Firepit With Audio!

The ultimate outdoor entertainment with some elbow grease and minimal products.

This system has one major advantage over traditional surface mount speakers. The sound is contained in just the area where it is playing. As you move away from the fire pit the sound fades away very quickly. It works wonderfully for enjoying the music, while not forcing your neighbors to hear. I was impressed with the midrange and upper frequency sound from these, but I did find the bass to be a little weak. It can be difficult to get good bass outdoors with no walls to reinforce it.

A small outdoor subwoofer could be hidden somewhere, but I wanted to maintain the sound dissipating qualities of this system so I chose to go with an in-line filter to bring down the upper frequencies. This does eat up some of the output, but since this is more for low level background music it works well.

I started by cutting 4 boards 52.75 inches long. From there I cut a 45 degree angle on all ends, saving the remaining triangle shaped pieces as inserts. The legs were made up of 8 boards cut down to 9 x 9 x 2. The leg was fastened to the base with glue and screws. Then the assembly was screwed to the top from underneath the table holding everything together.

Each transducer is 8 ohms allowing two of them to be combined with parallel wiring for a total load of 4 ohms per side. To keep the wiring simple I combined the positive wires together at the first transducer for each channel and then did the same for the negative. From there, I ran one set of wires to the second unit and the remaining end to the amp. I used JSC direct burial 14 gauge speaker wire since this is an outdoor installation. Most summer days after work you'll find me home brewing beer, taking a ride on my motorcycle or coaching youth football. With this simple, inexpensive DIY project, I've added family get-togethers around the fire as one of my favorite past-times. Oh, the ambient glow of fire and soothing sounds of Heavy Metal...

- Dayton Audio HDN-8 Weatherproof Sound Exciter Transducer

- JSC Wire 14 AWG Direct Burial Underground Speaker & Lighting Wire 100 ft.

- GB PPC-1538 3/8" Nylon Cable Clamps Natural 15 Pcs.

- 1/4" (12-10) Female Disconnect Crimp Terminal Yellow 50 Pcs.