My revived Zeppelin Air.

Hi there,

I’d like to present my DIY project which came to happen after an unfortunate event.

I loved my Zeppelin Air from Bowers&Wilkins but one day it decided to stop working and all I tried didn’t work when I attempted fixing it.

So I decided to start building my own version of it using the Arylic 2.1 amp as soon as I found it on AliExpress thinking this would be an easy peasy walk in the park and also a budget DIY project which would be done in no time.

Boy was I wrong!!!

So after having ordered my amp and to be honest after having probably the best purchase experience on the platform, I started gathering the rest of the required parts which included cables, power supply, plugs, knobs, crossovers and many more parts, which I didn’t consider at the beginning of my project. This is making it clear how unexperienced I am with the matter. All I knew was that I wanted to have my speaker work again.

I then had my enclosure built but before that I needed to have a model. Here began another adventure. I had never used a 3D modelling program. Finding one was easy enough cause to my luck you can use the web version of SketchUp and that was exactly what I needed. Remember this was supposed to be a budget DIY project. But we all know how that goes: you start with an idea but by the time you reach the end product the prices have increased exponentially. Going back to the SkecthUp, I obviously had to master that so many hours have went into finding out how to use it properly and also to understand how a drawing might turn into a physical object. After many iterations of the model I finally had what I had the speaker become what I had in mind Now finding the proper wood was also not an easy task when all stores were closed but I managed that with the help of a friend.

Putting all of it together was one of the best experiences especially when considering that it was the first time I ever tried something like this. I am quite happy with the result although if I think back I would probably do some things differently. One would be not to first glue the enclosure first and then try to fix the speakers cause let me tell you that’s not an easy task :sweat_smile:.

One more thing I’m not sure of is regarding the three way crossover I used cause when I listen to it it feels the mid lows are missing and i need to increase the lows on the amp. Now I’m considering getting a two way crossover for the tweeter and the mids driver.

Any help is much appreciated.

In any case, after many months of constant thought and work, it finally came to life so I wanted to showcase my new lovely speaker, which I am very proud of and share it with everyone.

I hope you’ll enjoy it and please let me know if you have any feedbacks.

Looking forward to my next project!

![image|666x500, 100%](upload://uKly1qezH8sizzOguX5uXjxDKo4.![image|666x500]

(upload://noneWw4K5mi70dwhYFtsRsXDg5Z.jpeg) jpeg)

3 Likes

Nice build! Apparently, you were more successful in desoldering the volume encoder from the Arylic board than me :wink:. In my post, you can see how I broke the encoder and almost broke the board. Thought I could make it without a desoldering gun but - nope :sob:.

I saw that you used the USB-A port of the Arylic board. This means that you can play music from an USB stick, right? In my build, I used the Micro-USB port and cannot play music from a stick but can connect the box to my computer to use it as an external sound card and can also program the internal EQ of the board. Don’t get it why they provide two different USB ports with different functionality instead of one ‘do it all’ port.

Regards, Sven

Congrats on your build Sven.
Really clean and you can tell you knew what you were doing ( unlike me ).
And Ouch :scream: for the volume encoder on your board. I was indeed lucky desoldering mine but I was scared till the end it might not work.
The USB and 3.5mm jack extension works like a charm and can even charge the phone with it although I also use it to power my Nixie Clock with it which kinda fits the ensemble.
The micro USB, the ethernet and the power button are on the back side but that i still need to finish cause i am missing one more component.