Alternate speaker enclosure

McMajik

New member
How much does a set of monitors enclosure impact their sound? If I were to take the drivers out and put them in something else, would it completely ruin them?
 
That depends on so many things that it's impossible to say with this little information. For the most part, as long as the new enclosure is the same dimensions as the old, it will work fine, but porting and dampening, and...
 
I was thinking something like the drivers from a set of Behringer B3031s or something put into a floor standing unit. Completely different enclosure, although I guess the bottom of it could be sealed midway up or higher? I know it'd sound different, but would it be likely completely unusable or just require some learning?

(This is my attempt to reconcile aesthetics and audio quality for someone else, by the way. I'm not one to back down from a challenge :p )
 
I was thinking something like the drivers from a set of Behringer B3031s or something put into a floor standing unit. Completely different enclosure, although I guess the bottom of it could be sealed midway up or higher? I know it'd sound different, but would it be likely completely unusable or just require some learning?

(This is my attempt to reconcile aesthetics and audio quality for someone else, by the way. I'm not one to back down from a challenge :p )

You have nothing to lose by trying, except the labour and cost of the boxes you build.

So do it, and see how it sounds. If you don't like the result, then revert.

The caveat, though, is that with powered monitors, boxes and speakers are designed together to work together.
 
There's nothing to lose by trying and you might end up with a great monitor, but...

The design and build of the enclosure has as much...or even more...to do with how a speaker sounds as the drivers they use. The resonance of the material, the shape and size of the space, internal baffling, ports, etc. etc. all affect the eventual sound. It's certainly not a case of "make it the same size and it'll sound fine".
 
It's a big thing - a year ago I had to do some work on a pair of ARx speakers I use for a quad set up. The Tweeter attenuator had died and had to be replaced. The work required opening the box, dismounting the driver & tweeter and removing the fibre glass filling.
I had to replace the f/glass for a squillion reason & the unpleasantness to work with it was just one. Replacing it required finding a fibre that was as close as possible in dimension, the same weight and placing it with the same density in the box.
I came close but no cupie doll!
The bass response with the speaker is a little different - oh - I replaced the fibre in both boxes to get a balance sound.
Bose's living room floor standing speakers are a good example of the effcet of a box. The drivers on mine are quite small but the bass sound is quite full - porting , resonance and the internals chambering have a bif effect. their wave radios take the concept to the extreme though.
 
I used to have a pair of yamaha PA speakers, like below. They were big and heavy, but had great power handling and souinded real nice.

They were also pretty old and not nearly as nice looking anymore. So I figured I would ditch the Yamaha bins, salvage the components, and make new bins that were smaller and lighter.

They worked ok, but they were not as nearly as nice sounding. They weren't horrible . . . but they didn't excite me at all.

post-27505-1381965827528.jpg
 
Why the need for a new enclosure? Do you need them to look better? Are you looking to get a different elevation? Are you just having fun with a project?
 
I used to have a pair of yamaha PA speakers, like below. They were big and heavy, but had great power handling and souinded real nice.

They were also pretty old and not nearly as nice looking anymore. So I figured I would ditch the Yamaha bins, salvage the components, and make new bins that were smaller and lighter.

They worked ok, but they were not as nearly as nice sounding. They weren't horrible . . . but they didn't excite me at all.

View attachment 91813

Yamaha S4115H. I had a pair of those and they did sound good. At 101dB sensitivity (1W, 1M) they got loud without a lot of power. They were beasts to load.

Yep, the horn design and the ports were all there for a reason. Put those drivers in a different enclosure and you defeat the features that make them work.
 
Back
Top