Anyone have any experiences to share? I'm looking for maximum transparency under $220. The psb's aren't doing it for classical music. Much too boxy. Right now, my number 1 contender is either the peecreek or D3 from www.speakerbuilder.net. That 37hz on the D3 looks mighty tasty. I'll return my subwoofer to fund these speakers.

The other diy I have in mind most strongly is the Ed Frias speakers if I can somehow manage to find the cabinet dimensions so that I could build it myself. Anything to save costs while maintaining sonic integrity.

Transparency is paramount! Bass would be very very nice, but I could build a subwoofer in half a year

Try this out: Nebula, just browse their other projects also, the Dayton drivers are a good bang for the buck, but you can find a lot better for a few bucks more: vifa, morel, etc....

Yes, I wish he had designed his speakers with just SLIGHTLY higher quality drivers. What I trust most is the extensive time he spent adjusting the crossover to get the speaker sounding just right. I would love vifa or scanspeak drivers, but the Nebula is pushing $500. I will keep looking at the other kits on partsexpress to see if something in this price range can beat the D3 or peecreek/peeU.

At the ~$500-750, I'm interested in the ProAc 2.5 clone that you can find a lot about at diyaudio.com. Here is one of the original pages on the ProAc 2.5 clone. Sounds like it would be a nice project, well documented, won't scare me away after I get a speaker or two under my belt. However, something in this range is for another year

http://www.geocities.com/diyproac25/

Where is that link fro the ProAc 2.5?....madisound has some other nice projects also, some are cheap some not, BTW check also www.speakercity.com, they sell some kits for real cheap, and are all pretty good designs also...the good thing is that they sell also the cabinets, and even terminated in some differant colors to choose from....i was in that for a while, and honestly i ended with a pair of studio monitors (Alesis Monitor one MKII) at the end the DIY are more expensive and won't touch the performance on some studio monitors, I have tried some of them, and honestly the Alesis sound very good for the price (around 200.00) a bit flat but some even may preffer that kind of presentation (I do not)

Whoops, I added the link above.

I like the idea of speaker city because they are local to me

However, other than the ed frias kit, (which I feel is too expensive at $400) nothing else seems appealing at my budget. I was hoping I could buy just the woofers and electronics from them and build my own cabinets. However, I don't know the design of the "L6" cabinet it supposedly uses.

I may go for this design.
http://www.d-web.com/dbrown/db616tl2/db616tl2.htm

I built the D3's and am very happy with them. For the price, I'm not sure they can be beat. Of course that doesn't take time to build into account. I work cheap

If you decide to build these , you can look at some of the photos I took during the building process.
<A HREF="http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4291078143"><IMG SRC="http://www.imagestation.com/images/is/community/this_album_button.gif" BORDER="0"></A>

Very nice. How is the transparency? The experience that you are there listening to the music, rather than the music coming from a box?

Did you check out the last design I posted a link to? It's basically the D3 design but in a transmission line enclosure to give even more extended and flat bass response. I figure if I don't like how they sound, I could still convert them over to the D3 cabinet with the existing cabinet!!!!!!

I like your idea. If the mids are really good then the DB's may be the ticket.

Sitting directly in the sweet spot the transparency is good.
For the D3's , Most of the neg. comments are that the mids are somewhat lacking and a few think that the bass is a little muddy.

To me the bass is fine when placed correctly , about 30" from the wall. I do agree that the mids are also a little bit shy. But when compared to any other production speakers I've heard in the $300 to $600 range, I think the D3's win.

I did have some sibilance that I didn't like with the tweeters but I switched to the Quicksilver Mini Mono amps (from an Adcom GFA-2) and the sibilance went away. Maybe it's the amps or maybe the tweets break in happened about the same time?

Not sure where your located , but if you ask on the Part's Express forum or Speakerbuilder.net forum you may find someone close that would let you audition their D3's.
If your close to Anchorage Alaska let me know.


The one production speaker that I really like is the B&W DM 303.
I have 2 pairs for my HomeTheater. They are bookshelf size 2 ways, but they sound amazing. If you give value to your time, then try to listen to these. I think I paid about $140 each.

Here a couple of reviews
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...rs-1-2002.html
and
http://www.audiorevolution.com/equip...303/index.html

So many choices.....

TOO many choices!

I have pair of PSB Image 2b bookshelves which set me back just about what you paid for your b&w's. Now I'm looking to better them, and no, I don't put very high value on my time!

The TL design should solve the muddy bass problem, which is good because I plan on setting them quite close to a wall. (Now here's an area where I have no choice -_-)

I hope to beat the pants off of any sub $600 speaker! Now I know some people are using the speakerbuilder PeeCreek to replace their b&w 602 bookshelves...but they pretty much require a subwoofer to sound perfect, so I'm going with the TL D3 first. I'm considering putting my subwoofer up for sale to fund this project, so this pair will have to have decent bass, hopefully at or below 40hz. The TL will do it! Here's what I figure. If the TL doesn't give me the sound I want, I could still hack it apart and build the D3! Now that's a backup plan.

Boxiness is my greatest enemy. Muddy bass can potentially be alieviated by speaker placement, and the TL should not have muddy bass anyway. If it's boxy, there's not much you can do and I'll have wasted my money. That's what I'm afraid of. That and the dayton drivers

I wish someone had the same design but with $30 more pumped into the drivers. Oh well.

You could make a compound system, that would create a massive amount of bass. (Pinnacle uses this type in some of their subwoofers)

Unfortunately, subwoofer drivers are much too expensive. I'm trying to keep my first project under $250. Did you have a particular design in mind? I'm not sure what you mean by compound system. For future projects, it may be something to consider. However the ProAc clone seems like a tempting project. There are just too many designs and few reviews.

I wasn't really suggesting a subwoofer driver. Anyway, from my understanding that's what you call it, it's a mounted driver with another driver behind it that's in a sealed enclosure inside the speaker...



they call it the "compound compression" system...whatever, I'm not sure how you'd come up with the figures for this type, but it would be interesting to see.

Pinnacle's sub that uses it

Wow, and in a sealed box. Those must be some crazy drivers that will take that kind of pressure. There are all sorts of subwoofer designs but the ones I see most often purported to be good ones are either sonotubes or transmission line type for flat response.

Yes, I think that's also isobarric woofer configuration.

Totem uses it in their amazing Mani-2 bookshelf:



speaker size:
Dimensions 16.5 x 8.5 x 12” approx. size
420 x 212 x 305 mm
Volume: 15 litres (internal)

the result from 2 woofers x 6 1/2”. 3” voice coil:

Frequency Response 29 Hz - 20 kHz ± 3 dB

CRUSHING BASS from a little bookshelf.

Isobaric designs allow for a much smaller enclosure than a non-iso design, but they also require twice the power to achieve the same loudness.