Styrofoam Surround Speakers with Audio Exciters

Making a surround sound speaker with a sheet of Styrofoam, this will be painted and then hung behind my seating area, I have tested in surround use and it works very well in its unfinished state.

What I used

2 x Audio Exciters (I used 2 x Visaton EX 60 S)

2 x Lengths of speaker cable

1 x Sheet of Styrofoam, 12″ H, 36″ W, 1″ D, I am going to mount the exciters to the same piece for surround use.

1 x Roll of 50mm Mammoth Powergrip double-sided tape cut to 50mm x 50mm squares (Mammoth tape was only £3.50 for 2.5m on amazon.co.uk).

Optional

4 x Connectors for Exciters (Visaton need 2 x 4.8mm and 2 x 2.8mm)

4 x Banana Plugs

With the audio exciter there are quite a few choices, I purchased the Visaton EX 60 S, as they are 25 Watts (did not know how much power I would need, probably could have gone a lot lower) and the base is 58mm square, so once you need to mount to a new surface cut a new square of tape to affix, some required 5 pieces of tape to mount.

Instructions

Prepare the cables to connect the speakers to your amp, this will be different with each type of exciter, with mine one end was Banana Plugs and the other crimped connectors.

Stick a pad onto the exciter, peel off liner and stick it onto the surface of the styrofoam, always make sure it is off center.

Turn off the amplifier and connect the cables.

Turn the amplifier back on and play music, you may need to play with the positioning of the exciter for the best sound and bass, mounting the panel too close to the wall can cause a loss of bass too.

Here are photos and video (playing sound) of the unfinished speaker.

This is the unfinished speaker playing audio, plugged straight into amp.  Sorry the sound quality of the mic is not brilliant, a bit low on the left, but will give you the idea.

UPDATE 1:  Found a cheap canvas in a charity shop stuck on the exciters, this did not sound very good and the volume had to be increase quite a bit.  I will be trying a piece of Forex board next.

UPDATE 2: This is what it looks like on the wall, I have sprayed the Styrofoam with grey primer (30 cm distance to stop it melting), this gives it a breezeblock look, which actually looks great.  I am looking at getting cable to be a bit more discrete, like a flat bi-wire speaker cable so only one cable comes out the bottom and can go under the carpet.

A sanding block has been stuck to the back with the same tape to stick on the Exciters, and Command 3M removable picture mounting tape (7.2kg rated) to mount block onto the wall.