I agree with Eric that there is enormous satisfaction in DIY audio. My second pair of speakers used the drivers and crossover from a kit that KEF offered back in the late 1970’s, and performance-wise they killed my first pair of store-bought, magazine-reviewed speakers at a small fraction of the out-of-pocket cost.
If I were building a kit today, I’d find SOME way to inject my own creativity, for better or for worse. It would just mean more to me if my "fingerprints" were on some aspect. Maybe I’d substitute boutique capacitors for the stock ones. Maybe I’d do some contrained-layer-damping of the enclosure walls. Maybe I’d nudge the port tuning this way or that, depending on my room acoustics.
But there is a dark side to all of this: That first speaker build was my "gateway drug". It took several decades of addiction for the day to come when I took to hard look in the mirror and faced the awful truth: I needed to either join a twelve-step program... or become a manufacturer.
It’s a slippery slope.
Duke
manufacturer
If I were building a kit today, I’d find SOME way to inject my own creativity, for better or for worse. It would just mean more to me if my "fingerprints" were on some aspect. Maybe I’d substitute boutique capacitors for the stock ones. Maybe I’d do some contrained-layer-damping of the enclosure walls. Maybe I’d nudge the port tuning this way or that, depending on my room acoustics.
But there is a dark side to all of this: That first speaker build was my "gateway drug". It took several decades of addiction for the day to come when I took to hard look in the mirror and faced the awful truth: I needed to either join a twelve-step program... or become a manufacturer.
It’s a slippery slope.
Duke
manufacturer