[lojay]

Two questions,

First of all, are there any sites that give a total dummy guide on how to build a speaker from scratch? It's gotta be able to help me build a speaker with high quality as well.

Second, my budget for all the parts would be no more than $300. Would you recommend me buy a cheap bookshelf such as the Mission m5 or 780 series instead? I honestly don't mind to get through the hassle in building it, just another way to learn a new thing IMO.

 

[gastro54]

Do you plan to make any other speakers in the future, or are you doing this for cost reasons>?

 

[ADS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lojay Two questions, First of all, are there any sites that give a total dummy guide on how to build a speaker from scratch? It's gotta be able to help me build a speaker with high quality as well. Second, my budget for all the parts would be no more than $300. Would you recommend me buy a cheap bookshelf such as the Mission m5 or 780 series instead? I honestly don't mind to get through the hassle in building it, just another way to learn a new thing IMO.

Building DIY speakers can be pretty difficult, especially if you don't have a way to get the enclosures built. Currently, I'm building the following for about $300 in parts/shipping. I haven't finished them, but supposedly they sound amazing.

http://www.speakerbuilder.net/web_fi...a/lyramain.htm

 

[ooheadsoo]

Building a kit speaker consists of building a cabinet and soldering together some electronic parts (xover and drivers.) I don't know of any complete step by step cabinet building sites probably because cabinet building requires quite a number of tools. If you don't know how to use these tools, you're in trouble

They're also pretty expensive tools. Easily $400 worth of BASIC cabinetry/woodworking tools are needed, especially if you need to flush mount.

Soldering the xover and woofers is just basic soldering skills. That you can get from pretty much any old soldering guide. Basically, you just twist the wires together and solder. An inexpensive soldering iron is more affordable than cabinetry tools by far. It's also fairly hard to mess up as long as you don't hold the soldering iron to any component for too long.

So, if you want a design that requires minimum cabinet work that fits under your $300 budget, I think your only chance is probably the plop in the box by Dennis Murphy. http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=plop.html
I say this because he designed this particular speaker to be voiced without any flush mounting of drivers. In this case, if you can get your local wood supply shop to cut the pieces for you on their table saw, you can get by the driver cabinetry with just a jigsaw, which is probably the cheapest woodworking power tool you can get outside a power drill. You can find the cuts you need to make the box yourself here: http://speakerbuilder.net/web_files/...k/pcrkmain.htm
Then all you need is a few clamps and glue to put it all together. The only problem I forsee you having is the port hole. I'm afraid you'll be on your own there

Maybe you can find a local carpenter to make the cabinet for you. I'm sure it would be cheaper in HK than here in the states. I would recommend the peecreek on speakerbuilder but it requires flush mounting for both drivers, along with the rest of his designs. On the other hand, if you can get someone to make your cabinet, you could consider the peecreek, since it is a cheaper speaker and will fit in your budget more comfortably.

So in the world according to ooheadsoo, option 1 is the plopper, which I considered seriously myself before settling on the mbow1. This will barely meet your $300 requirement, and in fact may go a bit over depending on shipping, etc. I settled on the mbow1 for the better tweeter, but realistically, with my cabinet made for me by someone else, the mbow1 is pushing $500. A soldering iron and some solder, some cheap power tools and some clamps and a soldering iron are all you'll need. Parts cost is about $230 + whatever you need to make a cabinet. You'll need to take care of the port somehow, but it doesn't have to be pretty, I guess.

Option 2 is the peecreek which will require access to all of the above and a router and jasper circle jig because you need to flush mount all the drivers. The parts are cheaper for this speaker, $150 + whatever you need to make the cabinets.

Once you get someone to make the cabinet for you, depending on how much they charge for labor, the price skyrockets. I got my mbow1 cabinets made unfinished and shipped for about $100.

 

[lojay]

Quote:

Building DIY speakers can be pretty difficult, especially if you don't have a way to get the enclosures built. Currently, I'm building the following for about $300 in parts/shipping. I haven't finished them, but supposedly they sound amazing.

Firstly, aren't the cabinets = the enclosures? Secondly, HOW amazing do they sound? Better than Mission's, JMLabs, or those huge Wilson's? (impossible...haha)



ooheadsoo, you're right. For carpentry, I its much cheaper here in the East, I'm looking to let others do it anyways. Not likely in the States, coz the shipping would be crazy.

I've got a good 20 to 200 W soldering iron at hand, with my trusty sponge in the other....

Anyways, would Murphy's design sound better than the Missions I've heard? Or would my handiwork (bad or good) put a bad effect on the SQ?

Depending on how good it sounds, $500 isn't much of a problem. As long as it is on the par of $600 speakers, I'm fine with that. I'm just afraid what I'll make would sound terribily inferior to those main brands like Mission. Then I can't claim any justification over making my own speaker.

