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NEW INVENTION: Clip-On Amplifier Works Without Electricity

I'm fascinated by acoustic properties. If it makes a sound, I'm interested. So when the news came across my Facebook timeline that an inventor made a guitar amp that increases sound levels of an electric guitar by 12 decibels...without using electricity, I went crazy!

Canadian company, DelSonix has just introduced a "speaker," known as the SD28, that is made of a hollow wooden pickup with a bottom-resonating cavity. The contraption is clamped to the guitar's headstock. It picks up the instrument's vibrations, while a resonator projects the sound.

In a way, it's similar to a Victrola record machine, taking acoustic vibrations and amplifying them through a wooden tube and out into a cone.

DelSonix says the invention works with all electric guitars and basses (hmm...cigar box guitars?) and can increase loudness from 6 to 12dB, depending on guitar design. By rotating the resonator, guitarists can project the sound in specific directions, while the entire device rolls up into a 1-inch tube for storage.

The SD28 is available now. It costs $34 CAN ($24 U.S.) and ships to Canada, U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on January 9, 2016 at 7:11am

Proud to see that here on the ultimate do it yourself instrument forum everyone's picking this as a doable DIY project. $35 for a plastic cone, a stick and a clamp. With flaws. The stick wastes energy. The clamp itself will also take energy away from the cone. But I guess neither can be helped. No stick and a much smaller clamp would be improvements.

Turtlehead, you might get move volume with a single piece of wood instead of a box. And a much smaller clamp. No paper and shave end ends down as thin as possible. Omni directional so it wont be aimed right at you.

I get more volume out of mine by putting the headstock against a wall. : )

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Permalink Reply by turtlehead on January 10, 2016 at 10:03am

Yep Cause, could do much better than just the box I'm sure - I use an old hollow core door for a work table sometimes and get a big sound when I'm stringing up a new guitar. Hopefully Oily or somebody else will incorporate this into a new build and get some good results. Happy experimenting y'all!

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Permalink Reply by wormil on June 12, 2018 at 2:52am

More properly called a horn. It increases volume through impedance matching.

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on June 12, 2018 at 12:44pm

Hi, all interesting. Is it the wall or door you hear resonating, or the fact that due to extra mass added to the peghead/neck the strings at the box end are driving the soundboard more efficiently, so more volume?

Just athought. Taff