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?

lemonhaze,

I smiled when I read you comments about the importance of the crossover being so important and laughed when you recommended the Altec Model 19.  So I accept your statement that great minds think alike!

The cabinet houses only the woofer and a slightly taller and smaller version of the ALtec 620 cabinet.

My crossover is the Zilch Z-19.  As you know, he separated the woofer in the circuit since it didn’t need the L-pads.  That crossover is mounted in the cabinet with proved cap and inductor.  The HF portion is outside so I could try different capacitors.  Started with affordable Solen PB-MKP’s to figure out a layout and in case I messed something up.  Sounded impressive.  Coincidentally, today I finished a new HF crossover build using Jantzen Superior Z-caps and Mill resistors and the improvement - to my ears and for what I was looking for - was very rewarding.

As you know, Zilch was the mastermind behind the Econowave.  His posts were very helpful throughout my DIY project.  What speakers are you running theses days?

chorus, 

So if you go the DIY route, look up some of Zilch’s posts for general build insights, regardless of what speaker design you go with.  And if you decide, now or later, to build a high sensitivity speaker with it life-like dynamics, (and ability to tame the highs with the right gear), you could build a set of Klipsch Chorus for your name’s sake.

Enjoy the music.

@johnk --

"If you have no skills are lazy or have no time then off the shelf is what you get. If you have skills an open mind and are craving something unique then DIY is the way to go. Kits are fine but it's not like going your own way. And those who say DIY can not look good are only interested in what the mass market gives them. Anything that's different is perceived as wrong they crave the boring imported rectangles and cubes. A toaster must look like a toaster."

Well said. Regarding looks it's also disheartening seeing veneered cabinets being covered in freakin' layers of shiny lacquer, to such degree even that any semblance with actual wood is mostly gone. Isn't that somehow analogous with the sonic imprinting of "off the shelf" speakers in general and what's typically preferred here; something "shiny" and covering the real texture and organic feel of what's being reproduced? To me at least a DIY approach or what otherwise eschews the usual, pre-assembled product can be the better way to accommodate said texture and organic feel of something real, both one way and the other.