The most fun you can have in audio is DIYing your own speakers
Eric, as the old saying goes, "you're preaching to the choir". Eight years on, and I wouldn't trade my custom Tannoy HPD's 315's for anything. They just float my boat in the right way. DIY made the experience even better. Not the prettiest to look at, but they are so enjoyable to listen to. Regards, Dan |
Dan, In the 50s, and through the mid 60s I had access to a complete carpenter shop and built several speaker cabinets. Used Altec Lansing, JBL and Tannoy speakers. My last venture was a subwoofer with two JBL 15"; however, it was too large to move when I was transferred. I quit building in 1965. (Currently listen via Thiel 2.7s and SS2.2 sub) (I really liked those Tannoys.) |
Riley, It really depends on the kit. Some kits are just paper plans. Others are fully built cases, and you have to drill pilot holes for screws and attach the crossover to the speakers. Some sources you can google for: Madisound Speaker Store Selah Audio Solen.ca Great Plains Audio Meniscus Audio Parts Express Best, E |
I agree 100%. Especially your DIY speakers sound the same or better than many high $$ speakers. I built mine using SEAS drivers and xover pieces from Madisound, cabinets from Parts Express, stands from Dynaudio (Stand 20). They sound amazing. here they are: https://youtu.be/C8fwA3nPNls |
Hey @pc , While I agree that DIY speakers can be huge cost savers, those conversations usually devolve into "but your speakers will never be as good as brand XYZ ... " What I will state unequivocally is that it is fun as hell. Whether you build better than a particular store brand or not. Every audiophile should do this at least once in their hobby lifetime. You don't have to build "the best" or even expensive to have fun and feel like the journey was worthwhile. Best, E |
I picked up my NADA cabinets from Lee Taylor yesterday . Spent this morning and afternoon building them . Now I am listening to them with amazement . They are magical with my VTL-100 . In my system they sit on top of a couple of REL Subs with 2 more in the back of the room a distributed bass system . The kit was not cheap but sometimes you pay you get . After break in and some more adjustments good things expected . |
@riley804 I wholeheartedly agree with Erik. Note an easier way to start and learn is to follow designs that have been proven to work well. There are many sites for this. You can look at, for example, www.troelsgravasen.dk (spelling?) Take a look. And have fun! |
Another source for the pro player and in Canada, is... McBride: https://mcbrideloudspeaker.com/home.php As for the 10:1 markup thing, it does not exist. You start putting your true costs on the line for making a speaker and selling it to people, with all, I mean all of the steps required to do so and the imagined ratio quickly collapses. As a single builder you don’t have to see those, location, infrastructure, labour, transportation, packaging and so on costs. It looks like a high number or ratio --- when it really is not. Not by a long shot. If it was 10:1 there would be a lot more speaker manufacturers out there.... or world class speakers would cost a lot less to buy. No one leaves such money lying about without taking advantage in some way or another. Market forces have reduced pricing to as low as it will go and below that -- lies financial collapse. Just like all other ~100 year old evolved markets. These arguments are as old as the audio hills. In essence, please, build your own speakers and have fun doing it. But don’t falsely create the atmosphere that derides the manufacturers of quality audio speakers --as being some sort of rampaging profiteering takers of advantage. It’s simply not true. :) The market has adjusted itself to a sharp mean over the past near 100 years of loudspeaker design, manufacturing, and sales. |
I don't think speaker makers are "profiteering." I think it's a very difficult business you have to love to be in. But I am comfortable saying that high end speakers have to sell for around 10x the driver costs to be worth making. 10:1 is the minimum I see for using top quality drivers from OEM makers. That is based on retail cost of drivers. My numbers hold up based on analysis I’ve done from a few brands that I know the drivers for. But let’s take this through how retail works instead. The ratio can be MUCH higher when the drivers are made in house (Monitor, Focal), or the drivers are bought in bulk or speakers are sold direct. There are a number of reasons. First of course is that if you buy retail you are at least 3-4 layers away from the driver manufacturer.
