Guide me in my quest for passive speakers from scratch

[shrimants]

I'm a fan of more subtle wood accents and either minimalistic design or centerpiece. These are kinda too in between for me. I'm gonna have to read up on this whole horn thing. I'm also far more interested in multi-driver solutions over attempting to make a single "full range" speaker cover all my bases. I like a triple driver or MTM+sub configuration but I'd honestly much prefer a 4 way crossover. I got that loudspeaker cookbook but its not at all geared towards beginners and the graphics are absolutely horrible.

 

[liamstrain]

I can dig it. There are some benefits to a single driver, but some drawbacks as well. 
 
 

 

[Uncle Erik]

For about $1,000, I'd recommend the ProAc Response 2.5 clone (http://www.oocities.org/diyproac25/).  Check the Stereophile review (http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/196proac).
 
I built these and am still thrilled with them.  The cabinets are straightforward boxes and the crossovers are simple.  No real tricks to construction and they're excellent.
 
Not the last word in resolution, but the driver integration is freakishly coherent and you'll be looking for the hidden subwoofer.  I had no idea a 6.5" driver could kick like that.  If I weren't bent on the Orion, I could probably end the game with these.  They really are that good.  They're also slim and don't overwhelm the room.
 
Another I really like is the Zaph|Audio ZRT.  You can get the drivers and crossovers for $1,000 at Madisound.  The drivers really are some of the best on the market, at any price.  Though I'd probably build the crossovers myself to save a little and to let me match them by hand, like Indid with the ProAcs.  You might want to look at the other Zaph speakers, too.
 
You can also try refurbishing good speakers.  (Yet another) upcoming project is restoring the Quad ESL-63s.  Found them locally for $700 a couple years ago.  They work, but hiss and spit a little.  Or you can say that they need a panel rebuild.  About $2k if you send them out, but you can buy the Mylar and other parts reasonably.  The trick is tensioning the Mylar.  The best way I've seen is to use a bicycle innertube wrapped around a frame.  Inflate the tube to stretch the Mylar.  I'm sure it won't be that simple, but I'll buy extra Mylar and will probably figure it out after ruining a few sheets.    More easily, I'm going to refinish the walnut end caps, replace the socks, vinyl dye the somewhat faded bases, and rebuild the innards with fresh parts.  It'll end up around $1,000-$1,200 total, but it'll be at least 100 hours of labor.  Which is OK, because I consider them "end game" speakers.  Not much goes on below 50Hz, but they don't do a damned thing wrong above that.
 
The final plan is to put the Orions in a listening room or living room.  The other pairs will go inthe  edroom and office.  Almost there.  

 

[shrimants]

I swear, uncleerik, you're gonna have to show me around your house sometime. I'm dying to see what all audio stuff you have laying about.

So far, I have set my next 2 projects to the Titanic mk III 10 inch subwoofer kit from Dayton Audio. That should provide a significant improvement to my current setup, plus let me experiment with subwoofer cabinet building and whatnot.

Next upgrade is an all tube headphone amplifier. The A5's expect a headphone-level input and currently I'm feeding them line-level input from my DAC. This will let me fine tune their volume control with a proper tube amp and simultaneously allow me to buy some higher impedance cans. I'm aiming for something along the lines of Sennheiser HD600 or some Beyerdynamic DT990, though I might look into something planar magnetic if the tube amp supports it.

The tube amp kit I am aiming for is the Bijou All Tube kit, though if there is a better one for a similar price range, i'd like to check it out. I'd really like to get something tube'd though just because it will be a new experience, plus that smexy glow.

After that point i'll be aiming for the Eton 3 way towers and probably keep that subwoofer handy for them too. If all goes well with that, I'll try my hand at a few more kits. By then i'll be deep enough in computer engineering to hopefully know my way around electronics a bit more and maybe I can start designing and building my own circuits and crossovers and such.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Hey, you're welcome to come by!  Once everything is set up, I'll have an open door at the shop.  I don't think there are any Head-Fi'ers in town, but it's within driving distance of LA, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.  Bring parts over and make stuff!  Plenty of woodwork and metalworking tools and a partial electronics bench.  Need some more gear, but my favorite piece is an old HP Nixie tube frequency counter.
 
One thing I'm angling for is a good commercial laser engraver.  Not cheap.  But it would make it easy to knock out cool faceplates and backplates.

