We meet Malik Moore in his workshop, surrounded by carefully selected tools and a lot of sketches. The scent of freshly worked wood is in the air – you can almost feel the passion and dedication that goes into every single piece of wood. The master cabinetmaker himself is sitting across from us, ready to show us his masterpiece: a unique wooden piece of furniture that not only impresses with its design, but also has a built-in subwoofer. For Malik Moore, this isn't just any assignment. It is his transition from journeyman to master. We're excited to hear the genesis of this special piece and the challenges that came up.
At that time I was already building a hi-fi console as a journeyman's piece. In addition to a tube amplifier and two full range speakers, I also installed the SAM-2 amplifier. At the time, it was driving two 8 inch bass speakers. I knew very early on that as a masterpiece I wanted to produce a combination of speaker and piece of furniture again.
I fell in love with this exaggeratedly strong low bass at music events, which came out of many self-built sound systems. I wanted something like that too.
Actually I wanted to install a folded bass horn. But building a classic bass reflex speaker was much simpler. Because I only needed the right interior volume for the speaker and the size of the bass reflex tube. Then I was able to design the piece of furniture relatively freely around it. Another reason for choosing the bass reflex speaker was that a bass horn would have become very large for a 15 inch speaker.
My goal was to package an enclosure for the deepest possible bass as elegantly as possible. To do this, I studied frequency responses. I then built a prototype to hear what I might expect. I was positively shocked: for a living space, the result was completely overdone. The glasses in the kitchen upstairs began to vibrate. Even in the garden the ground vibrated. The piece of furniture transmitted the structure-borne sound to the floor and on to the entire room.
The speaker sits in the bottom of the case. That's why you can only guess what the piece of furniture can do. At first glance, most of the visitors to the masterpiece exhibition didn't know what to do with it. Only the amplifier in the back and the two slots in the front reveal what this lowboard can do, apart from looking great.
I think the piece is quite original and also unique. In any case, I personally have never seen anything like this before. For a long time I thought about how to prevent the all of the vibration of the speaker from being transmitted to the rest of the piece of furniture. As far as I know, the suspension of the loudspeaker in the frame with washers is a small innovation.
Yes, you can also assemble the entire piece of furniture the other way around. The speaker is embedded in a linoleum-lined adaptor plate. You could also exchange it with the upper adaptor plate. This means that if you swap the two panels and then turn the cabinet upside down, the piece of furniture can be set up in a mirrored configuration.
What did you do to assess the sound beforehand?
I previously created a 1:1 prototype with a capacity of approx. 140 litres. For this, I installed a 15 inch woofer driver and connected this with an active amplifier. I used an old roll of sandpaper as a temporary bass reflex tube and calculated the correct length. Since the idea was to specifically expand an existing music system in the low-frequency range, I used two monitor speakers for a joint test.
Yes, you can also assemble the entire piece of furniture the other way around. The speaker is embedded in a linoleum-lined adaptor plate. You could also exchange it with the upper adaptor plate. This means that if you swap the two panels and then turn the cabinet upside down, the piece of furniture can be set up in a mirrored configuration.
What did you do to assess the sound beforehand?
I previously created a 1:1 prototype with a capacity of approx. 140 litres. For this, I installed a 15 inch woofer driver and connected this with an active amplifier. I used an old roll of sandpaper as a temporary bass reflex tube and calculated the correct length. Since the idea was to specifically expand an existing music system in the low-frequency range, I used two monitor speakers for a joint test.
It's important to avoid components that vibrate at certain frequencies. For this reason, I didn't use any furniture fittings at all, which would otherwise be completely natural. The loudspeaker housing is "locked" by spikes and washers, i.e. held in place mechanically. The loudspeaker is decoupled as a result. This is absolutely crucial. This is because only minimal structure-borne noise is transmitted to the piece of furniture. This is extremely important, especially at low frequencies. The whole piece of furniture also stands on feet made of soft rubber.
The exiting airborne noise is transformed back into structure-borne noise. This is why it's important where (and on what) and how exactly the piece of furniture is set up. For example, if there's a glass-bottomed display case nearby, it will vibrate at a certain level. Other characteristics are less important than many think. It doesn't really matter which wood is used. I used oak because I found the combination of the other materials with bog oak to be very suitable.
During the first sound check, I suddenly heard static noise at high volume. It sounded like a kind of "chattering", which became more and more intense with higher levels. That sounded really unhealthy. I panicked for a moment thinking that the speaker itself might be damaged. But there were flow noises in the two bass reflex openings. They were extremely narrow. The solution: acoustic foam. This changed the airflow so that nothing could be heard. With such high air pressure, it can happen that the compressed air is forced out through fine slots in the amplifier. So I separated the amp from the rest of the case with a side and back panel.
One tip is to make sure you use the thickest material possible. So the case doesn't vibrate as much. I used a 25 mm plywood panel, Oak Fineline veneer. Depending on the size, I recommend installing stiffeners. This not only makes the speaker more stable, but also improves the sound.
There's a simple test: tap your finger on the edge and centre of the housing. The tapping sound should be as similar as possible.
Yes, pretty clearly. My mother's partner used to have a hi-fi shop and was a MONACOR customer. That's why I used to have various speaker components lying around the house – in all shapes and sizes. In those days I occasionally helped glue the speaker housings together. When I was 16 I built my own small PA system.
Interested in more know-how and opinions related to sound system technology? Browse through our MONACOR magazine.
Image rights held by Malik Moore
