3D Printed speakers - Unlock impossible designs compare to conventional

[Ringoton]

I saw in my analytics dashboard that a considerable amount of traffic was coming from ASR, so after a brief search I found that you had put my 3D Printed Speaker creation on the short list for 3D printed speakers. This really put a smile on my face, so thank you very much Glider95 for doing the research. Much appreciated

I think the possibilities that 3D printing will offer us, have not yet been fully discovered. Especially for me living in Tokyo, having a proper workshop to work on MDF or similar materials is rather difficult, therefore 3D printing has been a convenient tool to create something unique in even a small Japanese apartment.

Furthermore, the shapes and design that are possible with 3D printing are astonishing. Looking around the internet, I feel like most people just follow the tried and proven concept of enclosures that are built with MDF etc, however there really is no necessity to copy what is already around, as you can try something completely new.

This was also my motivation, to create another DIY 3D Printed Speaker, which focusses even more on the aesthetics of the enclosure, while of course also making sure to follow the right acoustic sound principles to ensure a good sound.

These are my brief thoughts up until now, please feel free to ask me any questions As Glider95 already mentioned, this is a thread for sharing projects and ideas, so I would be happy to hear your concerns, thoughts or just fun feedback

Reference: Sonor Ping
Image: Sonor Ping 3/4 view

YT:

 

[antcollinet]

I saw in my analytics dashboard that a considerable amount of traffic was coming from ASR, so after a brief search I found that you had put my 3D Printed Speaker creation on the short list for 3D printed speakers. This really put a smile on my face, so thank you very much Glider95 for doing the research. Much appreciated

I think the possibilities that 3D printing will offer us, have not yet been fully discovered. Especially for me living in Tokyo, having a proper workshop to work on MDF or similar materials is rather difficult, therefore 3D printing has been a convenient tool to create something unique in even a small Japanese apartment.

Furthermore, the shapes and design that are possible with 3D printing are astonishing. Looking around the internet, I feel like most people just follow the tried and proven concept of enclosures that are built with MDF etc, however there really is no necessity to copy what is already around, as you can try something completely new.

This was also my motivation, to create another DIY 3D Printed Speaker, which focusses even more on the aesthetics of the enclosure, while of course also making sure to follow the right acoustic sound principles to ensure a good sound.

These are my brief thoughts up until now, please feel free to ask me any questions As Glider95 already mentioned, this is a thread for sharing projects and ideas, so I would be happy to hear your concerns, thoughts or just fun feedback

Reference: Sonor Ping
Image: Sonor Ping 3/4 view
View attachment 416690
YT:

Hi @Ringoton. Welcome to the forum.

A couple of naive questions from someone who's never built a speaker in his life

Out of interest. Do your designs use exlusively printed plastic - or do you make use of mixed materials. eg filling sections with plaster of paris as in the "laser wireless 5.1" video posted recently. Or perhaps combine 3d printed parts with traditional sheet materials (MDF/Ply) - for increasing rigidity/damping compared with pure plastic enclosures.

Are you able to simulate the acoustic properties of printed enclosures before printing?

 

[Ringoton]

Hi @Ringoton. Welcome to the forum.

A couple of naive questions from someone who's never built a speaker in his life

Out of interest. Do your designs use exlusively printed plastic - or do you make use of mixed materials. eg filling sections with plaster of paris as in the "laser wireless 5.1" video posted recently. Or perhaps combine 3d printed parts with traditional sheet materials (MDF/Ply) - for increasing rigidity/damping compared with pure plastic enclosures.

Are you able to simulate the acoustic properties of printed enclosures before printing?

Hello @antcollinet Thank you the welcome

In the past, I did have some considerations to utilize a 3D printed structure as a mold for a different “filler material”, however I decided against it. I felt like sticking with just 3D printed structures gives me the most flexibility.

Just from the feel of the printed parts, they feel super rigid. It could be that most people imagine a cheap injected molded plastic with a thin wall thickness, but once you hold a solid part or something close to it you get a sense for its rigidity. On a “macro” scale I would say there is close to “zero” bending/flexing.