 

[shrimants]

dang. im all the way in michigan

 

[splaz]

Quote:

I'm a fan of more subtle wood accents and either minimalistic design or centerpiece. These are kinda too in between for me.

 
Mmmm...        not a huge fan of any of the designs linked so far based on appearance. Far too many have that 'wood obsessed' look and/or look outdated.
 
I'm sure they sound great, but they often have to be justified to a certain somebody, a certain somebody that I know personally would not let any of them anywhere near the front door, let alone into the house.
 
Some could do just with a more modern gloss paint finish or even more subtle wood tones with some accents, like say some brushed stainless steel/aluminium accent pieces or something along those lines. That's just my opinion though. Of course these can be built and whatever finish that is desired can be applied.

 

[liamstrain]

*shrug*
 
I'd MUCH rather have furniture grade wood veneers than gloss paint or stainless accents. But that's just me.

 

[Feckie]

Hi Shrimants
 
Your post made me join up to this site
 
Been in a similar situation like you for a while now and have been researching both designs and woodworking skills.
 
I would strongly recommend getting a cheap speaker to build first like the aviatrix or the tritrix (I built the Tritrix in a sealed cabinet) from www.speakerdesignworks.com
 
At the other end of the scale is http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Diy_Loudspeaker_Projects.htm
 
They have the speakers that would range in retail price from 2k to 20k. Particularly the Jenzen Accu and the Jenzen Seas and both can come in kits if you email him, No BS these will be your end game speakers, but you need high end woodworking skills and many months to finish them.
 
In the middle is the Statement speakers on speakerdesignworks.com, parts are around $800ish and are relatively easy to build due to the standard box layout and have had quite a following.
 
Building speakers is expensive if you don't have the tools add on a lot more onto your budget.
 
Questions
1. Do you have woodworking skills + tools (routers, lots of clamps etc
2. Do you have the room, speakers like these need a fair bit of room behind the speaker and like me this became an issue when choosing a house to rent (which p****d off my GF)
3. What were you planning on spending for your amp.
4. What sort of music do you listen too.
 
 
Feckie
 
 
 
 
 

 

[shrimants]

Hello Feckie, welcome to the scene.

1) I have 0 woodworking skills and my tools are definitely sub par. For the cabinet construction portion, I was planning on starting with subwoofers and other easy things. I have the Dayton Titanic Mk III 10 inch coming from PartsExpress. It comes with a pre-built cabinet and is a completely sealed design. I felt this would be a good project to start with because it would let me see what goes into making a loud speaker and it would let me learn my way around various design tools and such. I felt I would be able to experiment with various designs and learn over the course of a couple years. I will be transfering universities this winter (at least hopefully) and I figured I would ask the woodworking professor(s) or knowledgable senior students for help and guidance. Living with my parents on a college student budget makes buying proper woodworking tools a dream at best, but I am 90% sure I will have unrestricted access to the woodshop at my uni.

I felt the TriTrix was of rather subpar quality despite being a nice cabinet. I did not want to spend 300 dollars on a DIY speaker set when i already have Audioengine A5's that will trounce them (in all likelyhood) and make the tritrix good for nothing more than experimentation or giving away to my sister or girlfriend. The aviatrix, however, looks much better and I would probably implement them in an MTM configuration. They look more resilient than the TriTrix, especially because it uses aluminum and silk rather than silk and paper for driver construction (I have a cat).

2) Right now, my room is 10.5 feet x 10.5 feet x 9 feet (tall). I do NOT have room for floor standing speakers right now, but I will have the room in 2-3 years or so when I move out. Needless to say, I am in no rush to start or finish this project, and I have plenty of time to experiment. I think the Aviatrix is my best bet, as I'll gain the same experience with the Tritrix as I will with the Titanic Mk III in terms of woodworking, cabinet design, full kit construction, and design software and CAD software.

3) I'm most concerned with a proper upgradeability path. I dont want to build a speaker that doesnt perform at least at the A5's level, and I'd prefer more performance. I would also like to build the amps myself, and am researching designs (though i'm only finding headphone amps, which are designed for a high impedance load). That being said, Right now I'd like to spend between 300-400 on the speaker, and 300-400 on the (DIY) amp. The A5's are just a tweeter and woofer, so I'd be open to experimenting with more drivers but I dislike the single driver designs of speakers with gigantic complex baffles and horns to get the most out of it.

