If you're looking for a super-cheap way to squeeze some extra performance out of your guitar amp, this simple and inexpensive hack can help you turn something like a thrift store printer stand into a sound-boosting amp stand.


DIY-focused Make magazine combined a little science with some elbow grease to make a stand that would boost the quality of sound produced by a basic guitar amp. You can buy a commercial version of the stand they build, but the stands start at $150. The tinkerers at Make built a DIY version for $15. How does it work?

In theory, a perfect speaker box would be a speaker mounted in the middle of a wall of infinite size, because that would let the sound from the front reach your ear without having been partially canceled by the inverse sound from the back," he says. "Mom won't let us build anything infinite anymore, not after what happened last time, so we approximate the infinite wall by putting speakers into sealed boxes, also known as infinite-baffle enclosures. Unfortunately, infinite-baffle enclosures make it really hard for the speaker to move, so the sound is quieter. And of course, quietness is not very rock 'n' roll, is it? So designers make a lot of amps louder (and a little funny-sounding) by opening the backs. This speaker stand bends the back sound around a corner, which makes it even less like the front sound, and then sends it out the front, where its slightly altered power is added to your already Majestic Volume in a rich and tonally pleasing way.


You'll need some donor furniture to get hacked up (you could use plywood, but finding old computer furniture at Goodwill is going to be much cheaper) and some basic tools like a saw and screw driver. With some careful cutting and application of caulk and weather stripping you can turn your cheap furniture into a sound-enhancing stand for your amp. Check out the article at Make for additional details.

Have a clever hack, music-related or otherwise? Let's hear about it in the comments.

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