This is the second Sonos One speaker (older generation), that I ripped apart and rebuilt in an acrylic cabinet.
After designing and experimenting with the first one, it was naturally a lot easier to play around with the design on this second.. proposition. Apparently, I did not take any meaningful (no notes at all) notes with the small, critical adjustments to the pattern - so I ended up having to solve for those frustratingly memorable problems a second time. [Full disclosure, I'm not entirely sure I updated the cut files or took notes with this project as well] That's really how it goes sometimes.
The most troublesome issues with the first speaker build, aside from taking an uneducated guess at how I might change the physical volume of the cabinet without compromising the sound quality (it's obvious Sonos spent an awful lot of time engineering that thing), was figuring out how to make wifi antennas. After five minutes of internet research, thin copper foil mounted on either side of the speaker turned out to be the bet with the best odds, and allowed for plenty of creative license moments with the individual design. Also, the wifi performance has improved at least 500%, but that's a rough guess, having only built two of them, and then trying to compare the performance to some vague (but likely accurate) memory of them working like shit on a network. Comparatively thick copper wiring to copper foil that's 10x bigger that the original antennas seems to do the trick I guess.
Most of these builds are retrofitting the existing internal components, but I can't even imagine how fun it would be to build one from scratch with individual components - especially a higher end model.
Most importantly - the speakers both work, sound terrific, and are so strange looking that you can't help but be surprised and delighted that they inexplicably make music at the touch of a button.
