Inspired by John R's Rat Coffins.

Andrew Lamb · « **on:** 10 Mar 2003, 04:35 am »

Quite a while ago, when Partsexpress first started carrying Tang Band drivers, I thought they would be a great little speaker to make a project out of, but I never really saw a good use for them other than replacing those crappy little drivers that come in those home-theatre-in-a-box sets.

I thought of making a Bose cube type enclosure, but didn't think I would get decent performance out of them, without having them look awkward.

Then I saw John R's Rat Coffins, and thought they looked so good, that I would try a micro-tower looking design.

I had ordered some Tang Band's anyways, so I thought I'd make some small cabinets out of some scrap wood in the garage. Found a piece of plywood, think it's a pine base or something, soft to the touch, easily scratchable, but pain in the ass to cut, and managed to salvage up enough of it to make some enclosures.

So I braved the cold for a bit to cut the the pieces in the garage, then retired to the (furnished) basement to finish these off (including cutting the holes with a roto-zip

, needless to say, I had a lot of vacuuming to do afterwards).

But I ended up with a finished product (at least one half, not bad for a lazy Sunday afternoon). The wood is absolute crap, and ended up having a couple of notches in it to begin with that I hadn't originally noticed, but I plan on covering these or completely redoing them anyways, or might leave them with a notch, since they aren't really going anywhere anyways.

As for how it sounds, it wasn't too shabby at all.
The driver is a W3-879s. Bought these in case I wanted to stick them next to a TV somewhere. It seems that they actually lack in the midrange, however, with only one speaker at the moment, I haven't really listened to it.

I will finish the other one tomorrow evening and run them for a while, and see how they sound.

Dunno how to link pics, but here is the page they are on.
Maybe tomorrow when I'm done the other one, I will find a way to un-ugly them up a bit.

~Andy.

edit: oh yeah, the link...
http://www.sounddomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=159668&page=2

JohnR · « **Reply #1 on:** 10 Mar 2003, 04:56 am »

Heh, cool

Some sandpaper and Danish oil will spruce 'em up if you're so inclined

Brian Bunge · « **Reply #2 on:** 17 Mar 2003, 04:59 am »

Andrew,

First of all, good work! I've used the 879's in several different enclosures and they are good little drivers. If you get the opportunity you really should give the 871S from www.nuera-acoustic.ca a try. They're virtually a drop in replacement of the 879 but have a better top end. After comparing the two it's no contest. The 871 wins hands down!

Andrew Lamb · « **Reply #3 on:** 20 Mar 2003, 11:49 pm »

Thanks for the reponses guys.
It's good to hear feedback from seasoned pros like yourselves.

Anyways, here's what I finally ended up with, not too much to look at, but for my first actual DIY, I think it's not too bad.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;album=39

JoshK · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 Mar 2003, 07:13 pm »

I decided to build myself some computer speakers based on tang band drivers. I ordered a kit off the Creativesound.ca site but I was a moron and ordered one kit, thinking that it was a pair. Now I have just one kit for one speaker.

JohnR · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Mar 2003, 07:21 pm »

Well, mono is the next big rage in high-end... so you're ahead of the curve!

Andrew, they came out looking nice!