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Re: Passive, Wooden Amplifier for Cell Phones

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 12:20 pm
by charlese
reible wrote:I'm not all that into phones and I use what my son gives me. Mine has only one speaker, so it sounds like some phones have two speakers........ OK I hear the "sounds like" playing in your mind.

I wonder how they create the shape of the "speaker" in your photo, perhaps a cnc machine? I guess if have to have that I would make the back in two pieces one being a square that I could put on the lathe. Then turn the shape as best I could and glue it back together and do the passage ways. Do you have any ideas?

I made a speaker for one of my sons who was a base guitar player in a band. They nicknamed it "The Beast". That is where I learned to love spreadsheets, I designed the ports to be 3/4" thick... a cleaver trick of playing with the volume of the enclosure, speaker specifications, and a few other details. When we tested it I was amazed at how well it worked. At the low end you couldn't hear it but if you stood in front of it you got this strange feeling in your body. I forget if it was 17 or 18 Hz and only down 3-1/2 db. At the end of its life we disassemble it and saved the parts but I don't know what he ever did with them.

I most likely still have to books I used during the design somewhere and I might have to testing results too. Ah the good old days.

Ed
Agree - Yep! musical sounds are fun to play with as in your "Beast". Bass frequencies are amplified by designs of speaker enclosures like your "beast" did. Even sounds you can't hear, but can feel tend to replicate the experience of listening to an orchestra.

Here is a link to several sites having to do with "Koostik" phone amplifiers. Some already made sell at high prices. This site has other links to horizontal phones and those with one speaker.

I thought that exposing this site is better than me trying to give explanations. Have fun! https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... r%20review

Re: Passive, Wooden Amplifier for Cell Phones

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 5:29 pm
by charlese
Additional observations regarding making a passive smart phone amp.:

When scanning the Google site (above) I noticed that one of these wood amps (called the original Koostick) had deep tapered sound openings (speakers) that probably act as horns.

To me it looks like they were made with a router, making deeper but smaller concentric circles. That device also looks like it is thicker than most of those shown. Maybe three inches deep with two inch deep speaker holes.

The only way I could do the acoustic slots, leading to the speakers is like the one video shows. By hand, with carving tools.

I kinda doubt the species of wood chosen matters little.

Re: Passive, Wooden Amplifier for Cell Phones

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 7:46 pm
by Lodgepole
Skizzity wrote:These are pretty cool. I have an HTC One with dual front facing speakers. So, I would need dual ports. I've been running ideas around in my head but haven't put anything to paper yet. For me, I think the best way would be placing the phone in landscape. It would look more like a boombox.
If you get a chance, I would suggest you look at these plans: http://www.popularwoodworking.com/proje ... ve-speaker

I think this might give you some additional ideas.