This summers car audio project was a pair of free form fiberglass sub cabinets. I had previously fabricated a spherical guitar speaker cabinet out of MDF, which I have been using as a sub cabinet. However, it was time to step up and fabricate dedicated sub cabinets for my xB.

Since I am hung up on spherical shapes, that was the direction I was going to go. In the past, I have never taken step by step pics, but this time I decided to document my project. There always seems to be some learning curve involved with each of my projects, so I improvise as I go along.

So here I go with a ton of pics;
THE BAFFLES;
[img]
[img]
[/img]
MOCK UP;
[img]
[/img]
START WRAPPING WITH JERSEY KNIT(I TRIED A PILLOW CASE TO START WITH, BUT IT OBVIOUSLY WAS NOT GOING TO WORK);
[img]
[/img]
[img]
[/img]
[img]
[/img]
TIME TO START 'GLASSING;
[img]
[/img]
AFTER A FEW LAYERS, POP THE ***** AND START 'GLASSING INSIDE;
[img]
[/img]
START WITH THE BODY FILLER AND SANDING;
[img]
COMPARISON TO GUITAR SPHERE;
[/img]
MOCK UP IN xB;
[img]
[/img]
PRIMERED;
[img]
I HAVE MY OWN TEXTURING TECHNIQUE, WHICH COVERS UP THE FLAWS, AND MAKES FOR A DURABLE SURFACE;
[/img]
[img]
I PREFER TO USE PRO AUDIO CONNECTORS, WHICH LOCK, BUT ARE STILL QUICK RELEASE;
[/img]
A LITTLE STUFFING;

FINALLY INSTALLED;
[img]
[/img]
[img]
[/img]
[img]
[/img]
The cabinets are bolted to the floor. A stud runs through the cabinet, through the floor, and is retained with a wing nut. I can take the cabinets out in less than a minute.

 

Pretty sweet man... nice work!!

How does it sound?

 

Thanks.

It sounds pretty good. The force loading technique works well in the xB. Each sub is only getting about 100 watts, but now my system is very balanced. I have great sound quality, but can still bump if I want to.

 

damn nice job!

 

Wow, those are really nice. Good work!

 

Those are so cool. You rarely see Neutrik Speakons in car audio, nice one on that too!

 

dude, I LOVE those, they look so crazy yet cool at the same time. how would they look turned the other way?

 

Awesome look, those would make really cool house speaker, just bolt some smaller ones on top for mids/tweets. I know what I'm doing when I get the chance LOL

 

Wicked! I would do them is a gloss white...

 

Very cool! I'm impressed.

 

Dude how much would it cost for you to mame me some of those and ship them to me LOL!!! Those things are bad ___ looking LOL!!!

 

Thanks for the compliments guys.

burstaneurysm, I also build Pro Audio cabinets, and I feel that the Speakon's are simply the best connectors for any application. In my xB, I can unplug my box and stash the end of the cable under the carpet with out worrying about it shorting out.

DJ_SpaRky, There are some "snowmen" cabinets already on the drawing board. I had some other ideas also. Imagine this cabinet,(sans the handle of course) on a stand, with a tweeter right in the middle of the grille;
[img]

Boxer_Rebellion, Yes, that was the plan from the beginning. I actually did paint them white, but the textured surface made them look gaudy. They kinda looked like those foam craft *****. The only thing I could do was paint them flat black. If they had a smooth surface, they would look good Polar White. To make them smooth enough to paint white, I would have had to put a lot more time into sanding.

TheCCBox, How much do you have to spend? In all seriousness, if they were for sale, how much would you think they were worth? I spent about $300+ in materials, and put about 30 hours of time into them. [/img]

 

Yea, Speakons are great. I was a live sound/reinforcement major in college, so I could wire up one of those in my sleep at this point.

 

They look great flat black anyway I love spherical cabinets as well, owned a pair of BlueRoom Minipods which I mounted in my c-pillars for a time... and had a 70's Aquatron 8-track for my armrest.

 

probably one of the coolest things i have seen. BRAVO!!!

 

Cool, thanks for the info. Can't wait for Snowmen or even Biaxial Variant.

 

DJ_SpaRky, I almost made these cabinets into snowmen. Over the summer, I stopped by a local car show, and noticed people playing guitar hero. They had their trunk open, had an LCD screen in the middle of thier fiberglass amp rack. I was in the middle of making these spheres, and I got to thinking that I could make them into snowmen, and put a drop down screen into my rear hatch. Practicality took priority over the cool factor though.

Boxer_Rebellion, I checked out the MiniPods. Those are pretty cool. I have been researching spherical cabinet design for a couple years now, and have seen some very artistic spherical cabinets. The MiniPods and the other cabinets offered by that company are some of the more practical designs I have seen.

 

great idea. it turned out really clean. it wouldve been cool if the were floating. nonetheless it turned out pretty sweet

 

Amazing work, and nice idea with the pro-audio disconnects. Have you experimented with the sound by rotating them to different angles? (Ex. Towards each other, facing out/forward, using just one, etc)?

Are those 10s or 12s? Did you figure out an approximate volume for each enclosure? You can use geometry to figure out how many cubic inches the ***** take up but the finished enclosures will be marginally bigger...

 

Another thing: How are they secured down, besides the bolt? Is the round piece in the middle of the bottom ring fused to the body of the enclosure, or do you literally lift it off the ring to remove it?