If you read my earlier posts, I am leaning towards a design which uses 2 seperate active crossovers for a 3 or 4 way speaker configuration. This route, I think, means that I need a dual mono amp for each driver, meaning that I'd need 3 or 4 different amps depending on the driver configuration. In my head, this looks like a rather grand affair, but my wallet is screaming just thinking about it. That whole design that is in my head will probably be either an end-game kit or an end-game completely DIY solution. Surely, if I'm not dead by the time I can afford such an expense, my future wife will kill me after she sees the bill for it all.

4) As far as genres go, metal, a tiny bit of dubstep, some electronic/house/techno, classic rock, some classical music, some new-age classical music, and alternative rock. I barely have any music because i only keep whole albums and I dont keep the album if I dont like at least 60% of the music in the album.

Here is a list of everything I have so far, though my tastes are open for expansion.

 

[Feckie]

Building a sub is definitely a good start, i was planning to build one myself then dad bought me a SNELL sub24 mk2 out of the blue (he has an ebay problem)
 
There are some good starting projects on parts-express.com which aren't that expensive such as the "Copper project" or the "ZDT 3.5". The ZDT 3.5 doesnt have that much bass but because you have a sub this will let it focus on mid and treble. The copper project apparently has good sound but require a strong amp that can handle low impedances.
 
Amp wise may or may not be that hard. Check out hifimediy.com and the forums at diyaudio.com. Not bad and cheap!.
 
The next step up is hypex particularly the UCD range, I have the 180HG HxR which was there top of the range but they have now released the new nCore which seems to be a game changer in terms of class D. Or find a gainclone or something.
 
You will need tools, atleast a router and a circle jig to cut the holes for the speakers. Lots of clamps will also be necessary and the price of these items will probably hit 300.
 
Also what source are you planning to use.

 

[Avro_Arrow]

You could build a transmission line subwoofer and set your bed on top of it....

 

[shrimants]

@Avro_Arrow: I'm currently reading the "Loudspeaker Cookbook" as recommended by UncleErik. I'll look into the TL subwoofer design. This idea presents 2 difficulties: 1) The underside of the bed will cause some weird resonance issues for sure. Even having Audioengine A5 underneath my desk caused a couple "hotspots" in frequency response. It wasnt until I moved them to on top of my desk that they reacted properly. Even now my room itself, being so small, has some weird frequency response hotspots. It would be awesome if I could get my hands on a nice mic and an nicer audio input for the computer and get some proper measurements for my room, but thats wildly out of budget for now. My current subwoofer (logitech z5500) is a couple inches too big to fit under the bed and theres no way the one I ordered will ever fit under there. The logitech one seems to focus on small footprint, and they barely have enough room for the driver to sit in. The one I ordered will be much bigger and has speaker cones. To fit this one under the bed would require a downfiring design, probably vented box, and it would be a weird large flat rectangular shape. I'll look into it though because that might still be favorable compared to putting the sub in my closet. After finals and cleaning up, I;ll post up a couple pictures of my room so you can all see what I'm working with.

@Feckie: This is the subwoofer kit I bought to start with. I did some research and found that for a 5.25 inch driver, I'm looking at wanting an 8-12 inch sub, and I tested it with my existing 10 inch and found that with a bit of volume adjustment the bass will perfectly balance with the speakers (albeit in a sloppy way). I figured I'd build this kit to begin with and then build my cabinet building skills and software/cad skills. For speakers, I was looking at the Aviatrix. I figured I'd buy them once I knew my way around the software and cad applications a bit more because they dont seem to come with cabinets. They look like they have higher quality drivers than the TriTrix though, and with the proper cabinet design they might be able to trounce my audioengine A5's. 2 8inch aluminum woofers with a aluminum cone tweeter sounds like it will pack quite a punch. It comes with a passive crossover but I might even be able to research and build/buy an active crossover and power it with a couple ebay-bought amps in the future to see if my mental concept/idea will work.

I have a router (rotozip) and I am quite sure we already have the circular cutting attachment for it. I also have a dremel, power drill with various drill bits, and a hand-held circular saw that can be table mounted. That thing is a pretty crappy saw but if I open it up and clean/lubricate it and change out the wheel to a proper one it could probably be pretty good considering the price. Clamps are on the to-buy list anyways, regardless of if i persue this hobby or not. Everyone needs good clamps. at least 20 of them. ANd not the crappy plastic ones either.