The Bang!

Basics

The Bang!, by Dan Wiggins of Adire Audio, was designed for a sub-$200/pair budget speaker contest. It uses a pair of MCM 55-1170, 6.5" poly mid-woofers, and a MCM 53-525 1" silk dome tweeter. The crossover components came from Madisound. I built these for my son, because he needed something better than the schlock that came with his little $100 compact stereo unit. Some day I may even give them to him. These natural sounding little gems image very well, and are currently serving as fronts for my home theater system.

Box Construction

The boxes were constructed according to the plans given. I tried adding a layer of vinyl floor tile to the inside of one speaker to damp panel resonance. After much cutting and fitting of pieces to cover all the surfaces, a knuckle test told me I had completely wasted my time. The two cabinets sounded exactly the same when rapped with a knuckle. I didn't cover the second speaker.

The only other performance modification was to line the walls with egg-crate mattress foam. snapping fingers inside a lined, and unlined cabinet poduced dramatically different sounds.

There is a 20^o chamfer on the front, entirely for aesthetics. My son wanted the basic black cabinet.

The vents are 4" ABS sewer pipe. I glued them in the rounded the edges over with a 1/2" roundover bit in my router. ABS is a foamed plastic, so after machining the edges, it is full of pinholes. I used Bondo spot putty to fill these, then sanded flat.

I filled the MDF edges with bondo spot putty, sanded smooth, then used a couple coats of blonde shellac for a sanding filler so the paint would have a consistent surface to cover. Otherwise it is nearly impossible to get a good finish on the edge of the MDF.

Finally I sprayed several coats of semi-flat black spray paint.