As the title indicates, this is my latest creation which I've affectionately dubbed the facewoofer. As most things I've built since joining head-fi, it's a bit outside the box
EDIT 1: Upholstered
EDIT 2: Shakerized
EDIT 3: Finishing Touches
EDIT 4: Microphone Addition and Mic Rebuild
Post with pics (Apparently you can only have 25 images on one post)
What the hell is it?
Well hopefully the pics speak for themselves but I call it a speaker chair. In it's current form it's pretty much just a shelf that I plan to cover with velcro to stick my speakers to. It's intended to be somewhat of a hybrid between a bookshelf system and headphones. It is also intended to be modular so I can mess with different alignments and drivers as a pseudo-prototype for...
which is basically the same thing, but a more permanent installment that uses the hollow space in the chair as the speaker enclosure. Also probably less likely to make your friends and family to point and laugh.
Why?
Punisher's DIY k1000's, which look
great btw, got me wondering how big of a driver you could strap to your face. Bigger is better right?!? Well obviously after a certain point the SQ to comfort ratio becomes unbalanced, which led me to the speaker chair design. I've seen cheapo versions like this
2.1 gaming chair, but the imaging and overall SQ probably sucks with the speaker placement. So I decided to try to put an audiophile twist on the design. The other reason was because I just wanted a subwoofer 3" from my face...(dont we all??)
Impressions:
Despite it's title, the sound is actually pretty balanced. The bass is very quick and punchy. But it did get it's title for a reason. It is quite capable of melting your face off with bass if you mess with the EQ and crank it, which I enjoy from time to time. Anyhoo...the imaging is superb, at least compared to headphones. I dare say the main vocalist sounds as if they are naked up on the stage. I say naked because the artist sounds raw and tangibly isolated from the rest of the music. The level of detail seems a bit lacking compared to my hd650's, but with a grain of salt... The drivers for this project were less than a quarter of the price of the senns, and it's being driven by an old POS amp. Isolation is not optimal, but the drivers are close enough to my face to allow me to listen a floor down from the bedrooms all night without bothering anyone. I expect the experience is similar to that of a decent bookshelf system, with the benefit of being a fair bit quieter.
Cost:
All in all, the initial project (first wave of pics) came in under $110. Here's an approximate breakdown.
$15 - Chair on craigslist
$10 -
Tang Band 2" Extended Range (2)
$60 -
Tang Band 5.25" Sub (2)
$20 - various wood and materials
EDIT 1:
Upholstery only added about 5-10 bucks to the project, bringing the grand total to ~$120.
EDIT 2:
The total cost after adding the shakers and the sub amp was about $305. This unfortunately more than doubled the cost of the chair, but by the time I bought the components to create a proper second-order low pass filter for the subs the benefit of a dedicated sub amp + adjustable active filter seemed worth it. I also plan to do a series-parallel 4 ohm config with the subs and shakers, once I get some full range drivers that can hit ~100hz comfortably.
$70 -
Auro Pro Shakers (2)
$115 -
Dayton 240W Sub Amp
Problems:
-It sounds a bit better when I lift my head off the seat. I expect that the back of the chair being directly behind my head is causing some weird reflections when my ears are so close to it.
-The 2" drivers aren't nearly robust enough to cover all the way down to subwoofer territory. The ideal crossover point appears to be around 1000hz for this particular setup. The directionality of the sound coming from the sub is probably going to cause the imaging to be less than perfect.
Finishing Touches / Potential Tweaks:
-Probably going to upholster it in black fabric or pleather and put a big sheet of soft velcro on top.
-Definitely going to install permanent wiring from the speakers to binding posts or something on the back of the chair. Still need to work on a concept for keeping the wires from the amp to chair tidy.
-A better full range driver or maybe consider a 3-way system.
Overall I'm very happy with it. Despite the ridiculous appearance, it is actually quite practical for my purposes since I only listen in my office chair. Anyway...that was a bit longer than I expected. Hope someone found it entertaining. Cheers.
the "facewoofer" (03/31/09 minor tweaks and pics)
Unfortunately, while the shelving is plenty sturdy enough to hold more weight...I would probably need to replace the height adjustment piston with some car shocks to don 12 inch subs.
