UC Unleashed

I was getting pretty tired of using the basement for my home office. The white noise from my server rack, as well as the noise from the washer and dryer, furnace, and other random things got old. And the cement floor was quite cold in the winter. So, I decided to hijack an unused bedroom and turn it into the dream office.

I figured if I was moving so that external noises weren’t an issue, I’d have to be able to create some of my own. With a ~5TB iTunes library, it’s obvious I like to listen to music. So premium sound was an absolute requirement.

I needed speakers that sounded great, but were not in the way. With a 4 monitor setup for my primary workstation, I didn’t want even more clutter. My monitors are mounted to two Ergotron DS100 dual monitor stands. One uses the grommet mount base through one of the holes in the desk. I knew there had to be a way to utilize the monitor stands for my speakers.

I spent some time at the local Bose store, and concocted a plan around the Companion 5 multimedia speaker system. The Companion 5’s main speakers are mounted to a small stand by a single screw on the back. I removed the screw and stand. Next, I took some normal hose clamps and drilled a single hole through them big enough for the screw. Then I took the original screw, threaded it through the hole in the clamp, and back onto the speaker.

Next, I took some normal foam tubing, like that used to insulate home water pipes, and cut two 2″ pieces. I took one piece, wrapped it around the vertical base of the monitor stand, then put the hose clamp connected to the speaker around that. Essentially, I was putting some padding between the hose clamp and monitor stand. This was for two reasons. The first is that the monitor stands aren’t cheap, and I didn’t want to scratch them up if my genius idea didn’t work. The second was that I like to listed to my hair metal LOUD. I didn’t want any rattling or things loosening up.

After some tweaking and adjusting, the idea worked perfectly. I used some Velcro cable straps to keep the cables at bay. Other than the speakers, I spent about 5 bucks on the foam tubing, Velcro, and hose clamps.

Left speaker, as seen from just above desktop level

Left speaker, as seen from the side. Note hose clamp and foam tubing

Right speaker. This uses the normal base since there was no hole in the desk. Note iPod and iPhone cradles, and speaker pod.

Full view of both speakers, and all four monitors.