I will preface that these exciter speakers produce incredible midrange—voice, strings, and brass
No need for a capacitor or crossover (the low frequencies do not hum or pop on these)
I do; however, recommend a subwoofer to fill out the bottom end (these DIY panel speakers don’t perform well below 200Hz)

These are the speakers I used (one per panel)
Exciter Speakers

See link for materials and basic design
Basic Design

Instead of using ink, I just sprayed with black Rustoleum keeping the nozzle 2ft away so the acetone and xylene didn’t eat away at the Owens Corning 150 after sealing with the wood glue/water 50/50
After 80grit sanding the panels with a circular sander (wear a mask) I sealed the panels with 50/50 water/wood glue
I removed the double sided tape from the speaker and used 5min two part epoxy for a stronger bond between the speaker and panel

I used hook eye screws at the top of the panel, suspending them 6 inches from the wall with wall hangers and 15lb big game clear mono

Easy, fun project
Day One—round corners of panels, sand, seal with glue (1hr). Let glue/water seal dry over night
Day Two—paint, let dry for a couple hours, screw in hook eyes with some two part epoxy, sand where you will adhere speaker, solder speaker wire to speakers, adhere speakers with epoxy to panels. Hang speakers to wall

A thin balsa panel would work well also

Another good implementation using these speakers

Very slick... I've been wanting to do a build in a 50mm SAW ammo can or old cooler. Great idea

Sealed ammo can or cooler would work best with regular piston/air displacement drivers
There’s some really good cooler speaker builds on YouTube.

These exciter speakers create sound by vibrating the surface they are attached to—part of the reason why vocals, string, bell/brass/cymbal, and reed instruments sound so good out of this speaker type

Interesting, like the idea on the guitars. Wonder how the soundboard would be without all that bracing

I built one in a plastic plano ammo box with a pair of old Infinity 4.5" car speakers I had laying around. For what it is, it got somewhat expensive but it freaking rocks, and for a long time!

I think this list is pretty much everything that went into it. Some of it is redundant depending how you get the signal to the amp.



Are you on Reddit CCTX? I think I saw something like these guitar speakers the other day, pretty cool.

There is strong argument for bracing the back of the magnet with a spline and connecting the spline to a brace that runs the perimeter of the panel/board. Especially if you want to achieve quality frequency response below 200Hz
I did the free suspension design because it was quicker and easier. I primarily wanted to produce a speaker with transparent vocals and acoustics—the effect is something I haven’t heard from other speakers.

I’m not on Reddit, I first saw this video series on YouTube about a year ago. Then my daughter asked for a nice audio system for Christmas; so I made these ($30) along with a DIY subwoofer kit ($70) pairing them with a nice integrated amp ($75)

If I had an old quitar or cello or maybe an old acoustic double bass laying around, would love to try them on those

Might stop by a thrift store/check Craigslist a couple months after Christmas for a lightly used one of two

It would be interesting to test with Chladni patterns on the soundboard for use as a speaker system. I've done the tap tuning by ear to some extent building guitars but haven't used a speaker to drive the patterns. Couple of sites on the subject

https://goreguitars.com.au/main/page_about_design_modal_tuning.html

https://www.bamburgguitars.com/single-post/2015/06/02/Tap-Tuning-Science-or-Snake-Oil

Very cool

I did use the Fibonacci sequence/golden ratio for the exciter speaker placement
24inch square was 10 inches from the top and 9.5 inches from the side

Really pleased with the set up I built for my daughter, so I put one together for myself

With a $75 Bluetooth amplifier and the TVapp, you can have the TV use the speakers and subwoofer ($93) connected to the amplifier wirelessly. Also wireless audio with Spotify and YouTube Bluetooth from phone to amp.

Nice, I may have try this

iPhone microphone and YouTube audio compression quality don’t do it justice

My set up uses an amplifier with power to the subwoofer (so I got a passive sub)

The one I built for my daughter has a nicer amplifier, but the sub out is not powered, so I got her a powered sub