advertisement


DIY soundbar using an old pair of speakers

wcavanagh

pfm Member
Hi. I've been toying with the idea of building a simple passive soundbar to wall-mount under the TV. I have an old pair of Q Acoustics 2020 speakers gathering dust and I have time on my hands so thought it would be a fun project.

I could start with a design and move onto cutting chipboard to make things fit, but I suppose I should consider a few things like the ideal internal box volume and such, which I know nothing about. I've seen a website that provides the ideal internal enclosure volume based of the driver specs but I don't have the specs and I have no way of obtaining them.

Any tips on where to begin?
 
Having looked at my 2020s I'm not sure how easy it would be to remove the drive units and put them in a different box. Could you just put then on a (deep) shelf under the screen, lying on their sides perhaps? Never quite worked out the point of a sound bar - we have a centre speaker (Fostex open backed box) in an enclosure below the screen, and that works fine, even though it's relatively low (as the DVD player is above it)
 
Never quite worked out the point of a sound bar
They use signal processing to create a wide stereo image and possibly even a pseudo-surround effect without taking up much space. I suppose it's a step up from speakers built into the TV.
 
They use signal processing to create a wide stereo image and possibly even a pseudo-surround effect without taking up much space. I suppose it's a step up from speakers built into the TV.
Exactly this. Now that TVs are so shallow the speakers sound awful, anything with some sort of cabinet out to be an improvement.
 
Hi. I've been toying with the idea of building a simple passive soundbar to wall-mount under the TV. I have an old pair of Q Acoustics 2020 speakers gathering dust and I have time on my hands so thought it would be a fun project.

I could start with a design and move onto cutting chipboard to make things fit, but I suppose I should consider a few things like the ideal internal box volume and such, which I know nothing about. I've seen a website that provides the ideal internal enclosure volume based of the driver specs but I don't have the specs and I have no way of obtaining them.

Any tips on where to begin?
How about replicating the internal volume of the 2020s in a sound-bar shaped box? That's easy enough to work out.
 
How about replicating the internal volume of the 2020s in a sound-bar shaped box? That's easy enough to work out.

That sounds like a good starting point. I just assumed that the speaker depth along with the port would be an important relationship but actually I see no reason why this wouldn't be the same with the port firing out the side. Will look into this, thanks.

Having looked at my 2020s I'm not sure how easy it would be to remove the drive units and put them in a different box. Could you just put then on a (deep) shelf under the screen, lying on their sides perhaps?

The rubber bits that keep the grille in place can be removed to reveal the screws that attach the baffle to the enclosure so I'm hoping it's straightforward to take apart.

TV is on the wall with no shelving beneath so really looking for something slim and unobtrusive to wall mount. A soundbar with 5.25 inch drivers will be anything but slim & sleek but should sound decent.
 


advertisement


Back
Top