Putting speaker drivers into a slightly bigger enclosure.

BigPimp

New Member
Hi there,

I have came across some new/old stock Jamo 8" speaker drivers never used and I believe the Jamo compact 1000's used these same drivers. I have tested them and they are in good working order I would like to build a pair of enclosures for them.

Ideally I would like to build the encloses to the exact design and size and width as the Jamo Compact 1000 speaker boxes that these drivers were designed for, however my local timber yard only sells planks of wood at certain widths so here is my question, would it matter if the new enclosures that I'm going to build were slightly larger than the enclosures they were designed for?
 
Since you said timber yard I'm guessing you're not in the US.

Here, when we refer to planks, we're usually talking about solid wood (i.e. cut directly from the tree, rather than being processed in some way first), which is not good for speaker enclosures. MDF, plywood or particle board are what you want to use (plywood is the easiest to work with but it's also the most expensive - you want to use hardwood plywood, not construction plywood. MDF is used for most quality speakers these days). If you can give us more details about what sorts of materials you have access to we can give better advice.

As regards whether you should go with a larger enclosure, that's difficult to predict. The best solution would be to use some loudspeaker design software to plug in the driver specs and the dimensions, and see what sort of bass response you'll get. However, if this driver was never meant to be sold for DIY use, those specs may be hard to come by. You could try contacting Jamo to see if they can give you the Thiele/Small parameters
 
How is the original speaker designed? If it was ported, tinkering with the volume is going to change the bass tuning. If it's a sealed design it may not make much difference.

And how much is 'slightly' larger? Have you actually calculated volumes?
 
Find somebody with test equipment (not much needed) to measure the driver parameters. Then you can use any one of a number of software packages to design the correct sized enclosure. Most other paths lead to substandard results.
 
I don't think reinventing the wheel is needed with your project. Just make a few boxes, cut the holes and mount the speakers.
 
Find somebody with test equipment (not much needed) to measure the driver parameters. Then you can use any one of a number of software packages to design the correct sized enclosure. Most other paths lead to substandard results.

But the question was, if I have lumber that would make a slightly larger box, is that OK? OP does not seem to be ready to go down the rabbit hole. Not saying you are necessarily wrong though. Hence my question about the type of speaker, before deciding.
 
Depends on how well one wants it to work. Going a different way, I've had surprisingly good results from open baffle designs. Nothing to calculate and whatever wood is available can probably be made to work.
 
It will matter somewhat but possibly, even probably, not audibly. Back in the old days we home built satisfactory speakers despite our lack of knowledge.

You can make a larger speaker with the same internal volume by creating a dead space inside or by putting bricks or wood blocks or something inside.
 
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Depends on how well one wants it to work. Going a different way, I've had surprisingly good results from open baffle designs. Nothing to calculate and whatever wood is available can probably be made to work.

Assuming the drivers have parameters suitable for OB.
 
If you can only make it bigger because you lack cutting tools/expearence make it bigger and brace it more to take up the extra volume. If braced well even standard planks will work.
 
Ok thanks for your replies. I'm in the UK not the US. I've got the correct measurements from the Jamo compact 1000 boxes so I wont be needing software and that other stuff. I've ordered some plywood off ebay so I'll be able to make them to the exact size and design as the originals.
 
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