To Buy or to DIY, here is my question

It is entirely possible to build a speaker that will easily outperform a commercial one for the same money, though it may not look as nice.

There are many designs available by great designers that provide the volume of enclosure required, the crossover schematic and the names of the drivers to use. To get them to sing the box can be really heavily braced and battened and the parts for the crossover can be upgraded.

With a commercial speaker there are many constraints that prevent them from sounding as good as they could. If the cabinet was braced and used lots of timber to quieten the walls then the volume of box would by necessity increase to accommodate the extra support. This then makes for heavy and expensive shipping and together with the extra size makes for a less attractive sale. Also the XO parts are chosen to 'do the job' so the components will be reliable but rather pedestrian in sound.

Even expensive speakers use low priced parts. For example the series tweeter cap may cost $1 each but for your DIY units it's not that much of a stretch to pay $25 each. So a good design, stiff cabinet and carefully chosen XO components and you have a fine set of speakers.

Someone mentioned using a prefab XO.  This definitely is not the way to go. The XO is the heart of the speaker.

Another approach is to buy a classic like the Altec Model 19  This is a brilliant speaker which can be improved by reinforcing the cabinet and rebuilding the XO. The battens to stiffen the rear panel should be mounted outside to avoid changing the port tuning. Just keep all values the same but avoid those nasty cheap white sand cast resistors and consider having the XO outside the box. Use low-mass speaker terminals and wire internally with single core OCC copper.

There was a thread that went on for years: 'the econowave' there is tons of info and reviews of various builds. A properly done speaker using a waveguide with a compression driver is impressive and IMO far superior to the ubiquitous me-too box with dome tweeter. Also many out there using the SEOS waveguide which measures as good as anything available with excellent measured performance. The transients from this type are startling and dynamics scary.

Remember Pink Floyd don't play through no stinkin' 1" dome tweeter. 😁

Try this:

@oldschoolsound, Well looks like we were recommending the same thing at about the same time. We have to accept that great minds think alike.

So Mr. Chorus, gotta be something in it innit?

@oldschoolsound, Zilch was the backbone of that long thread and his passing a big loss.  My current speakers are some cheap OB jobs but when finished house repairs I will try Tannoy MG15 OB with helper woofer/s below.

The last speaker I built with a waveguide used the 18 Sound alloy unit with, I think, an Eminence 10" below which were sold to a mate and later rebuilt as floorstanders. Every time he upgraded amps or cables the speakers came to the party and revealed the superior components. With some encouragement from me he installed some room treatment and these things now sing along beautifully. When we switched temporarily back to some Missions he had they sounded ... well they were very quickly removed.

The econowave or similar style using either the cheap but excellent JBL $9.99 waveguide or the more recently developed SEOS waveguide come in at about 97dB sensitivity, so with low power amps can fill the room easily and because these components are from the pro-sound sector 😲 can blow you out the room with 500W amps.

Another unmentioned advantage is the unusually wide sweet spot created when these waveguide speakers are severely toed in, because of the proximity effect.   

@jonwatches1, thanks for the compliment. I built those about 10/11 years ago but was not that happy with the finish. I used Woodoc Antique Wax but it came out a little blotchy so I rebuilt them as floorstanders which looked better and gained a few Hz down low.

That's my dear old Dad's Black and Decker alloy bodied drill lying on the floor which is about 50 years old, the drill that is, not the floor. 😀  Can't easily get that quality today.