Built your own speakers ?

I used to build speakers when in college (30+ years ago)That's when you could buy 1 inch plywood and speakers better then those installed in most factory systems. Crossovers were nothing more then LC circuits. Well now the good audiophile speakers can't be duplicated for any amount of money or time by an hobbiest. First, even if you are a master carpenter you can't duplicate the resonence damping matrix construction and the anti-diffraction curved front sides of most good speakers. Too much engineering went into their designs (time alignment, FFT tone burst analysis etc). Second the speakers are harder to come buy. Some like Thiel now make all their own that are not for sale. Lastly the nth pole Butterworth etc crossovers are as much engineering as some old amplifiers. All of this is too difficult to duplicate even for a good engineer.

I disagree, Keis.

I have to concur with Keis. I rolled my own speakers 3 or 4 times, the first 30 years ago and the last (subwoofers) about 10 years ago. I have a full woodworking/metal shop, and a complete electronics shop, plus even better at work. I still have a hard time matching even the lowest grade finish and sound: I just don't have the jigs, etc., plus no test chamber, no good mikes, no experienced listener for 2nd opinions. If you wnat to make your own, do it because it's fun, a lot of learning, but it's hard to get really good sound. Try Speakerbuilder (AudioAmateur) for plans or books. Look at Madisound for kits or drivers. BTW, all homemade speakers sound teriffic to the builder. Good luck, Rich.

Hi, I've been an electronics hobbiest since I made my first spark as a kid! I've built many amplifiers over the years and within the last 15 years also taken great pleasure in designing and building several speaker systems. The very first ones were just built seat of the pants style, no formulas, computers, etc. with varying degrees of sucess. My most recent design was a dual cabinet set, Di Appolito tops sitting on seperate subs in a push-pull bandpass box, all designed with the aid of some downloaded freeware. Very pleasing sound and fun and inexspensive to build. I've sold or given away all of the speakers I've built over the years and I beleive they're all still in use! I now own a pair of VR-4's which are quite a piece of engineering, with a $3800 price tag of course! I'm the first to admit none of my own designs are as good as the VR4's, but speaker building is still a great hobby! Check out partsexpress.com for lots of good deals on components and as I said there are a number of freeware speaker design programs available, just do a search. Good luck, happy listening, Jim

I have built about twenty pairs of speakers over 30 years, from folded corner horns to hemi-spherical satellites to transmission line towers, using KEF, Peerless, Vifa, Altec-Lansing, Electrovoice, Radio Shack, Phillips brands of drivers. No, you cannot surpass the quality of what any decent speaker manufacturer can produce in their factory. Yes, you can make pretty good speakers at a fraction of the cost, if you enjoy woodworking and tinkering. You can spend a lot of time and a fair amount of money to gain a lot of satisfaction at having made something yourself. Try a standard kit from Madisound or North Creek before attempting your own design. The more you read before you start, the better off you'll be.