Granite Speakers

[Matt34]

Interesting build using Granite for the enclosure.

http://diyaudioprojects.com/Speakers/Seas-Granite-Speakers/

 

[Tomorrow]

I've seen a few granite DIY builds reported. Talk about inert material. I think it was James Rogers who first built a commercial granite set of loudspeakers. A pair were for sale really cheaply in Seattle a couple of years ago. They were really tempting to me because they were so unusual, but.....

 

[jamie2112]

I would love to hear these.....An awful lot of work to make these though..

 

[chucksrt]

they look awesome and i guess you don't have to worry about the cabinet flexing. It would make a cool set of floor standing towers you might have to add structural supports to the floor to hold the weight.

 

[highfigh]

In the late '70s or early '80s, a company called Sfz (for the musical term sforzando) was making cabinets of limestone. They didn't sound as good as the company thought.

 

[just-some-guy]

thats pretty cool. but they should have used a colorfull stone, to add some BAMMM.
and i'm sure those guys work at a granite shop.

 

[just-some-guy]

oh-yeah.

back in 99 or so. i was at the CES down town chicago. there was a co that had concrete speakers.

 

[Rickster71]

thats pretty cool. but they should have used a colorfull stone, to add some BAMMM.

I'm thinking the dark material and dark glue, help hide the seams.

 

[highfigh]

thats pretty cool. but they should have used a colorfull stone, to add some BAMMM.
and i'm sure those guys work at a granite shop.

Not all limestone is just one color. The stuff SFZ used had fossils and all kinds of inclusions. They looked great, they just didn't have any internal damping and rang like crazy. This was long before it was easy to get box design software, so I have to assume they didn't have the calcs or testing ability that even home builders do now.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

You could get the granite and have it cut to your specs for around 900 bucks. If you have the seams polished it would look much better then the ones in the pictures. I think the cabinet would weigh in around 490lbs not counting the driver (assumming you go 23x18 box and use 2cm granite)!

I would love to hear these.....An awful lot of work to make these though..

 

[WmAx]

The linked pictures are interesting. The builder used "3mm of asphalt" as dampening for the walls. Unfortunately, it will not do anything here; the physical impedance mismatch will be too great. To have an effective dampening here, only constraining a visco-elastic layer between the granite and another stiff plate along all of the walls would be effective. May as well use 1/4" steel here for the opposing plate; weight is obviously not an issue with this build.

-Chris

 

[just-some-guy]

I'm thinking the dark material and dark glue, help hide the seams.

they have glue to match most colors. i know, i have granite counters.

 

[j_garcia]

www.norh.com

For a rectangular speaker, I could see using a stone baffle, but not the rest of the enclosure. Interesting idea though.