Yeah, alright... stop looking at me like that!

 

So I was watching some afternoon kiddies TV in bed yesterday - it'd been a long night. There's some tasty female presenter waffling on about something or other - I didn't have the sound on to start, cos hey, ya know - I didn't need it.

 

Then she starts demonstrating a pair of inflatable speakers and I'm all: no way! But it seems to me this could be a pretty neat idea. I'm missing some heavy gut-shaking bass in my motor, but I'm not about to start adding tonnes of extra weight just to get it. If anything, I wanna chuck out weight. And besides, I still need enough space to jam in a couple of snowboards.

 

So... an inflatable bass-bubble? Discuss.

Yeah we sell those at work - what a complete POS LOL :D There is no bass from them at all. They sound tinny as fvck. In other words don't bother - your hangover probably got the better of you hehehe

 

One point though is this - the drivers still weigh the same as convensional speakers (for comparable sound anyway) so the weight is still there.....

 

CheerZ,

 

Andy

Put simply, no.

 

Those inflatable speakers sound crap.

 

If you want to minimise weight, try using birch plywood instead of MDF (it is a bit lighter), or fibreglass matting (although the baffle board (the bit that the sub is mounted in) should still be MDF or Ply)

 

That would keep the weight down.

 

Also, unless you're planning a monster install, the weight of 1 sub/amp, or even a couple, will take nothing away from the overall performance of your Zed. And believe me, you can get huge quantities of bass from just one 10 or 12 if the box is designed well ;)

What about the flat panel speakers made by NXT, do they provide any decent bass ?

Again, not a lot due to their design, but a cracking idea. :rolleyes:

Can't seem to edit my posts, but was going to add - most of those flat panel speakers were designed for high end systems, whereby a separate subwoofer channel is used for bass frequencies.

OK. I read something about a "stealth-box" designed for the 300 which didn't take up much space. But AFAIR it was a small fortune.

 

I'm mainly thinking about getting the best efficiency from a small sub by (maybe) using a huge bubble. Probably worth starting with a high-pressure foam-filled beach-ball coupled to an 8-inch sub. It's all theory - I'm not about to run out and buy a pair of cr*ppy speakers. I /have/ gone completely nuts, but I thought it'd be worth putting out to the tefal-heads around who might know something about sound waves and air-pressure and stuff.

 

Inner-tube... hmmm.

AFAIK the stealth box is made by Auto Accoustics, and yep, it costs a small fortune. I'll be doing my full boot build in MDF/fibreglass matting/alcantara for a whole lot less than that box costs!!

 

Re your foam filled beach ball, I suppose if you're up for a laugh you might like it, but I guarantee you won't be impressed witht he results.

 

Try looking at http://www.efmax.info, at the steroe bit - lots and lots of info there, and Erskine is a great bloke!!:D

probably the best page:

 

http://members.lycos.co.uk/efmax/123_amg.htm

 

but use all the pages for info, including those at the side!!

Sorry, 51x, think you're on a hiding to nothing.

 

Starting simply (cos it's all I can remember), for a speaker to work properly, you need to have a baffle to stop the pressure waves from the front being interfered with by the (exactly inverse if you think about it) waves from the back of the cone.

 

Simplest version of this is the "infinite" baffle. Imagine an infinite plane of material with a speaker sized hole cut in it. So when the speaker goes forward, all the energy goes forward. Without this baffle, some of the energy would nip round the back and get cancelled out.

 

A close approximation is when you take the infinite baffle and (strain, nngh, aargh) bend it round so it looks like a box. Oh look, it's a speaker cabinet without having to buy an infinite piece of MDF.

 

This is less than ideal compared to a true infinite baffle because the air inside the box now acts like a spring and causes all sorts of resonances which degrades freq response and such like.

 

Also less than ideal because the MDF isn't infinitely stiff so wobbles - hence it does not completely isolate the front of the speaker from the back.

 

Inflatable speakers have the same problem only much worse - their material really isn't stiff at all so just can't make a good cabinet.

 

Phew. Inside every ex-physicist is a pedant (if that's OK with you, Mike / Ajay).

 

HTH - Gio

Thanks guys. Simple explanations are always best. I'll be down at B&Q at the weekend to see if they stock infinite baffles. Obviously a closed-sphere infinite baffle would be best, or I'll have to drive around with the boot open and a bit of rag hanging from the edge so people behind don't crash into it. No wait, forget infinite MDF baffles - how about a genetically engineered oak tree planted in the boot that's designed to grow infinitely fast? Think of the oxygen it'd produce! I might even get an EU grant.

 

OK - bad idea discussed rationally. I still reckon it'd be totally f'kin hilarious to make a kick-ass sub bubble with a tiny driver. But I haven't worked out how to re-map the laws of physics yet :D