theluke5@aol.com

A battery-powered pair of computer speakers are usually the best looking and easiest to use. Without knowing your chair, I cannot give details, but the systems I usually rig up go like this:

Use two pieces of aluminum bar stock- a heavier piece and a thinner piece, Figure out where on the back of your chair to attach the heavier piece, and make it long enough to reach up behind your ears. The lighter piece should be long enough to gently curve from one ear to the other.

Rivet the two pieces together in a way that lets you mount it where you need it, and figure out how to attach the speakers to the arms. I usually take the backs off and use epoxy putty and screws to attach the speaker to the arm (the putty fills in the gaps between the two)

Mount the arm and speakers, run the cord down the central arm, down the chair back support cane, and to wherever you want the iPod. (I often use universal mounts to hold the iPods in front of the client.)

If you know someone who has some soldering skills, you can also run a switch to the speaker to turn it on and off from the iPod. Sometimes I can get lucky and remove the volume/on/off switch in the speaker and reposition it by the iPod.

If your chair is a power chair and has a jack for 12VDC, you can even adapt an auto power adapter to run the speakers.

I’ve also made a set out of old, big headphones that I took the speakers out of, and mounted on some strong wire. They had to be closer to the ears, but they created more of a private ‘bubble’ of sound.