Follow-up video is here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jqloZJemttDQkXk.html

I built a pair of these about a year ago, you will need a good amp to drive these but they (can) sound ridiculously good for what they are. After building (or let's better say, slapping them together) I ended up sitting in my basement and listening to all kinds of music for hours because I was so amazed of the sound.

Personally I’d be offsetting using the golden ratio. I base that on nothing

Just a heads up for anyone doing this. I just completed them, but did some more research on home made DML (Flat panels). The audio quality increases IMMENSELY if you coat the front and back of both panels with 2 layers of a 1:1 Wood Glue and Water mixture after sanding. I tested them before and after, and the coating adds a lot more low end, and overall makes the speakers sound significantly better. I also found it important to hang the speaker wires coming off the panel away from the panel. You can bend the attachment point with pliers, its just important the wires don't touch the panel too much. I'd also recommend tinkering with your eq settings. I found a round curve downwards shape worked best (Lets say 1 cm downward for the lowest end 60 to 150hz, 0.8 cm for 150 to 400 hz, 0.3 cm for 400 to 1 khz, 0.1 for 1 to 2.4 khz and 0.4 upwards for 2.4 to 15 khz)

If you want to go for a full sound, you just need to daisy chain a subwoofer with build in Crossover before each panel. That will step up the sound tremendously.

Instantaly liked because you gave credit to techingredients. I love it when people put claims to the test. Subbed

I built a set of these with sheet balsa wood, roughly 90cm x 40cm with the Dayton Audio exciters placed 2/5ths in and 2/5th up from the the bottom corner ( mirrored pair ). The result is very good, good treble, good mids but with light bass. Good enough for a small room / study / bedroom for casual listening. The bass is light but responds better the farther out from the wall you suspend them.They have to be at least one foot from the wall for bass to be half decent. I ended up angling mine slightly towards the 'listening point' which gave better outward reflection of sound off the wall and out around the room. The overall sound is surprisingly good for a very inexpensive project. Definitely worth a try and I have made mine into artwork so that they appear to be paintings, I now have two 'Banksy's' as my speakers.

I ordered (and have received) the parts and found that our local hardware store stopped carrying the pink Stryofoam insulation panels. However, their new supplier offers black Styrofoam panels and they assured me that these were just as good (although I didn't tell them I was building speakers either LOL). I opted to try the 1" x 24" x 96 " panel cut into two equal halves and found that these speakers (although not studio quality) are perfect for sitting outside around our fire pit in the summer. They work really well, and the sound is above average...much better than those little outdoor bookshelf speakers one usually sees for sale at 4 times the price.

Great video. I fell down this rabbit hole a few years ago just for fun. Bought about 8 different exciters and a bunch of materials, from pink insulation sheets, white styrofoam sheets, a ceiling tile, and a few items from a thrift shop, such as a large thin plate and a pane of glass. I even tested with a cardboard pizza box, which sounded better than expected. I also put one exciter on the back of a guitar and one on the back of a full sized upright bass. These two tests turned out better than everything else. No surprise, as they are acoustically tunes enclosures designed to produce food sound. In every test, the main thing lacking was bass. Adding a subwoofer would be the key to creating a system that delivers good sound for all types of music.

Well I'll be dipped! A guy just discovered your channel and low and behold... He's only wearing a VGG cap! Respect-O-meter 2000 fully charged!

I really appreciated this counter-point. Anyone can claim good sound on a youtube video. This is our version of peer review. Thank you for taking the time to do it.

That was great. I made some of these in the 70's with styrofoam ice coolers tops. They sounded better than any speaker we had for a car back in the day. I called them transducers. Glued to the tops of the coolers. I did have a 40 w booster equalizer to give it a loud clear sound. The equalizer made all the difference because I was able to adjust the sound of the music to the best performance. This was in 1974 technology. Enjoyed your show and it sure brought back some good memories.

I've been wanting to install some speakers for watching films in our living room, but my mum has been adamant about not having speakers on the wall 'ruin' our living room. I might try building these and seeing if you could turn them into decoration at the same time...

Actually mounted a pair to three quarter inch sheetrock when I was building my man cave and they sound superb.

Based on all the feedback and comments I've received on this project, I'm planning a follow-up video where I'll test the following: 1) Mount the exciters on posts so that the exciters move less, and compare to the hanging system shown in this video. 2) Compare these panels to a good set of bookshelf speakers. 3) Add a subwoofer. 4) Try painting or possibly fabric-wrapping the panels, and compare with non-painted. What else do you want to see me try?

