Egg London · 2025

Panel Speakers

Hand-built four-channel spatial audio system

Speaker designSpatial audioHardwareWoodworkLive event

These flat panels are speakers — Distributed-Mode Loudspeakers (DML), where an exciter vibrates the whole panel to radiate sound. I want to see them everywhere: cafés, bars, living rooms, hanging from trees, public spaces.

I built a four-channel spatial audio system from scratch in two weeks for the Architectural Association’s club night in London — hand-cut birch panels, hand-soldered DML exciters, and custom stem-splitting software, all self-taught.

I used AI to split a playlist into individual instrument stems, then routed each to its own panel with custom processing — so 600 people could walk through the band.

I had no studio access (I wasn’t a student there), so I recruited collaborators inside the school to use their workshop. I was paid for the commission, and the speakers now live in the Royal College of Art’s sound lab for ongoing research.

The night

The system played the Architectural Association’s club night at Egg, London — an ambient lounge of soft jazz-funk, downtempo, Brazilian, dub, Latin and avant-garde. Each of the four panels was voiced for a single instrument, so the band spread out across the room and you could walk between the players.

Dark empty club with six tall wooden panels hanging from the ceiling under white LED strips

Four amber French-polished plywood panels leaning on a tree among ivy in dappled sunlight

Four raw pale birch plywood panels standing in a row against dense ivy

Unfinished plywood panel hung from a red beam by blue clamps and black straps indoors

Mixing the room

I built a custom MainStage patch and split each track into instrument stems. Every stem was routed to its own panel over a dedicated HDMI channel, all running through the Denon receiver — so I could control the whole mix, per instrument, with precision.

MainStage rig screenshot with song patch list and channel strips for PA, close and far panel pairs

Black Denon AV receiver with two large knobs and antennas, display lit

Custom MainStage patch, routed through the AV receiver — each instrument stem to its own panel.

Why DML panels

Wide 2-way dispersion — true spatial immersion
Flat panels — minimal footprint, maximal impact
Instrument-specific playback — walk “through the band”

The brief

Egg London runs high-energy DJs on floors 1–2. As guests arrive, they need a welcoming, hi-fi lounge on entry — so the creative direction was to dissect the space as a fluid sound canvas.

The build

I built the four panels from scratch — birch plywood bonded onto beech frames, two Dayton Audio exciters mounted on each, wired up and hand French-polished (about four hours of polishing for all four). One thing I learned along the way: a layer of foam dramatically improves the low end by increasing the panel’s acoustic coupling.

CAD render of a tall dark panel speaker with hanger tabs and red and black wires curving away

Three audio exciters in foam-lined boxes on a sofa, glue bottles ready beside them — The Dayton Audio exciters, out of their packages.

Hand holding a round audio exciter with amber concentric spider and black voice-coil ring — An exciter in hand — small, and rather pretty.

Cut birch plywood panel blanks laid out on garden decking with sander and tape, feet at frame edge — Cut birch-ply panels and fittings, laid out.

Raw tapered plywood panel standing on rounded legs in front of ivy, gold binding posts at its base — A raw panel before finishing.

Hand holding a test block half-coated in glossy amber shellac with scorch marks — Testing the French polish on a scrap of wood.

Maker sitting on garden decking holding a freshly shellacked amber board, polish tins nearby — French-polishing outside the workshop — about four hours for all four.

Drivers

Dayton Audio EX32VBDS-4 exciters — two per panel (40 W, 4 Ω)

Panels

4 mm birch plywood, hand-cut

Frames

Beech timber from Hooke Park

Finish

Hand French-polished

Amplification

Denon AVR-X2300W AV receiver

Audio

Stem-separated tracks · custom MainStage patch

At home

After the event, I set the panels up in a bedroom to see how they’d behave in a domestic space — hung off the wall, run through the Denon receiver, with the amp on the floor beside a lamp. They disappear into the room and just fill it with sound.

Setting the panels up in a bedroom to test how they behave in a domestic space.

Bedroom at night with two polished wood panels hung over the bed between glowing lamps — The panels in the evening, hung off the wall.

Glowing woven lantern beside a black Denon amplifier on dark wooden floorboards at night — The receiver placed on the floor beside a lamp.

Two golden French-polished panels wall-hung above a bed, bedside lamps lit — Two panels against the wall.

A quick test — adding a layer of foam (a yoga mat) noticeably tightens the low end.

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