So, a $10k speaker pair in the store sold by the manufacturer for $6k. That is $3k/speaker. Figure they want to make 2:1, they must build for no more than$1,500 a pair. That includes cabinets, crossovers, assembly, testing, not to mention normal business overhead. So, $750 to put a single speaker out the door. Assume 2/3rds of that is drivers, with the rest going to everything else discussed above. We are at $500/speaker in drivers, and there is not a lot of room for decent crossover parts. This is why, for the same budget, a DIYer can assemble a speaker with much higher value parts than you can from the retail store. However, this is no guarantee at all that it will sound good. If you need validation from the retail marketplace that your speakers are high-end you’ll never get it. That’s fine, I’m sitting here listening to $3k speakers I’ve not heard the better of in a very long time. :) Best, E |
I should point out, I don’t wish to attack speaker manufacturers, at all. I just want to interest others in this hobby and help make audiophiles more informed consumers. I have nothing against speaker makers making money by selling high quality products at fair prices, and 10x the driver cost is about that. |
Those big commercial markups also make it intriguing to modify off-the-shelf commercial speakers, particularly low- to mid-priced models where there is less concern about resale value. Such models are often well-designed, but built to cost with striking compromises in the quality of piece parts. Some projects can be done on a tabletop with basic tools and a little research. I recently reworked a pair of two-way Jamo E800 bookshelf speakers that originally retailed for around $700 and retain negligible resale value. Solid birch-ply cabinets, good SEAS drivers, a well designed second-order crossover with decent inductors, but compromised by inferior generic electrolytic and poly capacitors, generic cast resistors, a passion-killer thermistor in series with the tweeter, el-cheapo thin copper wiring, tinned-zinc PCB traces, and junk binding posts. Replaced the caps with ClarityCap CMR and CSA wired point to point, replaced the resistors with Caddock MP930s, the wires with DIY heavy gauge silver, and the binding posts. All for about $150 plus six hours, producing a massive improvement in performance. Then got to thinking about the instability of the molded plastic baskets and spiders on the 5 1/4" mid/woofer. Reinforced those with a thick layer of epoxy paste impregnated with brass dust. (+$30) Now they are more Raidho than Jamo. Serious fun for short money. |
@erik_squires Also, the marketing emphasis of most high-end manufacturers is almost always on cabinets and drivers, maybe because these are the visible parts. BTW the epoxy/brass reinforcement brought out a huge improvement in bass definition, overall coherence, and spatial cues that one customarily encounters only in high echelon speakers. I’d be tempted to try this on any driver with a plastic basket-- such as Monitor Audio. |
I have done a bit of this with Tannoy drivers in custom boxes and rebuilding the crossover with good parts. I purchased a pair of Tannoy Yorkminster SE for about 13 K. I also ran across a pair of pro Tannoy15 inch drivers for about 1K, I bought a monstrous pair of DIY cabinets for $500 and rebuilt the Tannoy crossovers with quality parts for about $800. At the end of it when myself and a friend were listening we both strongly preferred the 15's in the DIY boxes at less than a quarter of the cost of the commercial offerings. That is also a viable, easy and safe option for folks to go. Getting vintage Tannoy or altech drivers, building the boxes and re-doing the existing crossovers. Now I have a pair of altec 604's in the same boxes augmented with a pair of Homebuilt subwoofers and a pair of Foster T900 super tweeters. True full range sound for about 4K. And when I go to the shows and listen to $40,000 speakers I still prefer mine. I love the way a point source Soundstage's and images and now with augmentation on the top and bottom they don't suffer from the traditional weaknesses. |
I designed my speakers from the ground up. Took about 18 months from preliminary designs for the cabinet, identifying drivers, multiple crossover designs, etc. It can be a steep learning curve if you don’t go the kit route, but the forums listed above can help. With the help of a woodturner in Iowa and a carpenter in Chicago I put together a very unique loudspeaker. And as challenging as it was, it was a really rewarding experience. The fact they sound great and punch way above their cost helps too. Word to the wise, tho, it’s an addicting hobby—hard to stop building after your first pair. |
10x is very off. Pricing for retail goes more like this manufacturer gets 30-40% over total costs retailer sells for about 33% over what he paid manufacturer. Still some like magico are pricing at what the market will bare.But on average if it costs manufacturer a $1000 they will sell to retailers for about 1300-1400 retail would be about $1800-2k. This cost structure is fairly standard. |