I had to buy an 8ft sheet so used most of it to build two pairs of different sizes panels. Did all the sanding and painting and gave them away as a Christmas present along with a cheap class d amp that had a seperate sub out put. It needed it couple months later picked up a very cheap junk shop passive sub. Just picked out the one that felt heaviest to get and idea of cabinet and driver quality. Now it works very well for peanuts money.

This is like a rabbit hole project! The panel could be carved or designed in a way to reproduced the bass part of the sound. While maintaining The same size. Very astounding sound!

The look on your face when the music started says it all. Never would have thought this worked.

That guy from "tech ingredients" is extremely smart, his projects are crazy good and interesting. Love watching his videos! Thanks for putting to the test this one, I'm really looking forward to build them myself. I have a good quality amplification and I'm very curious how those panels would perform, but I would definetly build those bigger panels too for the lower frequencies. Cheers!!

I really hope painting or at least fabric wrapping works on these. Imagine in your living room, on both sides of the TV, 2 decorative paintings hanging on the wall, that are actually speakers! It's like "Stealth Speakers" if such a thing exists. (How to hide the wires? Ummm, we will cross that bridge when we get there...)

I made mine 2ft x 4ft and they sound Excellent. 2 Exciters per Panel and my regular home Amp at 100 watts per channel. The only way to go !

Radio Shack used to sell speaker's that were "Flat Panel." They were sold in the mid 70's to early 80's. The sound of theirs was awesome,and were no more than an inch thick!

Tech Ingredients is a remarkable channel and i love to see what they come up with

I am so glad you did this. I considered trying it out ever since I saw the video a few years ago. You’ve revamped my interest in going for it.

I'm impressed! This will be a good little project for my back patio.

Imagine you make a home theater system with five of these

I definitely need to test a set of these. What an interesting concept

Very well done video! Great topic, clear, easy to understand, no stupid music killing the voice audio! I am going to build a set for my workshop.

I seen these years ago, but they never cease to amaze me. Good vidjéo sir!

4:15 alternatively flip the drill bit around , heat the end with a propane torch ,and burn the holes in.

I built those speakers as well and I put one in the center and one at the 2fifths 5fifths and one rounded corners one without. I was able to paint them black. like Tech Ingredients did. They sound amazing. People could hear them from a block away when I played them outside.

I bought a pair of Goodmans Plainex speakers in the 70's and still have and use today. They are pretty much exactly what you have got there.

Awesome! Thanks Kimball! Gonna have to try this!

I still have the Magnaplanar speakers I bought in 1977, and they are still incredible. The separation between instruments is superb. And you can crank them up to insanely loud without distortion. But I might build a set of these for my garage.

I've been thinking about building some of these for three years. Thanks for convincing me to give it a shot.

I really liked how genuine and informative this video is. Amazing stuff man!! 👏

This guy is straight to the point, professional and down to Earth. Instantly Subscribed!

You are correct. You need to add the other 2 panels if you want to hear what he was calling "best." He explains how the 4 different types and mountings together yield a flat response across the spectrum at 28:36 on their video. Glad you didn't just dismiss exciters in general however. They are very versatile and allow you to do things like simply add a larger model to the under side of a deck for music outside without a visible speaker.

Absolutely awesome thank you very much that clearly was the best video on sound exciters that I found on all of KZfaq including tech ingredients.

And is that a vice grip garage hat I see? Holy cow! I been watching him and tech ingredients since they darn near started making videos.

Love the smile that lights up when you test the speakers.

I would have never thought to make such speakers. Very intriguing. Thank you for spreading this knowledge. 🌎🕊♾♥️

Its definitely interesting to hear these for the first time. A very pleasant square wall of sound coming at you.

The edge-on footage was fantastic. That was really cool. Already seen the tech ingredients video, you definitely added to it. He did mention that you do need to add a subwoofer as the sound level from the panels falls off around 120hz. Still really impressive tho.

Wow!! What an awesome video, you have really made my WEEK! Thank You very much, I have to try this now...

Here's a little trick I learned from reading an article in Stereo Review Magazine back in the early '70s. Add a 3rd. speaker directly in back of your sitting position. Here's how you do the speaker connection. From the back speaker connect your speaker cable from the MINUS terminal to your MINUS terminal to the front left speaker. Then from your back speaker again, connect your PLUS speaker terminal cable to your PLUS terminal to your front right speaker. Don't worry, if you follow my instructions you will not blow your amp or receiver. Experiment on how far back the rear speaker needs to be so that it doesn't overpower the sound from your front speakers. If viewed from above you would be sitting right in the middle of a triangle of sound. You will be pleasantly surprised with the results! I have been doing this for years and I love it. You can do this with any speakers. ^^

I have a pair of Carlsbro flat panel speakers and use one of them for busking. The sound carries amazingly well outdoors even at long distances in noisy places, but they’re not any louder close-to. Also stops the issue of people close to the speaker talking very loud. Flat panel speakers have amazing properties! The sound is also really clean and well-defined even at a distance.