I can easily talk my dad into $500. hey, I'm working on the speaker too...(actually its gonna be ME whos gonna pay, but he likes fussing over how I spend my own money, so you know.,, )

 

[lojay]

Lastly, just for my inquisitivness, how much can a DIY speake cost and how good will it sound?

 

[ooheadsoo]

Consider this. (I posted this in the other speaker thread too.) Commercial speakers spend at most 10%-25% of their price on the components. That's figuring with the RETAIL price of the components. It makes sense. The manufacturer needs to at least double the price when they sell it to the wholesaler in order for them to stay in business and the wholesaler needs to at least double it again. You can't stay in business otherwise. Here, you're paying all that money for the parts alone. You do the math. I also trust Dennis Murphy's designs. With the parts used here, you'd be hard pressed to find equal quality parts on a speaker costing 3+ times more. I haven't heard those missions...but I bet you these diy speakers sound better. The mbow1 has been said to be competetive with designs priced from $1400-$2000 depending on the finish on the cabinet. The tweeter in the mbow1 (the hiquphon ow1) is arguably the best dome tweeter in the world. It has super smooth response, performs down low, and outstanding dispersion at the expense of a bit of efficiency, which is not that big a deal considering you normally pad the tweeter down anyway to compensate for the less efficient woofer and baffle diffraction. The best thing imo about Dennis's mbow1 design is that he also has a 3 way mbow1 design that you can upgrade to later. It matches a peerless 10" woofer to the original. If there were any limitation in the 2 way mbow1, it was in the 5.25" woofer's ability to play low and play loud. With the 10" peerless woofer doing the low frequency duties below 500hz, the 5.25" woofer becomes a mid range driver, and the limitations are basically eliminated. It no longer needs to play low or play loud. The strength of the 5.25" woofer was always its super smooth top end response, which is really quite good. The woofer cabinet is separate from the original 2 way and acts as a stand for it. I think it's a beautiful system, but maybe it's just me...

Sure sounds good to me

Now remember, my cabinet cost $100, so the speaker basically cost me $400 in parts, but I'm getting some premium stuff like upgraded resistors and caps and some blackhole5. The price will come down for the cabinet for you, most likely, and I don't know if you'll want to shell out for premium parts like I will be. My only concern if you do go the mbow1 route is that if you build the 2 way, don't expect to fill a large room with loud rock with a 5.25" woofer. Physics do have some limitations

It could be better with a subwoofer, which is what I plan on doing. I listen in the nearfield anyway, and usually at low volume.

For a bit more perspective, wilson clones have been around for years in the diy community

People even think that they sound better than the originals, which also goes for the proac 2.5 clone that has about 25 diy iterations in the crossover and tweaks areas. The proac, which is a $2500-$3500 speaker, costs about $700 in parts in a basic mdf cabinet for the clone, which a large majority of people say sounds better than the original. The wilson speakers are harder to clone because of the funky cabinetry (that's really what you're paying for - it's a whole lotta work) and the same principle applies. These top dog speakers really only use very readily and commonly available drivers and the crossovers the diy designers have worked out are arguably superior as well. One more tidbit - commercial speakers never shell out for premium crossover components. You can, when you diy. If you believe in better capacitors and all that jazz

Other commercial vendors like Mark Levinson use chinese parts and charge you upwards of 20x their price.

If you look at kits, that imo basically have diy roots, they can be pricy. IMO, my dream kit/diy roots speaker is this: http://www.selahaudio.com/id24.html
But realistically, I'd settle for any one of his arrays

Take a look at mark levinson's red rose music array, which costs a bit more than this and...he won't tell you what he used in them but it sure didn't cost him anywhere near even 1/4 of what he's charging

With selah's kit speakers, the parts basically cost around 60% of the price, the crossover comes assembled, the rest goes to cabinet costs and his profit margin. And the cabinet cost is not small.

Don't forget that speakers are a very subjective and personal thing. Do some reasearch on it, don't just take my word for it

madisound's forum is a good place. diyaudio is a bit elitist but they have some good info there. audiocircle is home to a few kit sources, like selah, gr-research, etc.

 

[intlplby]

i'm thinking of DIY a line array of electrostatics

 

[D-EJ915]

My "mini-line" that I made (only two drivers, just felt like it) sound better (mainly better imaging) than my NX10 speakers and cost like 90 bucks for everything, other stuff probably is cheaper, but whatever. I used the Tang Band W3-879S, although you'd probably want standard fare instead of my crossover-less design

. I didn't feel like screwing up, since it was for a school project.

Oh, just go to your local woodshop, I went to the navy one and I forgot how much it was, but nobody was there and you don't need to buy tools.