However, considering vibration etc on a smaller scale I have no method of confirming the rigidity/damping. I have done neither simulation nor any real-life measurements. Would be curious myself what the quality is.

Maybe a good analogy for the rigidity would be to consider the bending strength of, for example, a steel sheet vs. a steel H-beam. Despite having the same material properties, the bending strength of the H-beam will be far greater. So, making a solid structure is not just limited to the material properties, but the shape/design itself will play a crucial role as well. From this perspective, my slightly elliptical sphere should be stronger than a straight wall inside a shoe-box enclosure. So even if the plastic utilized is less performant, it might be compensated through a “superior” enclosure design (not saying that this is the case for my speaker ).

I would describe myself as an audio enthusiast and there hasn't been any music or movies, where I felt something missing from the speakers. Also, a few of my close friends were likewise positively surprised about the acoustic performance.

 

[Hechtschnitzel]

I’m starting with the basics to learn more about speaker design.

I’ll begin with a simple ball-shaped design, using two small speakers with the LAVOCE FAN030.71 3" driver.

To cover the low frequencies, I’ll also incorporate the Hexibase V3. If that setup works well, I’ll upgrade to better tweeters and a quality horn.

Once I’ve mastered these concepts step by step, I’ll move on to planning a larger, more complex speaker system

I’ll keep you updated on how it works. The ball shape made the most sense to me – it uses less material, reduces resonances, and is easy to print.

 

[kemmler3D]

I’m starting with the basics to learn more about speaker design.

I’ll begin with a simple ball-shaped design, using two small speakers with the LAVOCE FAN030.71 3" driver.

To cover the low frequencies, I’ll also incorporate the Hexibase V3. If that setup works well, I’ll upgrade to better tweeters and a quality horn.

Once I’ve mastered these concepts step by step, I’ll move on to planning a larger, more complex speaker system

I’ll keep you updated on how it works. The ball shape made the most sense to me – it uses less material, reduces resonances, and is easy to print.

View attachment 419603

Seems sensible, my only comment for now is that a Teardrop shape is considered slightly better than sphere (eclipse speakers, which someone shared in the full range thread yesterday) are an example. If you print with the opening facing down it will be even easier to print than a sphere.

 

[Hechtschnitzel]

Seems sensible, my only comment for now is that a Teardrop shape is considered slightly better than sphere (eclipse speakers, which someone shared in the full range thread yesterday) are an example. If you print with the opening facing down it will be even easier to print than a sphere.

Yeah, I saw that too, but to keep things simple, I’ll stick with the ball shape for now. It has a small flat area on the back for connections and bed adhesion, so it should print perfectly in one piece without any support. As I mentioned, this isn’t the final design—I’m planning something more like DIY Perks’ "standing" speakers eventually.

That said, I’m still a total beginner in this area and tend to get overwhelmed if I try to learn and tackle everything at once. So, I’m taking it step by step. Another advantage of the ball shape is the flexibility to adjust the speaker’s direction freely, especially with some creative stands

 

[Wesseling Audio Lab]

My 3D printer is in transit. I had these waveguides printed and were printed with the same machine that I purchased.

I'll print some small speaker cabinets when I get comfortable with the machine..
There's many ideas for cabinet walls, bracing to create wall stiffness and internal damping.

While researching printers my number one criteria was obtaining a very pleasing(to the eye) surface straight from the printer..
well, I see what happens

 

[Hechtschnitzel]

My 3D printer is in transit. I had these waveguides printed and were printed with the same machine that I purchased.

I'll print some small speaker cabinets when I get comfortable with the machine..
There's many ideas for cabinet walls, bracing to create wall stiffness and internal damping.

