Tone cardboard

[BatUtilityBelt]

I have a bunch (maybe 8?) of these little Eminence 6-1/2" speakers I think I bought from Parts Express years ago. I have twice as many as I intended because I thought my order didn't go through, and ordered again before the sale was over, then both sets showed up. I was impressed by their quality and decided I'd use them all eventually.

My intention was to make a few multi-purpose cabinets of various single and dual speaker configurations. The closest I came was trying one out without an enclosure, and it was thin, but clear and crisp. I'd have to make an enclosure to test them further, and never got around to that.

Today I was about to recycle an 8" x 8" x 8" shipping box, and this weird thought occurred, that I could try these speakers out in a makeshift open-back or closed-back configuration using this box. So yeah, I cut a hole, mounted one of the speakers, and alligator-clipped it to a speaker cable.

Add one SX Liquid going through a JHS 3 Series reverb into a Hotone Purple Wind 5W solid state amp and into my high tech cabinet, and woah. Open or closed back, this thing sounds so much better than a cardboard box has any right to. If it was a hand-built solid wood cabinet, I'd have been perfectly happy with the sound. I must have played through it for 2 hours before I decided I was just having too much fun.

Bottom line: I really like the Eminence 6-1/2. I can't remember what I paid, but it was far too little. I remember them being a bargain closeout. Looks like I'll be making a bunch of little cabs. Happy recycling.

[tonebender]

That is pretty awesome. I would be tempted to gig with that rig. I have had several Eminence offerings over the years and was very happy with them.

[BatUtilityBelt]

Update... While I was blown away by the 8x8x8 box, I went through the other speakers to count (yes, 8), and one of the Parts Express boxes was suspiciously sized right for another experiment. I decided to see exactly how much of that sound was open space inside the box. The smaller box is 7" x 7" x 5-1/2", and the exacto knife went back to work.

Having both, I could A/B them side by side, knowing the only difference was the size and shape of the box. I expected just a slight difference, and I was wrong to think so. Closed, the smaller box sounds brighter, while the bigger box, of course sounds fuller. The difference to my ears was that the smaller box was actually missing low end that the bigger box had... so much so that the bigger box actually sounded a bit muddy in the A/B comparison. And the smaller box sounded very good, just missing bottom end.

So then I tried them "open back", and that's when the bigger box was no longer muddy at all, but had nice sparkle, while still maintaining its advantage in the low end. The smaller box sounded wrong open-back because it was just thinner. But wow the bigger box sounded so good just leaning like this that I'm sold.

I've never gotten so much information from cardboard boxes before. Obviously we all know larger cabinets manage fuller frequency ranges, but to hear significant variations between these boxes and whether they were open or closed was incredibly worth the experiment to me. The first cabinet I will make will be 8 x 8 x 8 and its back will be piano-hinged to work closed, open, or anywhere in-between.

[andrewsrea]

Looks like it is convertible between a n open-back and closed-back!

[Partscaster]

great experiment.

[bc rich]

Thanks for inspiration , Scored one back when were on sale. Wish i had messed up and got two. Must do something with it now.

[bc rich]

Ok , locked the cats out and got to work. Out with the Danelectro Nifty Fifty and in goes the Eminence. Wired in series.

Also wired in a speaker out jack next to the power socket. The back firing speaker does add a little something .

.

[glasshand]

That's a fantastic experiment. Great work in listening with your ears and not with your eyes, as people say. Clearly the tone is not in plywood vs. birch, or finger joint vs box joint, or front-mounted vs. rear-mounted. Tone is in the packing tape.