"cannon" speakers

[progbuddy]

I actually didn't cut the tubing to a certain length :p. I just made a couple of adjustments after i plugged them in for the first time. Whenever I heard a resonance, I would cut the tube a little shorter each time. I took about an inch off in the long run. Plus, you have to figure in the thickness of the plexi (1-2 mm), density, and such. I'm not really done yet. I was going to add a couple neat features.

[a.Bird]

Oh man, it's been so long since I've applied math to any real life concepts. I miss that. Slug Toy thank you so much for that wonderful mind tinkering experience. Progbuddy, great work on your "cannon" speakers. I'm really interested in this now as I've got a ton of low wattage speakers laying around that I have been ready to toss.

[progbuddy]

You could make a whole surround sound system with a bunch of low wattage speakers, small amplifier, and a bunch of plastic tubes. I did. I have one tube as a subwoofer, an extra speaker, and 2 more low watt speakers to finish it off.

[Slug Toy]

ok, i graphed things out. the wavelengths are not linear at all. its more hyperbolic. i managed to make a program that gave me all wavelengths for each frequency. so i had 19980 values produced. now the trick is to figure out how to average these to get a good all-round tube length. thats whats got me screwed up.... im using python and im having a heck of a time trying to cache all 19980 values as a list to be referred to.

ill tell you this for now though. the lower the frequency, the longer the tube needs to be. at 20Hz, the tube needs to be in multiples of 17.17m, yes METERS. at 20kHz, it has to be in multiples of 1.717cm.

i remembered something else too. look up fundamentals. for sound waves, there are fundamental increments for the wavelength at which amplification will occur, and it doesnt have to be the full length of the wavelength. there are certain ratios you need. i think it goes like this: 1st fundamental is the whole wavelength, 2nd fundamental is 1/2 the wavelength, 3rd is 1/4 the wavelength, 4th is 1/8... and so on. ive got to look this stuff up though, so give me a while.

ive really volunteered myself for a lot of work this time...

<EDIT> just as i thought, i was wrong about the fundamentals. no wonder it didnt seem right. the smallest you can go is to half a wavelength. im still reading...

[progbuddy]

I don't think many speakers will hit 20 Hz. omg, I have a story on this.


There was a factory that produced wavelengths of 4 Hz. Next to the factory, there was a farm. One by one, all the chickens on the farm died. The explanation? At 4 Hz, the chickens' brain cells were resonating .

LOL.

[Slug Toy]

thats completely possible. its been shown that low frequencies like 4Hz can put people to sleep... something about low rumbling just makes you tired.

now, in other news... this sucks!!! my program is a complete disaster. i have no idea how to get this thing figured out, and im not a python wizard by any means. its driving me crazy. i just cant take all those 19980 wavelengths and create a generalization without it being super complicated.

give me a while on this one. in the mean time... keep on trucking because if its working as good as you say it is... thats good enough i suppose. i just need to do what im doing because... i want to.

[Omega]

Haha. The human range of hearing is actually from 20Hz up to 44KHz.

Nice post, slug.

[Slug Toy]

yes, the range is up to 44kHz for a newborn... probably even higher too.. or at least the ability to sense it, maybe not actually hear it. i can still hear well above 20kHz myself... but most people cant. most people these days cant even hear to 20kHz actually. thank very loud headphones and earbuds and too much bass in your car for that.

ok, small update. as i expected, to take care of all frequencies, you need a very large length. my preliminary estimates are saying at least 1100km of tubing to satisfy just up to 20kHz. thats still probably too short too. so you see why theres dedicated speakers for highs, mids, and lows... way too much going on over the entire spectrum for it to be feasible to amplify everything at once.

i still cant give any exact measurements yet. i think i have to start dividing into bass, treble, and mid sections to make things reasonable. but still... you would need an 8.5meter tube at least for a subwoofer to work properly. wonderful eh?

[Aero]

hey progbuddy, you should try recording a sound from the speaker and putting it up online. If you need it hosted let me know I'll toss it on my site temporarialy.

P.S. I know its pretty pointless, seing as how microphones for PCs generally suck with sound quality .


Good job on the speaker though, you should light it up with some sound activated cathodes or LED's, then it would be pimpin.

[progbuddy]

hey progbuddy, you should try recording a sound from the speaker and putting it up online. If you need it hosted let me know I'll toss it on my site temporarialy.

P.S. I know its pretty pointless, seing as how microphones for PCs generally suck with sound quality .


Good job on the speaker though, you should light it up with some sound activated cathodes or LED's, then it would be pimpin.

i could get some LEDs and put them near the starting point of the tube... that would be kinda neat. I was thinking of putting them on the sides of my computer. I think that would be kinda neat.