@johnk - I don’t see where we are off except in one thing: I’m talking about the cost for the _drivers_ alone (woofer + tweeter, etc) vs. final retail pricing for the entire _speaker_ (drivers, cabinet, crossover). Your math goes down the same places I went and then stopped at speaker manufacturing. If you went a little further you would get to where I went to. Best, E |
Agreed with OP. I once did it. It was fun and I could learn a lot in the process. Here is my DIY speakers, except for the cabinets which were old speakers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t17fJJ_yOXk I was happy with my DIY speakers, so I wanted to build a really nice pair. But after sometimes considering my wood work skills and the fund that was needed to get the tools, I had to give up. Since seeing this post and suggestions on the cabinet makers, I start thinking again about making a pair. It should be fun. |
I am a hobby speaker builder. And I can say to how fun it can but, but it can also be frustrating. Also, it does take some equipment if you are starting from scratch. But I do think if more speaker buyers built at least a pre-built kit, they might appreciate what it takes to build a speaker. It can be rewarding. My latest build is a small set that could be rebuilt for around $50. Of course, that does not discount need a table saw router, etc.. And IMHO best many of the speaker sold at big box stores costing a lot more. How good they would fair in the audiophile world with the well-known speakers. I have for sure heard more well-known speakers spoken of on audiogon that sound better. I profess to be no expert but do enjoy tinkering. And if it breaks? I can fix it. |
Would these classified as diy? https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis93e98-hand-crafted-full-range-loudspeakers-full-range |
Here is a pair speakers I have been Interested in for awhile now, whilst not perhaps fully a diy job as all the hard work has been done. Besides I am crap at Math and can't cut straight for toffee. I knew there was a reason for my purchase of 9 piece De Walt set, just haven't found it yet, lol. https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/full-range-speaker-kits/fostex-bk-20-folded-horn-kit-pair/ Hey JohnK- I've still got the oris's with no desire to part with !!! |
@erik_squires Have you ever heard these speakers: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planet-10-hifi/184088-frugel-horn-mk3-flat-paks.html I really like how they look and if they sound good, might try to build them. B |
I've been thinking about trying to build some speakers for a long time but haven't done it. I'm going to start simple, probably a little 2 way from Madisound. One thing I'd like to do is build a box that is stiffer than the 3/4" MDF. I was thinking about making the standard box, or very nearly, and then instead of wood veneer using some porcelain floor tiles. There's a huge variety available and those things are incredibly stiff. Has anyone ever tried that? |
@riley804 These are my favorite bang for the buck kit out there and they sell out as fast as they get them in. They have recently raised the price. You cannot buy the drivers for the price of the kit. These are designed by one of the best in the DIY speaker community. Very High Value. They are sold out, beware, they are scheduled in in about another week, but they sell out in a couple of days. So yes, they just about stay sold out. https://www.parts-express.com/solstice-mltl-reference-tower-speaker-kit--300-708 |
Here is my DIY ode, the SNR-1. High end? $500 tweeters. https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2017/12/snr-1-two-way-high-end-diy-monitor.html Cost to make, including custom cabinets: ~ $3k |
I started designing and building my own speakers back in 1979. I LOVE to be creative, to try something that hasn’t quite been done before, in hopes of pushing a boundary here or there. It was not until 2005 that I "turned pro". For the small direct-selling manufacturer, there are fewer levels of markup but also fewer economies of scale. Whether or not we can translate our fewer levels of markup into superior loudspeakers relative to the big boys comes down to the design itself (of which the crossover is arguably the most critical part). Ime the enclosure is often the most expensive piece of the puzzle, which implies that the DIYer who works for the sheer fun of it can easily beat any manufacturer on bang-for-the-buck, as long as the design itself is competitive. Over the years I have run into a fair number of hardcore DIYers who set out to combine the best woofer with the best midrange and the best tweeter and put them into the best cabinet using the best crossover and... the results were disappointing. I have helped some of those guys sell their collection of "best" parts. So let me toss out a suggestion for those of you who embrace the creativity of truly rolling your own (instead of using a kit): The goal is synergy. As much as possible you need to take everything into account from the very beginning, with system synergy guiding your choices. And imo the "system" includes the amp and the room (including the location within the room of speakers and listeners). Duke |
Here is one that I think the guy did an amazing job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iV-DNY_Ki4 I wish I had the wood working skill. It should be fun. |