While researching printers my number one criteria was obtaining a very pleasing(to the eye) surface straight from the printer..
well, I see what happens

I've been into 3D printing for around three years now, but I’ve recently focused more on increasing printing speeds over the past few weeks. My tip: Upgrade to a high-flow 0.6 mm nozzle. On my Ender 3, I can print with a 1 mm line width, 0.36 mm layer height, and 50 mm/s print speed. This saves a lot of time, especially if you don’t need highly detailed structures for your prints. And if you do need fine details, simply set the layer width to 0.6 mm and layer height to 0.2 mm, and you’ll achieve similar results to a 0.4 mm nozzle.

 

[Wesseling Audio Lab]

I've been into 3D printing for around three years now, but I’ve recently focused more on increasing printing speeds over the past few weeks. My tip: Upgrade to a high-flow 0.6 mm nozzle. On my Ender 3, I can print with a 1 mm line width, 0.36 mm layer height, and 50 mm/s print speed. This saves a lot of time, especially if you don’t need highly detailed structures for your prints. And if you do need fine details, simply set the layer width to 0.6 mm and layer height to 0.2 mm, and you’ll achieve similar results to a 0.4 mm nozzle.

Thanks, I will cut and save your tip.

My machine comes with 0.4 mm nozzle. I purchased a 0.2 nozzle to try out..
I will happily print slower for better surface finish on certain parts

I watched this video comparing 0.4 with 0.2 nozzle

 

[jewe37]

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.

I'm looking into doing a similar project but with a somewhat cost-down drivers(I plan to make a bunch of these as home theater surrounds/heights) and a larger woofer. I was thinking the SB26ST-C000-5 for the tweeter, also crossed over really low at ~1300Hz, with the Dayton DC160-8 6.5'' for the woofer. That way I should be able to get a tiny bit more output than you and also go somewhat lower while remaining mostly linear, so as to get as close as possible to the limit of directional hearing at ~80Hz.

Have you made any progress on this/can you share some additional details particularly w.r.t. your design for the waveguide? Given the two tweeter's performance seems similar up until ~14kHz I was hoping I could perhaps take some inspiration from your approach.

EDIT:
I suspect what you mean by another project it's this? Sadly that also doesn't mention the rationale behind the design of the waveguide, though I could get the approximate geometry from the STLs I suppose.

 

[flowolf]

I really like the horns this guy builds. seems to be really cool stuff, which is nearly impossible to build without a 3D Printer!

 

[Scgorg]

Have you made any progress on this/can you share some additional details particularly w.r.t. your design for the waveguide? Given the two tweeter's performance seems similar up until ~14kHz I was hoping I could perhaps take some inspiration from your approach.

I haven't really done any work on this since the post. I did get my basotect, but it seems that the problem isn't a standing wave in the height-wise dimension of the cabinet (though the frequency matches up well!). I've not had the motivation to investigate much further, as I have multiple projects that I work on at any given time, and I don't have very much time as is (work, studies).

Unfortunately similar off-axis responses between the two tweeters in the far-field isn't necessarily an indication that the same (or similar) waveguides will work, as the wavefronts in the near-field/throat of the waveguide can still be substantially different. Worth a try though! If I recall, this waveguide was fairly low effort as it was designed under heavy time constraints. I believe the expansion for most of the waveguide is a constant radius (different radius vertically and horisontally, of course), with some tweaks of the geometry in the throat after AKABAK simulations.

EDIT:
I suspect what you mean by another project it's this? Sadly that also doesn't mention the rationale behind the design of the waveguide, though I could get the approximate geometry from the STLs I suppose.

That was indeed the project it was initially designed for, yes. That speaker was designed with very, very little time (and I am not responsible for the entire design), which is why I wanted to have a go at something similar in the first place.

 

[jewe37]

Unfortunately similar off-axis responses between the two tweeters in the far-field isn't necessarily an indication that the same (or similar) waveguides will work, as the wavefronts in the near-field/throat of the waveguide can still be substantially different. Worth a try though! If I recall, this waveguide was fairly low effort as it was designed under heavy time constraints. I believe the expansion for most of the waveguide is a constant radius (different radius vertically and horisontally, of course), with some tweaks of the geometry in the throat after AKABAK simulations..

