Dorm Room Bookshelf Speakers by Levi Gabrielse, a freshman in college going into mechanical engineering

Project Level: Intermediate

Project Time: 20+ Hours

Project Cost: $100 – $500

Project Description: Bookshelf speakers based off the Bose 201 and 301 with a few changes. I added a passive radiator at the bottom instead of a port and decided to go with the no grill option

Design Goals:  Bookshelf speaker for my bedroom at home and for my dorm room at college. I am an incoming freshman at college, and I wanted some unique speakers that looked good and sounded good too. I wanted them to sound good without having to add a subwoofer for the sake of being in a dorm room and not disturbing others around me.

Enclosure Assembly: The enclosure is built out of 1/2 inch mdf board. The pieces were cut out on a CNC machine and are held together with wood glue. Then I covered them with a thin layer of Bondo and sanded that down to get a smooth finish. After that I primed them and then sprayed them with a white epoxy for a high-end glossy finish.

Crossover Design: Dayton Audio XO2W-3.5K 2-Way Speaker Crossover 3,500 Hz

I had to add some resistors to the crossover outputs to balance the volume of the woofer and tweeter and to make the impendence the same on both.

“I am very happy with the way that they turned out. This was my first speaker project, and I think that they look amazing. However, one of the speakers is not as smooth as the other and I believe it’s because it was very humid outside where I sprayed the epoxy. But overall, I think they turned out good for my first project.”

“They also sound quite good too. The 6 woofer paired with the 6.5 in down firing passive radiator digs deep to make up for the lack of a subwoofer. And the tweeter sounds good and brings an overall balance to the sound.”