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3D Printed speakers - Unlock impossible designs compare to conventional

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Glider95

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Hello,

After some look around the forum, I could find few posts around 3D printing but I could not find a particular thread related to 3D Printed speakers as a method of building D.I.Y speakers.

I have not tried myself yet but I will list the different projects I could find to start the discussions:

I propose that we only had projects that have been "evaluated" or at least with advanced designs to avoid all the quick and cheap speakers.

Bookshelf / Fullrange:

Subwoofers:

Satellite / Surrounds / Mini:

5.1:
Miscelleanous

Please share if you have tried to build any of the models above, others or design your own !

For my 5.1 (or more), I am planning to do 2 active Dozer + 4 P-cubes + 1 (or 2) Hexibox subwoofer, will update with my trial later on.
 
Last edited:
Quite fascinating subject!

Of course: If it will see a successful future at all – regarding market fitness and (end) user acceptance – depends on several crucial points.
 
Is it possible for DIY class 3d printers to use rigid enough materials for speakers?
 
For sure, for example quite new model Qidi Q1 pro has heated enclosure and hard metal tip so one can print all kinds of materials with it. Desktop printer with quite low price. For professional class printers anything is possible, SpaceX prints nose cones of their rocket ships, from steel. Apparently also parts of the boosters are printed, at least google finds some speculative articles like this one: https://www.tctmagazine.com/additiv...ine-was-it-3d-printed-additive-manufacturing/

Links in the opening post are mostly hobby kind of projects, but also serious stuff can be done with desktop printers, see https://at-horns.eu/

Plastics are nasty for environment, might need surface finishing, could be aesthetically bad for some, and so on. But also removes any limits from manufacturing, speakers can be optimized for acoustics and not limited to traditional shoe boxes, or coffins or small desktop speakers. Although, square boxes and monkey coffins are just fine for long wavelengths, the short wavelength could benefit 3D printing. This would hint it would be economical to print some parts, while make rest of it traditionally from wood. Also the aesthetics can be improved for some people with prints. There is a lot of opportunity to improve hardware on speakers, like decorative parts, binding post terminals, adjustable bases, front grilles, optimized bass reflex ports, edge roundings, waveguides, all kinds of jigs and helpers to help building speakers, 90deg angles, attach bracing, and so on. Interesting times in general, anyone can manufacture all kinds of stuff, anywhere in the world.
 
Last edited:
I am getting closer to the end of a fully 3D-printed speaker project myself. It's a fairly small sealed 2-way speaker (SB15NAC30-08 and SB26ADC-C000-4). I had a waveguide design which I designed for another project with the SB26, that I thought I could do something better with. I made a rough design of the cabinet, did some AKABAK simulations of the radiation pattern/frequency response, and upon seeing promising results I decided to go ahead with the project. The speaker looks like this:
1725467175780.png1725467206030.png1725467227436.png
The baffle shape is not quite ideal (minor improvements are still available), but this is a fairly low-effort project for me, so not obsessing over the smallest details is nice. Note the very low cabinet depth of only 14(!)cm. I have a prototype printed, and it's fairly dapper, in my very biased opinion:
1725467404485.png
It would probably look better if the SB15NBAC was used instead of the NAC, but I'm just using drivers I have lying around. I did some off-axis measurements and merging them with baffle-step-compensated near-field measurements. The baffle-step compensation was made with AKABAK rather than VituixCAD to get a more accurate idea at the exact baffle effects (full 3D model instead of the 2D model and assumptions that entails in vituixCAD). The difference was about 1dB in the upper bass/low mids. After that I made a quick crossover mockup (actively) the result looks like so (3dB contour lines on the contour plot):
1725467530011.png1725467553161.png
Note that the tweeter is smoother than shown in these measurements, reflections from the microphone stand are present in these measurements. Using better on-axis measurements (where the reflection from the stand is reduced) I started cooking up a passive crossover. Since this is a smaller sealed speaker SPL requirements are low, and a very low crossover frequency of 1kHz can be realized without any real drawbacks - the ~101dB output of the woofer is the limiting factor even with such a low crossover.

There is only one issue remaining that has to be solved, there is a 600Hz resonance, which also shows up in the impedance measurements of the cabinet. This most likely corresponds to the first standing mode in the cabinet (height direction) after a careful process of elimination. I am waiting for some basotect to arrive by post, and hopefully that allows me to deal with the standing wave effectively. Currently the crossover looks like this:
1725467859881.png
If I manage to completely subdue this resonance the response would be as follows:
1725467950800.png
The reason for the strange bass response for a sealed enclosure is a large capacitor connected in series (alters the response around resonance somewhat, and leads to 18dB/octave rolloff at low frequencies). Overall the crossover is fairly simple, 5 parts for the tweeter and 4 for the woofer. I am looking forward to finishing this project, this speaker will likely replace my Genelec G2s as desktop speakers. It's been a fun, simple project overall, and it's nice to do those once in a while as well.
 