Maybe going slightly off-topic, do you account for the cone driver's wavefront shape in your AKABAK simulations? If so, how? Since most people, also in the ATH thread and such, seem to use compression drivers for waveguides/horns, a flat wavefront is usually assumed. I'm trying to avoid compression drivers for cost and linearity reasons though.

On that note, you also mentioned elsewhere you do not use ATH, is there a specific reason for that in this application?

 

[Scgorg]

Maybe going slightly off-topic, do you account for the cone driver's wavefront shape in your AKABAK simulations? If so, how? Since most people, also in the ATH thread and such, seem to use compression drivers for waveguides/horns, a flat wavefront is usually assumed. I'm trying to avoid compression drivers for cost and linearity reasons though.

On that note, you also mentioned elsewhere you do not use ATH, is there a specific reason for that in this application?

As long as you model the dome geometry (surround and all) and the dome is close enough to pistonic to not deviate much from that rigid body model in the frequency range of interest, then you'll get a representative wavefront at the throat of the waveguide. In my case I made measurements of the SB26ADC dome/surround geometry to the best of my abilities, and the simulation matched reality quite well until ~13kHz, where the smaller details started to diverge a bit. The overall picture was still quite similar to the simulation in the top octave though, just not borderline perfect like lower in frequency.

The reason I don't use ATH is simply because I started out with AKABAK without knowledge of ATH (this was in 2019 or 2020), so I simply got used to doing things my own way. As time has went on, I've lacked a compelling reason to switch, especially since I simulate a lot of things that ATH doesn't have support for (rooms, arrays, etc.). For the purpose of making a waveguide I see no reason to shy away from ATH, it's probably much easier to use that rather than learning CAD/AKABAK.

 

[Glider95]

I’m starting with the basics to learn more about speaker design.

I’ll begin with a simple ball-shaped design, using two small speakers with the LAVOCE FAN030.71 3" driver.

To cover the low frequencies, I’ll also incorporate the Hexibase V3. If that setup works well, I’ll upgrade to better tweeters and a quality horn.

Once I’ve mastered these concepts step by step, I’ll move on to planning a larger, more complex speaker system

I’ll keep you updated on how it works. The ball shape made the most sense to me – it uses less material, reduces resonances, and is easy to print.

Hey,

Just in case you did not come across this project which is really similar to your idea: RD Design - Spherical speakers

 

[JohnnyAudio]

I don't have 3D skills but wondering if someone can design a simple OB waveguide for these Dayton Audio AMTPRO-4 Air Motion Transformers.

My idea is to design in a bit more vertical dispersion with a not too over the top horn design. The waveguide would sit on top of a box speaker.

Here is the AMT and link for specs.

Dayton Audio - AMTPRO-4 Air Motion Transformer Tweeter 4 Ohm

AMTPRO-4 Air Motion Transformer Tweeter 4 Ohm

www.daytonaudio.com

Thank You

 

[Salt]

I don't have 3D skills but wondering if someone can design a simple OB waveguide for these Dayton Audio AMTPRO-4 Air Motion Transformers.

My idea is to design in a bit more vertical dispersion with a not too over the top horn design. The waveguide would sit on top of a box speaker.

Here is the AMT and link for specs.

Dayton Audio - AMTPRO-4 Air Motion Transformer Tweeter 4 Ohm

AMTPRO-4 Air Motion Transformer Tweeter 4 Ohm

www.daytonaudio.com

View attachment 421097
Thank You

Why increasing the vertical reflexions?

 

[JohnnyAudio]

Why increasing the vertical reflexions?

I think this AMT has more horizontal than vertical.

 

[Salt]

I think this AMT has more horizontal than vertical.

Correct, but it's a feature, not a bug.
The horizontal dispersion influences soundstage, the (early) vertical reflections from ground and top do interfere.

 

[JohnnyAudio]

Correct, but it's a feature, not a bug.
The horizontal dispersion influences soundstage, the (early) vertical reflections from ground and top do interfere.

Hi Salt,

So you are not recommending vertical spreading?