DIY Amplifiers for Dummies

Megaphone

We regularly run across bizarre questions with equally (if nor more) bizarre answers when the staffers venture into the murky waters of the niche sites formerly known as eHow.com. Between misinterpretation of  the question and misunderstanding of some reference scraped off the bottom of the search engine results, the freelance contributors have come up with some real winners over the years. Really: winners like the schlock job Meaghan Ellis did on "How to Amplify Sound Using Household Items," now languishing at ItStillWorks.com... as if it ever did.

Apparently not old enough to remember cheerleaders shouting "Rah! Rah! Sis-boom-bah!" through cardboard megaphones Ellis, her degree(s) in marketing and management notwithstanding, somehow came up with a weird solution to a problem people don't seem to have: Meaghan attempted to tell people how to make their speakers louder. Here's her reasoning:

"Innovation and variation are two elements that keep our digital age on a rapid incline upward toward technological enhancements and advancement. This includes amplifying sound; though, in this case, the technology involves using common household items."

Why Ellis went straight to a speaker we'll never know. Unfortunately, we also have no idea where she came up with her solution. We've gone back to the oldest version of her post at eHow, but Meaghan included no references. As near as we can tell, she attempted to convert a kid's make-your-own speaker lesson into an amplifier, and some moronic content editor at Demand Media let it pass.
Here's what Ellis says to do:

• Wrap a speaker in plastic wrap. "Do not wrap the back of the speaker because this is where the plug inlets are."
• Cut open a business-sized envelope to make a single sheet of paper. "Apply the torn envelop [sic] to the top of the speaker over the plastic covered region. Lightly tape the envelop [sic] to the four corners of the speaker... Leave space for air to seep in so the sound can escape and project."

Besides the fact that no one asked her to amplify speakers, Ellis' "experiment" makes no friggin' sense. What's the purpose of the plastic wrap? What if the speaker is too big for a single envelope? We can see where adding a cone of paper to a speaker would make them more unidirectional, but louder? We think not. Apparently Meaghan thinks so, however:

"When you turn the sound back on, you will notice that the sound will be fuller, which will be the major contributor to the speaker's amplification. The sound will travel slower but the projection will be much stronger."

No, Meaghan, "fuller" does not mean "amplification." It just means, in this case, that the sound waves aren't spreading: they're more focused. In fact, you've created a sort of megaphone with the paper – although the plastic wrap probably acts as a damper, so we think the sound would be muddier, not fuller.

As for scaling up, Ellis says in a "tip" to, "Use blank sheets of college ruled paper, if you are using a larger speaker..." This after informing us that an unfolded envelope looks "like a regular 8 x 11-inch sheet of lineless paper." We're wondering whether our Dumbass of the Day is really dumbass enough to think that the lines have some sort of effect. She already thinks that covering the back of a speaker with plastic wrap could cause overheating... Why Meaghan didn't just go straight to "megaphone" will remain a mystery for the ages.

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