Scgorg said:
I am getting closer to the end of a fully 3D-printed speaker project myself. It's a fairly small sealed 2-way speaker (SB15NAC30-08 and SB26ADC-C000-4). I had a waveguide design which I designed for another project with the SB26, that I thought I could do something better with. I made a rough design of the cabinet, did some AKABAK simulations of the radiation pattern/frequency response, and upon seeing promising results I decided to go ahead with the project. The speaker looks like this:
View attachment 390234View attachment 390235View attachment 390236
The baffle shape is not quite ideal (minor improvements are still available), but this is a fairly low-effort project for me, so not obsessing over the smallest details is nice. Note the very low cabinet depth of only 14(!)cm. I have a prototype printed, and it's fairly dapper, in my very biased opinion:
View attachment 390237
It would probably look better if the SB15NBAC was used instead of the NAC, but I'm just using drivers I have lying around. I did some off-axis measurements and merging them with baffle-step-compensated near-field measurements. The baffle-step compensation was made with AKABAK rather than VituixCAD to get a more accurate idea at the exact baffle effects (full 3D model instead of the 2D model and assumptions that entails in vituixCAD). The difference was about 1dB in the upper bass/low mids. After that I made a quick crossover mockup (actively) the result looks like so (3dB contour lines on the contour plot):
View attachment 390239View attachment 390240
Note that the tweeter is smoother than shown in these measurements, reflections from the microphone stand are present in these measurements. Using better on-axis measurements (where the reflection from the stand is reduced) I started cooking up a passive crossover. Since this is a smaller sealed speaker SPL requirements are low, and a very low crossover frequency of 1kHz can be realized without any real drawbacks - the ~101dB output of the woofer is the limiting factor even with such a low crossover.

There is only one issue remaining that has to be solved, there is a 600Hz resonance, which also shows up in the impedance measurements of the cabinet. This most likely corresponds to the first standing mode in the cabinet (height direction) after a careful process of elimination. I am waiting for some basotect to arrive by post, and hopefully that allows me to deal with the standing wave effectively. Currently the crossover looks like this:
View attachment 390242
If I manage to completely subdue this resonance the response would be as follows:
View attachment 390246
The reason for the strange bass response for a sealed enclosure is a large capacitor connected in series (alters the response around resonance somewhat, and leads to 18dB/octave rolloff at low frequencies). Overall the crossover is fairly simple, 5 parts for the tweeter and 4 for the woofer. I am looking forward to finishing this project, this speaker will likely replace my Genelec G2s as desktop speakers. It's been a fun, simple project overall, and it's nice to do those once in a while as well.
Click to expand...
Absolutely amazing!
 
Rednaxela said:
I wonder what your serious projects look like. :)
Click to expand...
While there is a lot that could be improved on my last project (partially due to me learning a lot from it), it was a far more complex project than this one. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ith-double-waveguide-and-cardioid-bass.51866/

But really, designing a small sealed 2-way speaker is one of the easiest design exercises one can do. It's probably what I would first recommend for a DIY beginner (maybe after building their first kit speaker). In this case the waveguide was already designed for a prior project, and the drivers are both very well-behaved units that are quite easy to work with. The results do look very promising though, I agree!
 
Absolutely amazing. I hope that people that are good with engineering and these types of things could move things forward. There is always crowd-funding option or other options to fund excellent designs. What we have on the market is (generally) either big or expensive.

I would personally be interested in 3-way small tower design that can bang at least as hard as Gallo 3.5 reference towers...a design long forgotten and to the best of my knowledge does not exist any more.
 
I apologize in advance.
I hope I am not hijacking this great design endeavor, but wasn't there a recent ASR mention of a floor-standing speaker with an enclosure that was made of composites (rather MDF-like materials) which showed some great structural-properties for a novel enclosure design?
I did some brief searches w/o results before my ADHD kicked in. :facepalm:
 
Scgorg said:
I am getting closer to the end of a fully 3D-printed speaker project myself. It's a fairly small sealed 2-way speaker (SB15NAC30-08 and SB26ADC-C000-4). I had a waveguide design which I designed for another project with the SB26, that I thought I could do something better with. I made a rough design of the cabinet, did some AKABAK simulations of the radiation pattern/frequency response, and upon seeing promising results I decided to go ahead with the project. The speaker looks like this:
View attachment 390234View attachment 390235View attachment 390236
The baffle shape is not quite ideal (minor improvements are still available), but this is a fairly low-effort project for me, so not obsessing over the smallest details is nice. Note the very low cabinet depth of only 14(!)cm. I have a prototype printed, and it's fairly dapper, in my very biased opinion:
View attachment 390237
It would probably look better if the SB15NBAC was used instead of the NAC, but I'm just using drivers I have lying around. I did some off-axis measurements and merging them with baffle-step-compensated near-field measurements. The baffle-step compensation was made with AKABAK rather than VituixCAD to get a more accurate idea at the exact baffle effects (full 3D model instead of the 2D model and assumptions that entails in vituixCAD). The difference was about 1dB in the upper bass/low mids. After that I made a quick crossover mockup (actively) the result looks like so (3dB contour lines on the contour plot):
View attachment 390239View attachment 390240
Note that the tweeter is smoother than shown in these measurements, reflections from the microphone stand are present in these measurements. Using better on-axis measurements (where the reflection from the stand is reduced) I started cooking up a passive crossover. Since this is a smaller sealed speaker SPL requirements are low, and a very low crossover frequency of 1kHz can be realized without any real drawbacks - the ~101dB output of the woofer is the limiting factor even with such a low crossover.