They are really good.. Thanks for sharing this and the effort you put to get it and show us here 👍

I grew up with 6’ tall 3/4 inch thick magnaplanars that were unbelievable. This reminds me of those.

Love the content, glad to have found you. Well shot, edited and imaginative videos. Great Job. BTW, love the Vice Grip Garage hat. :Thumbs-up:

Great stuff and nice presentation style, excellent camera work. Thank you.

It would be interesting to see frequency response results and also the THD on these. I’ve built these a few years ago and I found them great, however anything above 8kHz sounded muddy like listening to music through a 6inch pipe. The shortcomings came out when you tried to listen to electronic music as the fast transients really demonstrated the shortcomings of such speakers. Jazz, classical sounded great but were missing the clarity, It sounded as you’re listening off axis. But, it was a cool project, great for garage or wood-shop. Dust is not a problem.

i had forgotten about these - thnks for the review - i got 4 dual channel Haflers (8x75W) waitin on a build.

saw the Tech Ingredients as well, good you have proved their invention. will try to build these as well. the amplifier probably needs to be a very good one to reproduce all those mid-range frequencies? amazing video and best cheap gorgeous speakers!!

Absolutely incredible! Thanks for the video. Who knew that just a piece of 1 inch foam could do that!

I'm working on a pair of these. I'm waiting for the exciters to come so I'm preparing the foam. I'll tell you, I had a heck of a time getting a good cut, with a razor knife, when rounding the corners. so I cut the panels down with my table saw and started over. This time I used my jig saw. Worked much better. Then I rounded over the edges on the front with a router and a rounding over bit with a bearing. Looks almost factory made now.

Just made them. 10/10. Thank you for the review and follow up. I really like them.

What?!... No cold snacks while you're working?! At least you know what you're doing with the digicals.

The first band I was in, back in the late 60s, had polystyrene PA speakers. We were just a small garage band and they worked fine. We ran them from an old Bogen tube amp. They were very fragile.

I’m moving my old “home/pro”) recording studio into a new house, and the control room isn’t huge. These seemed like a great thing to try. Can’t wait. I imagine a nice parametric EQ unit will be in order, but I have that, and I expected to need it in any case, so I’m excited to try this!

Why have I not seen a video like this until now? That’s just crazy cool, definitely gonna try this! Thanks

The bloopers are great!

I used to have a pair of Wharfedale PPS-1 flat panel speakers back in the day. Think they were about £180 back in the day, and I've seen them going for as little as £90 today if you can find them. On the plus side, they also come with a matched sub woofer to fill in the missing bottom end.

Thats pretty cool, I just picked up a small exciter for another audio project. Amazing for such a small piece of equipment.

Speakers arriving today. Ordered 3 pairs of exciters from parts express and have shared the video with several friends and family. Thanks for the video.

I have a suggestion: what if, what happens, if you fix the driver on the wall, so the only vibrating part is the panel? At the very first seconds when you started the test, you look really amazed!

The deeper notes need more air being moved. These don’t move air much but just vibrate. These plus a sub would be solid

Love your vice grip garage hat!! I can appreciate another fan of a great channel

Your references and detail are fantastic. Enjoyed the video.

I know this isn't audiophile level design, but I thought I'd add some thoughts. That very large amount of free swinging and inertia complications, especially in placed close to the wall behind it causes clarity and phase problems. With its' surface area and problems I mentioned, maybe that can be worked to your favor with near room corner placement, with a diagonal orientation. This can enhance some frequencies, plus the added wall reflected sound will give you a wider/deeper/more complex soundfield, sort of like old Bose direct/reflecting speakers for a bit more 'concert hall' effect.

Love to see or have one that has a little artistic finish. That surface is so enticing to work on.

Good presentation and good video. After watching I almost feel like I do it myself.

Love to see the followup video you proposed with the bigger panel for more base. :)

Excellent presentation and testing. I'm curious how these would sound if the speakers were put in a frame to separate the compression/rarefaction of the sound waves....

In December a local department store had a couple small drivers stuck to the inside of their main display windows, and the sound from just two drivers filled the whole space in front of the store with incredible, non-directional seasonal music. So maybe try a pair on some old glass windows?

I like the video and respect to you good sir. Another comment mentioned "for the money" and I agree. I don't want to build such speakers at all just to sound "ok for the money". I am fairly convinced though, that with all the information gleaned from many sources, I can make them sound really good, and due to design also gain wife approval. That's win/win.

