Gadget Freak

Exploring around the Instructables site, this self-amended gadget caught my eye - Munny Speakers.

The phenomenon of modifiable Munnys ("The Greatest Do It Yourself Toy") has escaped my attention - perhaps the parents among you are already too familiar with these - but the application here is quite obvious.

"Give your speakers some extra personality by making them out of a vinyl doll. Kid Robot makes the easily hackable Munny doll and I've been meaning to cut one up. The combined need for some new speakers created a happy union of doll and speaker," writes fungus amungus.

"The vinyl that the Munny is made of is pretty firm when it's at room temperature, but heat it up with a hair dryer or a heat gun and it softens up oh so nicely. After that the Xacto cuts through it like butter."

BTW - sorry I can't resist the plug - check out our recent guide to Digital technology and loudspeaker design. Featuring Bowers and Wilkins, and their £40,000 top-of-the-range Nautilus speakers, this covers slightly different territory to our Munnys.

We wrote: "These are huge speakers, 1.2m tall, so there is no need for reflex ports to boost bass response. Instead there is a tube attached to the rear of each driver to remove rearward energy. The tube is filled with absorbent material and shaped to taper the sound to zero at the far end. "It is like a horn in reverse, " R&D head Dr Gary Geaves told Electronics Weekly. "No energy by end of tube means no reflections."



And no, that was not a typo. £40,000 for speakers, and presumably there are customers out there...