There is only one issue remaining that has to be solved, there is a 600Hz resonance, which also shows up in the impedance measurements of the cabinet. This most likely corresponds to the first standing mode in the cabinet (height direction) after a careful process of elimination. I am waiting for some basotect to arrive by post, and hopefully that allows me to deal with the standing wave effectively. Currently the crossover looks like this:
View attachment 390242
If I manage to completely subdue this resonance the response would be as follows:
View attachment 390246
The reason for the strange bass response for a sealed enclosure is a large capacitor connected in series (alters the response around resonance somewhat, and leads to 18dB/octave rolloff at low frequencies). Overall the crossover is fairly simple, 5 parts for the tweeter and 4 for the woofer. I am looking forward to finishing this project, this speaker will likely replace my Genelec G2s as desktop speakers. It's been a fun, simple project overall, and it's nice to do those once in a while as well.
Click to expand...
Sidenote: this CBHP thing is really amazing, as is in BRHP.
CD is not perfect, but well done, respect.
 
pseudoid said:
I apologize in advance.
I hope I am not hijacking this great design endeavor, but wasn't there a recent ASR mention of a floor-standing speaker with an enclosure that was made of composites (rather MDF-like materials) which showed some great structural-properties for a novel enclosure design?
I did some brief searches w/o results before my ADHD kicked in. :facepalm:
Click to expand...
You don't think about this:
1000012196.jpg
 
antcollinet said:
Is it possible for DIY class 3d printers to use rigid enough materials for speakers?
Click to expand...

PLA is already a pretty rigid filament, but you can pick up stuff like this that makes it even more rigid.
www.3dxtech.com

CarbonX PLA+CF

CarbonX PLA+CF is an amazing bio-polymer plus recycled CF reinforced 3D printing filament. Made using 100% recycled carbon fiber and mated to the industry leading PLA bio-polymer sourced from Natureworks. This filament is ideal for anyone that desires a structural component with high modulus...
www.3dxtech.com www.3dxtech.com

Imo the only thing holding back 3D printed speakers, if lack of open source models, and the size of printers people own.
 
DLS79 said:
PLA is already a pretty rigid filament, but you can pick up stuff like this that makes it even more rigid.
www.3dxtech.com

CarbonX PLA+CF

CarbonX PLA+CF is an amazing bio-polymer plus recycled CF reinforced 3D printing filament. Made using 100% recycled carbon fiber and mated to the industry leading PLA bio-polymer sourced from Natureworks. This filament is ideal for anyone that desires a structural component with high modulus...
www.3dxtech.com www.3dxtech.com

Imo the only thing holding back 3D printed speakers, if lack of open source models, and the size of printers people own.
Click to expand...
But even when the material itself is rigid, when printed it is much less so due to the layered nature with imperfect bonding between layers.
 
Salt said:
Sidenote: this CBHP thing is really amazing, as is in BRHP.
CD is not perfect, but well done, respect.
Click to expand...
CBHP -> closed box high pass?
BRHP -> bass reflex high pass?
CD -> ?

Sorry, I am not entirely sure what your abbreviations mean. Thanks for your kind words!
 
antcollinet said:
But even when the material itself is rigid, when printed it is much less so due to the layered nature with imperfect bonding between layers.
Click to expand...

Yes, but a lot of that can be addressed with proper design and proper printing techniques.

For example a lot of people print as the lowest temperatures possible. When you you calibrate a machine and filament combination properly you can get very very good results.

The same thing is true when it comes to deigning something. I've seen very seasoned mechanical engineers and machinists, generate complete garbage prints, because they didn't consider the appropriate things when designing the item to be printed.


For example here is part of a spool holder that I designed several years back. That's a 20 lb bag of sand the arm was holding. Note the design used 2 arms and was never going to hold more than 9 lbs.
95747749_3021492707916591_3956258310952321024_n.jpg
 
Last edited:
Scgorg said:
CBHP -> closed box high pass?
BRHP -> bass reflex high pass?
CD -> ?

Sorry, I am not entirely sure what your abbreviations mean. Thanks for your kind words!
Click to expand...
CD -> Constant Directivity.
Sorry for abbr.
 
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