Going to have to try this (especially for "garage" use!)... a few tips I noted, others probably have already volunteered also... #1 - For the mounting support holes, use a nail (bolt, or even the cotter pins themselves) in a pair of vice grips, heat up with a torch, and plunge them into the foam (rather than trying to drill it)... they'll easily melt their way in to make nice holes (if you want larger holes, use whatever is appropriately large enough). Also, classic error, don't make the mounting holes "straight in"... angle each mounting hole a bit from "outside to inside" (so they start closer to the edge, and angle inwards inside the foam so their tips are closer together than the loops on the outside).... then, after epoxying in place, tie/attach a string, wire, etc (something fine and unnoticeable, doesn't have to be super strong, light fishing line for instance) between the loops, binding them together. Now, because of the angles, neither pin can come out fully, if one loses it's grip, and starts trying to slide out of it's hole, the string between them will pull it towards the other pin, but since the holes are angled outwards, they can't go anywhere (in fact, no need to epoxy if the foam was strong enough, just leverage would hold them in, but I'd use the epoxy given this is foam and not really strong). That's just a backup method to ensure no pull-out. (Same way baseboard (or other lengths of materials) nails should be installed at alternating angles, so if the board tries to warp from the wall, the counter-angled nails keep it from budging). Finally, I don't know how it would affect the sound, but there is a "bedcoating" spray from rustoleum (available in rattle can at wally world and elsewhere I'm sure, rumors are the roll-on variety has a different consistency, don't use that). I'd actually spray that on the back of these before mounting the transducers. It dries to an EXTREMELY tough surface (it's not rubbery, which I'd originally hoped for in my application, but live and learn)... anyhow, that would probably greatly strengthen the backside of the panel, and probably have little to no affect on the sound reproduction (worth an experiment anyhow)... If I do this, I'll follow some of these tips myself and maybe put something together to share, I'm not good at that though, I always "do" projects and never really do good documenting them. Thanks for this, it was fun!

You need to keep your mic to the front of the speakers. You've got dipoles for the most part so in between will be plenty of cancellation. Your distance from the front wall will have a strong effect in that regard. Play around with placement (think Magnepans, if you've ever had any experience with those speakers). I need to try this out for myself!

When I was in college , in the early 70's , 4X8 plywood panels , with Transducers were all the rage...... now , 50 years later....we have THIS! Looks like we just took a giant step BACKWARDS!.......Still cool as hell though!

Lilac skies is the jam. Thanks for showing me some new music.

After watching your video couple weeks ago I pulled the trigger and purchased my pink panels that have already been modified by rounding the corners taking the sharp edges off sanding front back sides I've received my 40 watt exciters from parts Express just waiting on my speaker wire and my Bluetooth amp and I can't wait to give it a go I also bought some gorilla glue or some people say sometimes the 3M tape let's go and they can fall off sometime so I don't want to take a chance and I've read on quite a few forms where people say if you use a one-to-one solution of water and wood glue and put two coats on the back where the Exciter goes and one coat on the front along with when the Exciter breaks in it makes a noticeable to huge difference in the sound so I'm definitely going to try that 👍🤗

I find they work better with larger rectangular panels. The low end is dependent on the maximum dimension of the panel, so you can reach lower with longer pieces.

Just saw this on TT. I’m gonna make two of these for my office computer speakers thank you for the tutorial on how to make these looks amazing.

If you have access to a spectrum analyzer and equalizer, you can set up the equalizer for the room and speaker combination.

I need to try this, for how simple they are why not build some!

I have seen this speaker design several times on YT and it is really fascinating. One guy did a 2 stage speaker design with one rectangle being made of the foam board and another out of balsa wood ... which might act to give the sound that mid-range "heart". I am really thinking of doing this ... though my music blasting days are pretty far behind me for the most part.

that was incredible!!!! very cool!!

Creation of this speaker, and the look on his face proves it's Awesome

In my opinion this type of DIY speaker is the best sounding -FOR THE PRICE!! Dipole, box-less, open back, and similar panel type speakers are amazing, and these similar panel speakers tend to give amazing room filling fields of sound. Also there are no crossover wiring ! to deal with Of course they are not "THE BEST..." But if you apply some art to the panels, hang them on the walls, and your friends will go nuts trying to figure out where ALL THE music is coming from in a room with ordinary speaker boxes are not to be found. Or build a couple of really small speakers that can be placed near the panels, and people will think those are the source and scratch their heads in wonder!

Thank for the video... and is that a Vice Grip Garage hat I see?! Subscribed.

