[lojay]

Alright, I'm real broke and I need good speakers. What a paradox!

The most I could pay is $50 US. Yeah, for "a bit more" ($99 + 2,000 miles of shipping) I could get an Athena ASB1, but truth is I ONLY WISH I have a bit more in my pocket.

So I guess I would have to stick with PC speakers now, any suggestions for a temporary setup I could hold on for a year? Help appreciated!

 

[Wodgy]

Here is a project that might be in your price range:
http://www.zaphaudio.com/audio-speaker18.html

The Hi-Vi B3S drivers are only $9 each, and you only need two of them. (They're also made in China, so perhaps you can get them cheaper where you are.) You also need a few crossover components as described, but you'd still be under budget (and you're living in a place where parts are relatively inexpensive).

The only thing is, you need cabinets to put them in. For now, you could just mount them in rigid cardboard boxes roughly similar in size to the described cabinets. If you have a friend with tools who'd be willing to help you build real cabinets, a half-sheet of 1/2 inch MDF is about $10, so even with cabinets, you might be able to come in just under $50 total.

 

[lojay]

Thanks for the response Wodgy! I nearly forgot that there's always DIY to go, esp. here with cheap parts and easy access to carpenter shops.

One question though. Any speak of whether these sound good, say compared to PC speakers?

 

[Wodgy]

I haven't built them myself, so I can't comment directly on the sound. The designer is fairly well-respected and did a comparison of more than 10 fullrange drivers before deciding that the B3S was the best, so he has at least done quite a bit of homework:
http://www.zaphaudio.com/minitest/
It's probably fair to say, even without hearing them, that they're not likely to sound worse than any PC speakers. $9/driver might seem on the cheap side, but to keep this in perspective, commercial PC speakers in the $50 price range are not likely to contain drivers selling for more than $0.99 each.

This is actually a reasonably popular project, so there are a few reviews/comments about these DIY speakers online by people who've built them. Do a search for "B3S" over at AudioRoundTable or DIYaudio.

Keep in mind that you won't get throbbing deep bass out of small speakers, but you won't get it out of PC speakers without a sub either. At some point later on you'll probably want to add a cheap subwoofer to your rig, but for now, this doesn't seem like a bad project.

 

[lojay]

Great to hear that, not a bad idea to try out. However, it does concern me that I'd be needing a lot of time to put in this project. Say that I am a novice in soldering (I do solder though) and completely unknowledgable in terms of speaker DIY, how much time will I take up in order to make the B3S sing? (well maybe not sing, coz that'll imply some tweaking, which I won't have time for)

Do you think it could take less than a day for me, an electronics idiot, DIY stranger, to assemble it with all the parts (including enclosure) at hand?

 

[Wodgy]

The crossover contains only five parts, so you basically just have to solder five parts together, then connect up the speakers. I can't imagine it would take more than two hours to assemble everything for both speakers, assuming you had some kind of cabinets already on hand. Soldering speakers parts is generally pretty easy, because the parts are quite large (there aren't any little bitty op-amps or small resistors).

 

[ooheadsoo]

Cable or zip ties to secure all the components before soldering is a nice handy tip.