It's easier to put a satellite into orbit than to make speakers… or at least, that's what the available data suggests. The huge amount of contradictions and discussions (not to mention “flame wars”) is intimidating, but we should always be willing to experiment. That's how we arrived at the profile of “Piffpaffpoltrie” on Instructables, who recently published his adventure in making “spherical” speakers, using as a starting point four IKEA salad bowls, and two Philips woofers that were gathering dust…
The simple fact of using Bluetooth headphones confirms that I'm not someone particularly obsessed with audio quality. The only speakers available in my setup are the ones that come with the LED TV that serves as a second monitor, and we all know that “those” kinds of speakers are usually horrible. Lately I've been thinking about looking for a more serious audio solution, and as expected, the Internet bombarded me with DIY speakers.
Now, the market is full of ready-to-assemble kits that allow us to escape (to a large extent) the storm of cuts and measurements; however, the user “Piffpaffpoltrie” on Instructables decided to take another path: designing his kit from two Philips woofers… and four IKEA salad bowls:
Spherical speakers with IKEA salad bowls
To be more precise, the salad bowls belong to the bamboo series “Blanda Matt”, with a diameter of 28 centimeters (there are also versions of 12 and 20 cm). The official page indicates that they are available for a price of 13 euros, and they seem to be very popular. The speakers are Philips AD7066/W4 (a discontinued model from the '70s), which “Piffpaffpoltrie” had kept for a while in NOS condition (New-Old-Stock). Obviously, it's not obligatory to go searching for vintage speakers: There are many equivalent models out there for “boxes” of 8/9 liters (the volume of each salad bowl is 4.5L). In contrast, the tweeters are Visaton CP13, more recent.
The two halves of each speaker are joined with eight threaded rods (which also hold the woofer) and a good dose of glue, but the most complicated part is cutting the base of the salad bowl for the installation of the speaker. “Piffpaffpoltrie” sought the help of a friend, and even with the correct tools, one of the salad bowls lost a piece of wood. The bases for the speakers are 25-centimeter cutting boards, with three rubber supports so that the spheres “rest” on them. The terminals are installed on the back of the second half, and the crossover is super basic, with two 2.2uF capacitors in parallel, connecting the positive terminals of the woofer and the tweeter.
A good amount of stuffing, a disc made of foam rubber to prevent the rods from resonating, and that's it. There's no advanced electronics, no Bluetooth, or anything like that. The speakers connect directly to an amplifier (the impedance on each is 4.5 ohms), and the rest is a matter of finding a good position.
Access the guide: Click here
