DIY Surround Sound... USING LASERS!

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Acrylic tubes will need to be 2x 1000mm lengths, 70mm outside diameter, 66mm inside diameter

[LinusTechTips]

Brilliant as always and so proud to be a sponsor now. You are always pushing the boundaries of beautiful, functional design! -LS

[seanwilson]

DIY Perks is the only channel that can go dark for months and then drop the most absurd Dr. Doofenshmirtz style gizmo I’ve ever seen.

[Iedye]

I love how you always make these projects so accessible. Piggybacking off an existing, widespread standard. Off-the-shelf electronics components. Simple construction with well thought-out parts and budget. Used in an interesting way. Truly remarkable

[StyleRockLife]

You, as a human being, should be inscribed to the UNESCO sites. You are a truly gold nugget of craziness and brilliance.

[donny_bahama]

Matt, this is beyond brilliant — it’s SPECTACULAR! As a retired home theater designer, I spent many, MANY hours trying to come up with a good way of doing wireless surround speakers and never accomplished it. Your solution is so elegant and creative. You are a truly astonishing maker. Your channel never disappoints.

[bzzler]

Laser SPDIF, acyrlic speaker stands dual purposed as transmission lines, 3D-printed 35Hz, and an ultra-low directivity anti-comb filtering center channel?... insane. This is one of your coolest projects yet 🤯

[pimianimavdo]

Kudos! Back in the mid 1990's, I was Dir. of R&D for an audio company in Canada & had worked out a way to do optical feed to remote speakers (including surround/satellite speakers of course) but with the added bonus that the power management was also optically fed to a photovoltaic compact management system within the loudspeakers in order to perform in 100% wireless mode.
The biggest drawback at the time was that Class D amps monoblocs, were not very good sounding (although promising prototypes were available for a price) and also the battery & capacitors banks required to power up a nice sounding Class A/B amp for a few hours (about 5 hours per listening sessions before it was drained as it could draw power faster than it could charge unless one was willing to go obscenely big on the power management system specs & cost) was pretty cost prohibitive & relatively bulky.
With today's class D monoblocs, a few good modern batteries (probably mixed with a few caps & even SuperCaps for power peaks if need be) I recon I could bring back the concept & "modernize it" to make it affordable & smaller / less bulky with a much more competitive price point. A cool curiosity & niche product for very peculiar clients that could be fun and, just as your project here, a nice conversation starter. :)
Anyways... So very nice to see what you have done here.
Again: Kudos!

[AdwaitPatil]

The 'DIY' of this channel is a mere namesake because of the sheer quality of these builds. The hardware, designs, and electronics amongst other things are so neat, tidy and well done that it beats the production quality of many major commercial brands ! Absolute delight to watch anything and everything you do !!!

[CelticWorrier]

You had me at "inserting a piece of milk bottle plastic over the toslink connection to capture/ focus light." Mad. Can't believe that works to be honest, would have guessed there would be diffraction and just muddiness of digital signal... and fail. But no. This is SO creative. Chapeau.

[KnowArt]

Favorite way to construct speaker
That's gotta be one of the most specific Favorite Things that I've heard in a while

[Miked]

Bro... These aren't "weekend projects". This is next level engineering and EXTREME attention to detail. It's art!

I lose my mind assembling Ikea furniture, let alone trying to do anything remotely like this. Lol!
Nothing but respect to you, sir. Every project you do is just wonderful.

[BergischNRW]

Great video and great project to reproduce!

[ImmaculateOtter]

This was really neat. I’d love to hear it in person.

As an armchair engineer and audiophile, I have one big suggestion for you - make all of the speakers at head level.

If you intend to watch all your films whilst standing, then this sound system will probably be great for you. However, if you intend to sit, then the sound waves will literally go over your head.

[danyg]

Back in college, a friend and I did something very similar to convert a really cheap surround sound system in my college apartment, since I didn't want wires running across the room. We didn't use TOSLINK, though. We used laser diodes like you did, but used solar panels for the receivers wired up to some PWM drivers to convert the signal into usable audio channels. We had independent lasers for each audio channel running up the wall, to 45 degree mirrors to direct it along the ceiling to the different speakers around the living room. It was a system we named SMOAP. I don't remember what the full acronym stood for, but it was something Optical Audio Profile, hah hah.

[yousof]

After each video I go: He can't go beyond that. but this man never fails to impress me

[marjon]

I designed and built a pair of speakers 25 years ago as I couldn't then afford the excellence I wanted. I am still extremely happy with them. Your design is exquisite and giving fresh new ideas... Thank you! Great video too!

[Robftin]

Absolutely superb concept!! My only feedback as a hi-fi nerd would simply be that you ideally want your tweeters at ear level when listening. Honestly though, I'm seriously impressed... as I always am when your videos drop!

[t.d.]

Best solution for an actual problem here, getting 1 rear surround speaker working without a cable and without lag. Thank you for this great idea !

[Mr.Engine]

That's like the extreme version of using those IR LEDs directly connected to sound sources and headphones, but so well made that it's not just practical, but up to the highest HiFi standards. Fantastic job Matt, once again you've smashed the expectations!

[notanothercreativetechnologist]

I've been building my own speakers for a very long time, although you didn't go technical with your explanations to confuse people, you were very spot on... that was a brilliant job.