Custom Speaker Lamps

I wanted to build surround speakers for our entertainment system. This would bring us up to Dolby/DTS 5.2. Unfortunately our couch end tables already had lamps, and would look to cluttered if speakers were placed there as well. The WAF was low on this idea.

So my wife came up with a compromise: build speakers into the lamps. This sounded crazy to me. After pondering for a while, we decided it might be crazy enough to work. So I got to work. I built boxes from scrap plywood, and smoothed them with bondo, and painted them black. I dismantled the lamps, performed some surgery on the connecting rod inside, and wallah...

The lamps have had there middle sections removed and the connecting rods jb-welded into the boxes.

The lamps function normally and have there original power cord. The speaker cord also feeds into the lamp base.

The speakers are 3" in diameter. Not something you will gut much bass out of for sure, but surround speakers aren't designed for that. They are sitting on 12" diameter subwoofers that give me all the bass I can handle :)

You can see the connections into the wall, one set for the sub, one for the surround. I will get to putting banana plugs on them later.

I set the distance and levels for them on my receiver, and popped in The Fifth Element to test 'em out. Awesome! For anyone tempted to go to 5.1, I highly recommend it, it makes movies far more immersive. The cost/benefit is high as well considering how cheaply  satellite speakers can be compared to say middle or front channel speakers .They work admirably - now I am just salivating to put some in-walls to go for Dolby 7.2!!!