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Recycled/Cheap 5.1 Surround Sound System
This Surround System was intended to provide my family with 5 channel surround sound for the least amount of money. If the kids ruin the speakers I don’t want to have to worry about replacing expensive drivers. If they scratch the receiver I don’t care… the dvd player will be thrown away if it breaks… Here are some pics.
Pine 'earmuffs' look nice on the mains and match the room better than simply spray painting Fleckstone. Surrounds found in trash cleaned up nicely with spray paint and are hidden out of the way in the corners. They are brighter sounding than the mains and center channel but hey, my kids are 6 and 4 years old. Sound effects are clearly heard thru these cheapo computer speakers tho matching TB drivers would have been better I'm sure.
The center was easy to build and sounds great on human voice and everything else. The cheap piezo isn't the best tweeter in the world but I like it just fine, thank you. It's crispy, detailed and fun sounding. -- I didn’t take a pic of the Apex dvd player ($45). But it’s small and slick looking. Reaction to pressing buttons is slow tho and I suppose this is one of the reasons it’s inexpensive. The Yamaha receiver
cost $179 at Best Buy. I just found the cheapest one in the store.
On the back panel it says for 6 ohm speakers minimum. So I guess it
cannot be used with fancy 4 ohm speakers like most MTM designs. As a The rear surrounds were found in a garbage dump by the Chinese restaurant. I threw them into my trunk knowing I could probably salvage them. They were scuffed up Altec’s and had two 3 inch drivers per side. The drivers were in perfect condition but had to be rewired in series as an 8 ohm load to work with the receiver. I lightly sanded and spray painted with Fleckstone which gave them a ‘stone’ finish. They looked fine and I painted the front and mains the same to match. The center channel and mains used my ‘inventory’ of Tangband’s. I was never thrilled with these relatively low efficiency speakers. But they did have a natural sound and didn’t require ‘crossovers’ since they are essentially full range (rated 105hz to 15khz). The center and mains both use the cheap $1.25 piezos from Parts Express. Careful, you can crack the holes that hold the driver in place because the plastics so thin. The center speaker has one mounted on the front and the mains on the rear (like my Fostex 168S system with RS 40-1310 on the rear). I’m glad I didn’t put the cheap peizos on the front of the mains. I will explain why later. The center speaker cost the most to make. I had to go to Home Depot for some pine to be cut up. Total cost $17. The mains were also found in the garbage. Originally they were cheap Sony 3-ways. I still laugh when I recall removing the drivers… a shiny silver tweeter and midrange… no wires were connected to the tweeter at all LOL! The woofer was a 5” black paper cone and had plenty of bass… so the tuning with this box was very good I thought. Unfortunately, I chucked the port and never measured it. The Sony woofers have been added to my junk pile collection for now. TB makes pretty cool looking and sounding ‘full range’ drivers. Unfortunately I am used to listening to my $115 Fostex drivers. But if I wasn’t so jaded, these TB’s are actually very good in many ways. First, they are pretty inexpensive. I think I paid $8.99 each for them on sale at Parts Express… model #S319 (black paper cone) and #S315 (aluminum cone). The black sounds better to me because it’s less sibilant sounding on female vocals. Overall, they sound smooth, balanced and require a simple sealed box. The garbage Sony boxes were just about perfect although they were thin walled and scuffed up too. Fleckstone alone didn’t make them look nice enough so I took some spare pine and designed ‘cheeks’ for them. My son says they look like they’re wearing ear muffs. LOL… they do. I used the black paper coned TB’s for the center channel because I wanted to avoid sibilance at all costs especially with the cheap receiver. I’m glad I did because vocals are better with these cones compared to the aluminum ones. The mains have the piezos mounted on the back. Fortunately I did this because they have a ‘tick, tick, tick’ sound anytime they play cymbals… any type of cymbals. LOL! The center had to be attenuated appropriately with a larger resistor and smaller cap to balance everything out. But in the end these piezos add a nice fizzly treble that's detailed and fast. I always liked piezos and will continue to use them in my designs. Just cross them over very high and blend them into the sound of the main speakers. Easy enough and certainly cheap enough! All five speakers cost about $50 - $60. This project was a blast and my kids and I had a great time putting it all together. Sound is full and detailed for movies and that's pretty much all we listen to them for. Old Godzilla movies are in mono tho which was a disappointment. But Spiderman, Monsters Inc and Star Wars sound amazing thru this recycled and inexpensive system. The key to the very good sound IMO is the full range TB's! Using them avoids typical crossover crap and listening fatigue. I'm so happy I didn't spend any more than needed for a great home theater system! I have a
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