The soul of a builder

44 years ago, I started out designing and building my own speakers because I could not afford anything I actually liked or wanted to listen to. Started out to "save money", while hopefully obtaining the next-level-up speaker I could have never afforded otherwise. Decades of drooling at speakers in audio stores and diy kits for motivation.

Arriving at the final chapter a few years back, this adventure evolved into building speakers I’d actually keep. The lifecycle allowed for a level of speaker I would have not have convinced myself to pay for in today’s retail layers of manufacturer > distributor > dealer market. Met a lot of great people in the process and learned a lot. Comparing to most store bought or boutique speakers, it all worked out nicely. The value placed on "time" was more about learning and gaining first-hand experience. The musical results achieved with each pair made it fun too. 

In closing, to your point id say it did "feed the soul".

Good post.

There aren't enough people like you to threaten the commercial speaker companies.  So hopefully nobody feels threatened.   You make the coexistence point well.

Jerry

Very early on in my "audio lifes, I got introduced to a couple of very bright local manufactures who went on to produce what I’d consider world class gear (subsequent reviews support that view). Frequent exposure to their systems, philosophies, and views of other equipment rubbed off for sure, and got me off to a pretty good start with fairly high expectations of what things can sound like when done well. Unfortunately, I was just a working stiff, and married with a blossoming family, so there was never much budget to go out and buy expensive audio gear with.

It was never a planned journey, but building my own stuff, and/or modifying what I had was appealing and more cost effective than just buying similar level components. Fast forward a couple of decades, and I’ve built a fairly impressive set of speakers (several prior to these), modified my current amps, refurbished my pre-amp, made my own speaker wires, and have modified and refurbished several turntables and other amps. It’s given me a great deal of pleasure, some pride, a lot of information, and much appreciation for what goes into it all. My system sounds wonderful to me, and I enjoy it more now than ever. I have heard better sounding systems, but not many, all costing upwards of 20 times the price of mine, and none have left me feeling that I need to upgrade. I’ve gotten so much more than just listening pleasure from building this system!

"today’s retail layers of manufacturer > distributor > dealer market."

You mean yesterday's?

I thought this was a great topic, but I thought there's be more response.  Are there that few DIYers here?

@fuzztone not totally yesterday. Fortunately, we still have a small pocket of dealers in my region of the country, and the few who can charge enough at their layer to make enough to thrive and afford to stay in business. While i build some of my own stuff, also supporting local dealers. To be able to go in to see, hear, maybe buy some smaller items once in a great while is still a lot of fun. Have a 56 year audio dealer near me, total throwback experience. :)

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@knotscott chorus’ Agon thread finally has some folks chiming in here about diy builds they did or thinking about doing. Getting closer yet not like how the soul really is over on the diy forums. IMO DIY’ers are people who just like building their own results. In my case it was purely out of necessity to afford and get much closer to what I truly wanted, sooner than later in life. Persistence to keep trying helped too.