Bluetooth Speaker Building Class

Build it yourself. Make it your own. 

Have a friend who'd want to build a speaker with you? Sign up for two slots and save $120 off the regular price of two. You get to spend time together and both walk out with a great  Bluetooth speaker.

The Monumental 82 speaker is a powered Bluetooth speaker. No need for an amp - just plug it into the wall and connect your phone. Put it on a table or hang it on the wall.

A version of these are currently providing the tunes in the cafe area of Public Records.  

Build it with us either all in one day or over two evenings. Really. You can build this. And learn a lot in the process. Bring a friend to help too!

(I'd argue it sounds better than comparable options out there, mainly due to quality of materials, the filter, and the enclosure, but you can be the judge of that - borrow one for a few days before you decide - send me an email. -Pete)

Coolest thing about this speaker may be the interchangeable faceplate - you can customize your own blank faceplate and make it your own, and  switch it up whenever you like. Have your kids draw on it. Dress it up for the holidays. 

It's based on Paul Carmody's exceptional "Sprite" design, but set up as a single mono channel, with just one driver. 

In the class, we'll glue up the enclosure, and apply a wax finish, wire the driver to the amplifier board and filter, and connect the board to the power supply. You'll learn a little bit of everything - from woodworking to electronics - which you can apply to your other projects. 

Each speaker also includes two magnetic faceplates to customize and make your own.  

About 8" x 12" x 5" deep, wall mounting hardware and power supply included. 

Locations:

So what's up with the name? Back in 1982 there was a big exhibition in Gowanus called The Monument Redefined. The Monumental Show was the first one, in 1981. Monumental 81 speakers are next on the docket...

Want to make a stereo pair? We can do that too! Get a discount on the second enclosure, and have two speakers, one for Left and one for Right. Mount them on your wall, a few feet apart. (Details coming soon.)

Wait, it's not stereo if I make just one? It's mono? What does that mean? Is that bad?

You still get all  the music - if you make one speaker, we use a mono amplifier board that combines the left and right channels. If you want to make two speakers for stereo (coming soon), we'll use a stereo amplifier board and connect the speakers together. 

These days most music is recorded in stereo - i.e. separate left and right channels - so with headphones or a properly placed speakers, you have the whole "soundstage" in front of you, and if you really have the system dialed in, you almost "see" the music in 3D - left to right, even up and down. Our ears and brain are really cool like that.

It's much less effective with a single speaker that sits on a shelf. Even if this speaker had two drivers - one for left and one for right like you see on some Bluetooth tabletop systems - you still wouldn't really "hear" the music in "stereo"; the drivers are too close together for the effect to work. With the "mono" setup on this speaker, you hear both the left and right channels combined from this speaker - they're summed together in the amplifier and come through the one driver. Unless you can spread the drivers apart by a few feet to really get the stereo effect, you can't tell the difference and it's not worth the additional cost. .