To Buy or to DIY, here is my question

These were the second pair of speakers I built. They were built for a friend. He was needing to keep himself busy while dealing with cancer. I convinced him to get a new pair of speakers so as to inject some new interest in his system and thereby reconnecting with his music while dealing with his health issues. He wanted a three way speaker, something akin to his Spendors. I convinced him to try something completely different - something he would never in a million years have access to commercially. If he bought the wood and drivers, I would build whatever speaker he wanted. He agreed to these. My feeling was if was getting me to build something, they should be a new sonic experience. If he didn’t like them, he would likely be able to sell them and at least get a chunk of the money back. He has had people wanting to buy them, but he has not parted with them yet :)

Telling this story because DIY allows for new speaker types to be tried, with comparatively little in the way of money being required. And if the building provides joy, then it’s not work, its pleasure. They are the big double backloaded horns.

Buy the Proac D40Rs.

Or Living Voice OBX and a sub.

chorus,

You obviously have more experience and knowledge than I did when starting audio DIY stuff, so I’m sure what you do will be a success.

Given how many acoustic panels you built, I image you have some on the ceiling.  Since I had horns for the upper frequencies, I figured their vertical directional control would be sufficient.  But bass traps in four corners and first and second reflection point treatments making the type of difference you experienced, added some for the ceiling’s reflection point.  It was so helpful I added two more behind them - not as much of a difference, but still worth it.

I don’t have experience with sealed cabinets, but did appreciate the ability to tune the ports on mine - I used two 4” round ports with adjustable length tubes vs. the cutout in the baffle Altec used on the Model 19.

“perkri" offered some good advice and port tuning is another way you can tailor things to your taste you can’t do, (or nearly as easily), with store bought.

With the Altec Model 19, some said raised the tuning frequency of the Altec 416 woofer enhanced the midrange with a just a little sacrifice of low frequency reach.  Sounded good but preferred the balanced sound with cabinet tuned to Great Plains Audio’s suggested 29 Hz - just 4 Hz difference.

You’re right on the mark about multi-directional bracing in the cabinet, especially front to back in the center.

You may already know which capacitors you'd use, but in case you didn’t see this article: https://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html.

After trying 3 different caps, the descriptions he gave were quite consistent with what I heard and a noticeable improvement over stock grade.  

There’s snow on the ground here, but my JBL 29AV speakers do a decent job taking care of outdoor music.  Still, you’re right, there’s nothing like a large, high efficiency speaker with proper power played outside, especially with a well recorded live album.  So enjoy your music indoors and out.

@chorus - maybe these are parallel decisions, not substitutes? DIY speakers a hobby where experience can lead to great results. Not possible to duplicate the engineering or construction of the ProAcs, and why bother if DIY? Point of DIY is doing your own thing (at least for me). But 100% do a separate project - even if the first try at DIY speakers don’t meet expectations, you will learn a ton

Consider outsourcing the cabinet to someone with direct experience - cabinet from scratch not possible without real workshop, and assembling a cabinet kit to good level of quality requires space & some real tools. Cabinet kits can be assembled by any local cabinet maker. I do this b/c just don’t have time or setup for cabinets. Lets one spend time thinking about the drivers, xover, doing some soldering, etc.

Zero resale value for DIY speakers absent specialized circumstances, nor possible to give them away (sorry). Drivers worth maybe 10% of cost. Fun expectation, however, is to re-use electronics in different designs, etc.

@lemonhaze + 1; where did you get the cabinets pictured? (3rd party design, kit, pre-assembled?)  Look terrific 

Have a great day

@chorus , lots of interesting comments here. I will put on my woodworking teacher hat for a moment. Woodworking tools are extremely dangerous. Even the lowly little router can bite you badly if you do not know how to handle it correctly. You have to understand fully every machine you use, how it works and how it is likely to injure you. Even expert woodworkers get hurt once in a while by unforeseen circumstances. Hand tools are just as dangerous. I know one fellow who spent two weeks in hospital after skewering himself with a Japanese paring chisel. He violated one of the primary rules of woodworking, you NEVER cut towards yourself. If you have no woodworking experience or no access to a supervised shop but you really want to DIY you are way better off building a kit and there are many good ones available.  All the heavy machining has been done so it is just a matter of glue  up and finishing. There are finishers out there who will put a brilliant piano lacquer finish on for you.  

As an example of how complicated a certain process can get lets look at cutting a perfectly round 10" hole, one good enough to be visible. You can scribe the hole with a compass so you know where to cut, drill a 1/2' hole within the diameter of the 10" hole then cut the plug out with a jig saw. What you will get is a chipped out mess even if you have the steadiest of hands. The best way to do this in a small shop is to drill a 1/8" hole dead center of where you want your 10" hole to be. You get a hole cutting jig for your 1 HP router and attach it to the base. Load a 1/2" downward cutting carbide spiral bit and set the depth of cut to 1/4". Pass the 1/8" pin supplied with the jig through the 10" hole in the jig (there is a series of holes for various sizes) into the 1/8" hole you drilled. With the router just off the work start it up and plunge it into the wood. Make your circle spinning it around the pin and release the trigger. When the router comes to a dead stop remove it from the work. Now you have a perfect circle with a beautifully finished edge. If you had used an upward cutting bit there would have been tear out all over the place. Why not cut all the way through the 3/4" board? It is too large a cut for a router that size. You will get shudder which will ruin the cut. Now you drill a 1/2" hole anywhere inside the circle and use your jig saw to cut out the plug staying 1/8" inside the finished edge. Finally, you flip the board board over, put a downward cutting spiral carbide bit with a bottom bearing follower into your router and finish off the bottom of the hole following the top, pushing against the cut. Now you have a perfect 10" hole and you can use this piece as a jig to cut out any other 10" holes you need to cut using router bits with bearing followers. You just spent $600 on tools and tooling forgetting about the knowledge to do it right. 

I am not trying to scare you. You can make an excellent sounding loudspeaker but unless you have a lot of experience it is not going to look so hot and hopefully you will be careful enough not to get hurt by reading up on each tool you use and making test cuts to get the hang of it.