skyline diffuser speaker
2024
project brief
the prompt for this project was to create an "heirloom" using two digital fabrication processes. reflecting on my high school experience of building a speaker and considering my enhanced skills, i decided to revisit and improve upon that project. during my research, i discovered a speaker design that incorporated a skyline diffuser internally for optimized acoustics. although the interior was impressive, its exterior was quite plain. this inspired me to design a speaker that not only delivers excellent sound quality but also showcases its complex inner workings.
user persona
i began with rough sketches, inspired by tom sachs' "boom box series." from there, i moved to cad iterations and additional research. about halfway through, i decided to incorporate a skyline diffuser for better acoustics. the speaker's main body is made from plywood, cut into layers using a cnc machine. to showcase the diffusers, i laser-cut acrylic for the front panel. after cutting all the pieces, i glued the plywood layers together, tackling the challenge of sliding pieces by gluing two layers at a time. once dried, i sanded the tabs and smoothed the surfaces.drilling holes in the fragile acrylic for the speakers was tricky. the best method was drilling at high rpm with a slow feed rate. after mounting the speaker drivers to the acrylic, the final step was soldering the components.
fabrication process
cad (fusion 360)
renders
final