I built a pair for my shop when the tech ingredients vid posted. I have two large traditional and a big subwoofer and it's much better than my Klipsch set up in the house. My shop system gets blasted very loud for hours each day. They are really durable as well. Good video.

I wondered about what these would actually sound like. Thank you, sir. Liked & subbed!

As soon as I clicked on this channel the first thing that crossed my mind was about fig newtons. I don't know why...

It would be really interesting if you could tune these by incorporating a dual channel 31 band eq. You would need a DAW that has a spectral analyzer and a microphone. You would then play a flat sine wave through these speakers out of the daw through the eq. Using the spectral analyzer you would record on a second channel the sound from the speakers, muting the output to avoid a feedback loop, and tune the EQ until the signal is flat the way it occurs when you just play it in the daw.. Once you get the pure sine wave flat, re demo the speakers. They should produce the sound alot more accurately. It will also let you to visually demonstrate on the eq graph what the raw speakers are attenuating from the sine signal without any equalization.

Thank you. I am tempted to make one.

Really great video and it's so cool to see someone else rocking the VGG hat!

I've been thinking about making a pair of these - happy to hear they made it past your initial skepticism! Great video! 3 things that come to my audio-engineer mind: * I think the 24 x 48 panels would both increase the frequency response, and cut down on what may be contributing to the "missing" tonality. * Also, having both speakers use the 2/5th's arrangement may improve the sonic quality of the speakers. The purpose of the 2/5th placement was to mitigate resonance nodes. Giving the same treatment to both speakers would also have made them both equivalent sound-wise (instead of having a different frequency response between L/R) * Appreciate the demo for the listeners using the Lav mic. One thing: the single microphone placed centered between the two speakers is tricky, particularly when near phanom center of the pair. The sound is very sensitive to "phasing" from slight left/right movement in this zone - the same sound arriving at slightly different times based on distance (eg. fractions of a millisecond). Consequently, there will be dynamic "comb filtering" in the Lav mic audio. Maybe a more authentic recording for us via the Lav would have been to disengage one of the speakers and then use the Lav mic to capture the mono output straight on from the remaining panel. Thanks!

If you do decide to build the 24x48 sheets of Bamboo as the bamboo can capture different audio frequencies and you’ll be amazed by combining the two I’ve Liked & Subscribed

My flatpanel experience... ...so a long time back I used some sound advance flat panel speakers to play with, I think they had some sort of Styrofoam fill inside. They had a white cloth covering, and then a metal frame (but had cloth on both sides as the sound goes off the panel in both directions). What you'll find is any material that is "squeeky" seems to resonate well for the flat panels (so wood isn't good, but stuff like Styrofoam, with a small amount of vibration makes a lot of noise) works well, probably why that foam was used. I also found using a resonator on a round surface (a cylinder for example) doesn't allow a great surface to mesh, so you do want a flat spot, although "boxing" it in may produce some interesting results. I didn't like the sound on metal, but in theory these could produce an invisible speaker (you place it right in the wall, drywall over the resonator, etc), and they make some resonator super low frequency so your car vibrates with rap, etc, lol. The quality of the resonator is probably a little important?!? Also, let's say you get creative and want to put them on a ceiling tile... well the properties of an acoustic tile is to dampen sound, not amplify it. I'm guessing that will not work well. OK, now you use this type of foam... maybe that works great, but watch your fire ratings if you have a plenum ceiling :) Also, I'm curious if you can reverse the resonator to use it like a microphone (does the whole squeaky panel become a mic, how does it sound, etc?) I can see that being interesting for security, if it has the ability to really pick up well (or music if it has any interesting audio properties or quality of any sort, etc). Just spit balling all that stuff. So, I found flat panels have very poor low frequency performance, but maybe a different resonator could produce a subwoofer effect? Can you use 2 resonators on 1 panel? (or multiple panels in close proximity?) I found the frequency with strings (like this video uses hehe) sounds REALLY nice (guitar, cello, piano, etc)... so that is pretty cool. Also, from my understanding (and in practice), I feel it is VERY difficult to produce feedback with a flat panel (due to how they work, getting feedback loops is supposedly much better protected against), so using them for Public Address may have some interesting options as well where speakers are next to microphones, in conference rooms, etc. I always thought building a system with flat panels as the mids and then using tweeters and subs in conjunction could produce some interesting options. I also don't know how they perform on power as well, etc. Anyway, I love the technology, I think it has some great options, and I think the resonators are getting better. Also curious would be using resonators with transformers to convert to 25/70 volt systems, etc. Can you use them for office paging and background music (again watch your fire and electrical codes). Great video though, Very cool it was so easy to make these.

man this is cool! And so simple that even I will try it!