the data supply (usually a jack cable).

Just be wary that all these parts can be easily broken if you stick something pointy in it, so try not to. Work carefully around the useful bits.

I also happened to scavenge the grids that were on the speakers, because I thought they were good-looking. Your bet.

Step 3: THE BOX

here's the fun part : finding a good box. l bought mine for nothing at a scrapstore, but feel free to pour money in it. I'm not here to judge you.

Your box need to have several qualities :
- to be good-looking. Eh.
- to be the right size for your taste and your speakers.
- Ideally, to allow some space between the speakers and the bottom in order to work as a passive amplifier.

then, you will need to cut some space for the sound to escape, to hold your speakers and to cut a hole for the cables. You can use glue or whatever, I personally fancied screwing.

This part is indeed very dependent on your parts, but just make sure that everything hold together.

I had a little trouble with the little wires connecting the speakers to the board as they broke and I needed to solder them.

As a bonus : my speakers came with a LED to indicate that they were powered, and a potentiometer to control the sound level. Both were on the electronic board, so I managed to drill little holes in the box to make them accessible.

Step 4: Fancying the Fancy Out of the Box

Before anything else, test your box. you want to make sure that nothing broke in the previous steps.

Well, now come the creative part. If you want something of the retro/steampunk style, try to gather little copper and brass-like stuff. You can base your design out of a specific part : that's what I did with the spring.

Really, here you just need to gather ideas from your mind or from the internet, which may be the same if you are a global, sentient AI.

Step 5: Of Course...

Now that you are down, l can only recommend you to listen to some electro swing with your device. Really, check that out.

Before and After Contest 2017

Participated in the
Before and After Contest 2017