DIY Life

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to scrounge in the kitchen and sofa cushions for these items:

• A penny (a shiny one)
• Some aluminum foil
• Some tape (like clear packaging tape)
• A paper plate
  

Add a 3.5" stereo mini-plug from an old pair of headphones to the above recipe and you'll have the workings of a high-def (but decidedly low-tech) speaker system for that iPod, PC, or any other device that outputs sound through a 3.5" connection.

This is the coolest low-to-no-budget hack I've seen in a long time. These things, when completed, may not look the best, but try it today and see if the sound fits your bill. Invite some friends over and pump up the jams. The music will flow, but nobody will believe that paper plates and other junk could be transformed into a decent speaker.

Editor's Note: After review, it's apparent that this project is, indeed, a hoax. We apologize for publishing this under the pretense of plausibility, and assure you that we will strive harder to check our future posts and projects for signs of fraudulence.

If you are anxious to capture some low-frequency sounds with the help of a standard microphone, you may be out of luck. that is, unless you employ a speaker driver as your microphone. I've performed this hack in a different lifetime for some amateur studio purposes and it does work.

Speakers and microphones are very similar in structure if you can believe that, and the larger surface area of a speaker cone is ideal for those lower frequencies, like form a kick drum or jazz bass. But, don't spend a ton a cash on a professional unit -- try making your own and see if the results stand up to what your recording needs are.

This implementation used about $20 worth of materials and some junk parts that were functional to create a speaker microphone. If you're an audio parts nut, you may have all the required pieces already. Check this out for a complete list and directions, then get ready for some thump recording.

[via Hackaday]