Shelf Speakers W/ipod Dock (Part I - Speaker Boxes)

I got an ipod nano in November and since have wanted an attractive speaker system for it. At work one day I noticed that the computer speakers I use worked pretty well, so I headed to the Goodwill later and found a pare of ok computer speakers for $7, After dissecting them I had a little amp and two speakers.

Here I have taken the speakers apart. I picked up the leatherman at radio shack about two months ago. Unfortunately that was before I knew about the MAKE: version of the tool.

I tried out Google SketchUp and had the basic design down for the speakers in about 30 min. I highly recommend trying SketchUp, very easy and intuitive.

I had some nice pieces of maple left over from a cabinet I built. The bottom and front are attached at a 10 deg angle. I later wished this had been 15 deg. to match the ipod nano dock angle. The hole was made with a 3" hole saw and a drill press. Later I rabbited the inside of the hole so the speaker would sit closer to the face of the front.

I used a forsner bit to drill a 1-1/4" hole for the horn. A strait pcv union was painted black and epoxied to the horn hole. Note the burn marks around the speaker hole rabbit, hard maple and routers do not get along very well!

I didn't want any screws on the face showing and the speakers were recently damaged by a curious 5 year old so I used hot melt glue to install the speakers, this should make replacement easy if I find some decent replacements.

I decided this was a good time to test everything out. I simply stripped the wires and twisted them together. Perhaps its only my imagination but they sound better and louder to me than they did in the plastic case. This is probably due to wish full thinking, nevertheless they sound great and look better than the original.

Up next will be an enclosure for the amp with a iPod doc built in.