I have to say that this question is simple. If you look at many of todays loudspeakers, and the availability of parts, Madisound, parts express, sonic craft etc..., software for cabinet sim and x-over design and the web for complete cabinet drawings it is a DIY dream. The DIY speaker world, is wide open, you can create a kit, or even a complete home brew, that will sound great and look fantastic, it may even rival the best out there, of course most folk that say that are always a victim of Beraneks law (Beranek's Law It has been remarked that if one selects his own components, builds his own enclosure, and is convinced he has made a wise choice of design, then his own loudspeaker sounds better to him than does anyone else's loudspeaker. In this case, the frequency response of the loudspeaker seems to play only a minor part in forming a person's opinion.)
This can save you, in some cases thousands of dollars, of course in most cases there are some flaws, the drivers were not matched and measured individually and the x-over was not matched to the drivers, more likely they were soldered and installed. This again may achieve great result for a good price.
This is where the Wilson comes in, NOBODY could build a Wilson in there Garage, for less money, it would be much more expensive to build a direct DIY copy of a Wilson. This is not a speaker that looks like a Wilson made out of MDF, but X and M, machined parts, custom spikes, perfect paint, perfect copy, good luck it would cost the amount of a small house for such a project. The Wilson love them or hate them are a engineering masterpiece when it comes to overall build quality, the DIY world cannot order machined ports from Madisound, you will have to go to a machine shop and have them make you a few, big money if you have them finished like Wilson. The difference in price between plastic ports ordered directly from a parts house or a custom machined port will be 20 fold. I implying the machined ports will be superior sonically to the plastic, but more to say that it is not the same as a Wilson. There are many high-end speaker that with some design exceptions (of course the ones that matter to me, driver and x-over matching) you can get pretty close out of your garage for less money. Wilson will cost you more to make at home, and you will still not come close to a perfect copy. If you feel they do not sound good, do not buy them, but they are a very expensive speaker to build and a design that cannot be done DIY for less money, so in my book they are an extreme value. If you think, I am wrong then build a perfect copy of a Wilson cheaper again not MDF and stock parts, and bad paint, a perfect copy.
L.L. Beranek, Acoustics (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1954), p.208.)
