Kenwood Bass Box

Kenwood Bass Box


Designer:
Nick

Project Category:
Portable Speakers

Project Level:
Beginner

Project Time:
8-20 Hours

Project Cost:
$100 – $500

Project Description:
Ported portable speaker system with two 3 inch full range speakers, one 8 inch woofer and a Kenwood headunit

Design Goals:
Wanted a portable speaker system for at work that has the sound I like and didn’t have to put a lot of money into it because of it being a shop system. Don’t wanna ruin expensive things. Also wanted to re-purpose a Kenwood headunit to control everything.

Driver Selection:
FaitalPro 3FE25 3″ Professional Full-Range Woofer 4ohm. Part # 294-1103

AT-8030 8″ Treated Paper Cone Woofer with Rubber Surround 4ohm Part # 299-2150

Enclosure Design:
Ported enclosure roughly .5 cubic foot. Enough space to let the PartsExpress buyout 8″ woofer cause avalanches from deep low bass

Enclosure Assembly:
Made from wood used to build Noah’s Arc

Crossover Design:
No external crossover was used. High pass and low pass filters were done on the kenwood headunit as well as subwoofer control (the 8″ woofer) and 3 band parametric eq

Products Used:
FaitalPro 3FE25 3″ Professional Full-Range Woofer 4ohm. Part # 294-1103

AT-8030 8″ Treated Paper Cone Woofer with Rubber Surround 4ohm Part # 299-2150

Sure Electronics 2x100w Class D Audio Amplifire Board (T-amp Technology) Part # 320-3340

Tips & Tricks:
I originally had 3.5″ speakers in there and went down to 3″ speakers so I just put hot glue to fill the space around the full ranges. Doesn’t look the cleanest with the glue showing but it does allow some of the blue LED light from inside the box to show around them aswell as the ports

Conclusion:
The buyout speaker has an impressive preformance for it only costing under $20. The full ranges sound very detailed, although harsh with the “sss” sound at times still sounds very nice and clear. The Kenwood headunit is by far the coolest feature in this build. Has Bluetooth, usb and aux connectivity. Will charge device If connected to usb. Variable color led display and plenty more features. A voltage stepdown was needed because the Kenwood runs off 14v and the power supply is 24v I believe.

About the Designer:
Probably the most awesome person you’ll ever meet. Unless you meet me.

 

9 Comments

Add yours
  1. 1
    Brian

    Does thing rock out pretty good? I work in an auto plant and thought about getting a tailgater type box but I was curious if yours jams loud and clear.

  2. 2
    Nick

    I work in a machine shop with cnc machines cutting and hydrolic presses going and it keeps up very well. Only thing is that if it’s a VERY loud area and need to keep it kranked I would definitely make a crossover for the two full ranges from blowing and also prevent the woofer from over traveling. Other than that I think it’ll keep up with the background noises

  3. 3
    Joe

    I’ve built pretty much the same concept, I don’t have the subwoofer but I have the sure amp driving 2 6.5 component kenwoods from amazon for pretty cheap and seem to have a problem with my headunit cutting out on radio signals. It works fine for bluetooth and for straight aux in but when i put it on fm all i get is static. The only reason why I want the radio portion to work is so I can use it when watching a drive in movie. Any pointers would be helpful.

    • 4
      Nicholas O'Neill

      If you are using a car radio headunit like me, there is a connection port in the back where the vehicles antenna gets plugged in. That is what gives you radio frequency stations. There is nothing for it to receive when there is no antenna so that’s why you aren’t getting anything coming through other than static. You will have to try and shimmy up an atenna. Solder in a standard plain wire somewhere into the back of the headunit where the antenna port is. I’m not exactly sure how because i haven’t had to do that before. I’m sure googling it would help a lot

    • 6
      Nick

      Since this post, I’ve completely remodeled the system. From driver selection to exterior appearance. Both were a typical brick plug in power supply. A “laptop charger” if you will.

    • 7
      Nick

      I’ve completely remolded this system entirely from speaker selection to exterior appearance. Still have the radio and still have the power supply in it. It’s your traditional “laptop” brick style power supply that plugs into an outlet.

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