Salad to Sound, the Best of IKEA Bowl Loudspeaker Building.

Friday´s blog on my speakers made from IKEA bowls went viral. Thousands of people read the article and hundreds commented 50 shared. While I was thrilled by all the enthusiasm I did want to point out that I am not the first, nor hopefully the last to turn two Blanda IKEA salad bowls into reasonably sounding loudspeakers. To set things right, and in line with our Scandinavian roots, I will introduce you to a few rather remarkable IKEA hacks and as you will see, not all are loudspeakers. The three way speakers to the left found on ikeahackers.net and designed by Jules are arguably the most remarkable of the blanda salad bowl family. While the loudspeaker designer in me might be concerned about the rather small volume for such a big woofer, despite it being a sealed design, I definitely like the looks.

Next in line are some rather lovely if not tiny black balls with a golf ball finish on the outside. They feature a curious looking driver Monacor SPX-32M 3 inch full range with a wood center. These are actually not made from the world renowned BLANDA bowl but from a dimpled metal vase sold by IKEA under the name ANGENÄM. IKEA does not make that vase in that round form any more. Unfortunately I was not able to find out who designed these, but detailed building instructions can be found here.

Another great rendition of the IKEA blanda theme is white lacquered version to the left that is built around a 4 inch TangBand driver. I remember looking at this driver for my own version of BLANDA speakers but discarded it because I couldn't make it work acoustically I also was on the fence about the white membrane, but the anonymous builder from Midtjylland, Denmark, clearly made it work. If you know who built this, please let me know so I can add credit where credit is due.

I like the white lacquer finish and the O-ring seal around the junction of the bowls.

The next set clearly deserves a wood working award. Unfortunately the site where I found them offers little clue who the talented young man or woman may have been. If you have any information about these great little things, I would love to provide credit here. The driver to me is indiscernible, so I can not really comment on the quality of the sound either. Nevertheless, two thumbs up for looks and attention to detail.

These to the right are built around MarkAudio CHR-70 gen 3 drivers and I credit them for having a lot of personality, definitely a life of their own. They were built by a DIYselver called Mayuri

There are some people who believe in point source arrays that try to generate a wave front by combining several drivers in a single spherical shape. While I personally don't´t believe much in the concept as room acoustics get rather tricky, Henry Spragens with Audioimprov.com

definitely made a nice job of it.

And for those who missed my previous blog and our founding story, here are the ones my son and I built together. While humbled by all the wealth of IKEA inspired creativity around me, I continue to like them. My says they remind him of Mike Majewskis, after the one eyed goofy friend of Sully in Monsters Inc. They definitely were fun and interesting enough to inspire me to start my own loudspeaker company. Sadly, IKEA did not make it on our list of suppliers, but lot´s of other people did and they do a remarkable job at what they do.

Now we make loudspeakers that look almost entirely unlike salad bowls, but they sound sweet have great stereo imaging and get great reviews. Also fun. What´s important to me is that when building those blandas at the time not knowing much about loudspeakers, I felt enough calling and passion to want to build the best loudspeakers possible at a price that most people can afford. And thus Bjørn Johannesen and I started our company KVART & BØLGE and are doing just that. Audiophile grade quarter wave technology loudspeakers at only $299 a set.

Lastly, loudspeakers are not the only thing, IKEA salad bowls are good for. Here are another few random hacks, if you want to get out the jugsaw and start building.

#ExtremeAudio #LoudspeakerDesign