Here's some of the "affordable" kit and plan based speakers I have built and owned over the years;
Recently I had to down-size my Abouriou MTM towers;
and they became a pair of "The Girl From Ipanema" speakers by Paul Carmody and I choose to go for this design for several reasons. They are;
1)I could use the P.E. .23 cu/ft boxs - While the Seas tweeter, Dayton woofer and cross-over parts have doubled in price during the 10 years since I built the Abourious, these boxs are still the best deal in DIY. Being 3/4" MDF, they really don't need any sound barrier material and lacking any bracing, they have plenty of room for X-overs. And at $27 ea., they go a long way to keep your project in the budget range.
2) The "Ipanema's" are a sealed design - This adds greatly to versatility in placement and saves on the port tubes (every little bit helps
.
3) They have a very simple low-count X-overs (5 componets for ea. speaker). This really helps keep costs down, although they do use a big air-core inductor (2.2mH), which are kinda pricey.
DIY - The Girl From Ipanema The Repository -> DIY -> The Girl From Ipanema
sites.google.com
I think at low to mid volumes, they sound better than the Abourious, a little more engaging when in a more near-field position. The RS150 are known for their clarity on voices (Paul considers it a HT speaker, in 2008, he said; "the "Ipanema" had incredible midrange and treble balance, which made for very clear and discernible movie watching. And yes, it was voiced to be placed up against a wall.") The RS150 is also known for it's dislike for excursion @ low freq.s and it won't, of course, play as low or as loud as the MTM towers. I knew the 8 Ohm MT would be less efficient than the 4 Ohm MTM, but the amount of extra gain needed to reach the same levels surprised me.
Anyhow, the pair (assuming new drivers) came to $415, not including binding posts, wires, x-over boards and finishing materials.
The original Aviatrix MT and MTM by Curt Campbell - I debated listing these as it seems the Parts Express Kits using the new RST28F tweeter have some issues. Erin's review of the Sambas;
The P.E. Dayton Audio DIY kits did not fair all that well. Has anyone here heard them? I have not heard either set. The Samba RS drivers are still obviously extremely good reasonably priced drive units. The cabinet is solid but that crossover is just really short of a good design. What gives...
www.audiosciencereview.com
I have been perplexed about the RST28f since it came out. Vance Dickerson thoughly measured it early on and thought it looked pretty good. Others measured it and compared it to the original RS28F and opinions varied, there were mentions of QC issuses. The Late-Great Jeff Bagby did a dirt (carpet) floor measurement and was going to use it as a replacement for the RS28A in his Continuum 2-ways, but ended up switching to Morel CAT308's without explanation. Dan Marx worked w/ it in his "Dayton Reference 2-way MTM Center Channel" and it proved to be difficult.
But unlike the DA Wave and Samba, Curt himself redesigned the X-over and it retains it's low X-over count and a low, low X-over point of 1400 Hz.
$300 pr.(kit includes acusta-stuf and gold binding posts).
The Nexus by Matt Grant - This was an interesting build. Like many, I bought the C-notes when they were $100, but to my ear, they couldn't quite cut is as desktops so I tried them in my HT system, but my surrounds are up high and I felt what directivity the wave guide offered worked against what I was looking for in that application. I knew the Dayton DS135 5" woofer was well thought of (Mike Chua @ Amp-Labs among others), so I thought if I could re-purpose those drivers I could recoup 3/4th of the cost of the C-notes. Hence, the Nexus.
Matt's well documented build info for the entire family of Nexus speakers is avail here;
www.hificircuit.com/community/threads/project-nexus-a-timbre-matched-family-of-hi-fi-ht-speakers.319/
Again, I used the P.E. boxes and his design specifies the Dayton ND28F, a size up from the C-note's ND25FW-4. This allowed a lower X-over of 2100 Hz., which along with the sturdy box, eliminates the resonance issues of the C-notes.
Cost, $400 ($450 w/ Matt's X-over boards, binding posts and acusta-fill).
Ranking and recap;
3) The Nexus. A very "balanced" speaker, it's obvious that Matt put a lot of thought and effort into the Nexus family X-over designs (even revising the MT once) and his results no doubt are the best these budget Dayton drivers can sound. But it comes at a price, X-over complexity and resulting component costs. At what point does it make more sense to start w/ better drivers and (hopefully) achive equal or better results w/ a lower X-over count?
Note: The DS135 in a large (for the woofer size) ported box plays very well down low, the best bass of this group, but in the end, I don't think the plastic ND tweeter can match the full size metal tweeters of the other two.
Pierre has the Nexus MT and MTM's in his data base;
pierreaubert.github.io
2) The Aviatrix. Of all the speakers I have owned for a lenght of time, these are the only ones I have never pulled out of service. The ledgendary RS28F tweeter is just so engaging. I don't think the RST28 can ever sound as good, but can we trust it would be close? When Curt revised the Aviatrix's X-over, his comment was, "It sounded surprising good." (A man of few words). While there's plenty out there about the originals, there's not much about the new versions (I would love to see Amir or Erin measure one).
At $300 for a pr. of MTM speakers with 5 1/4" woofers and full size metal tweeters, I think these are the best deal in "kit" speakers.
Of course, these are a little big for standmounts, but for a "built-in" application like a bookcase, they would be naturals w/ their sealed enclosures. The only thing that bothers me about this this kit is that P.E. won't sell a single for a 3) MTM frt. line for HT. I suspose one could buy this kit and cannibalize one of the MTM's to make a pair of MT's and a MTM. Curt's X-over design for the MT is avail. and uses many of the same X-over conponents. Again using the P.E. boxes (a little big, but I think they would be ok ). A MT / MTM / MT trio would be around $500 in parts.
1) The Girl from Ipanema. It may surprise some that I think drivers and designs from 10 or 15 years ago could be so good, But I would ask, have budget DIY speakers become any better? Of course there are newer and better drivers, but their prices precude them from being anything that could be thought of as budget.
There has been quite a few designs w/ a Seas 27tdfc (and variants)/RS 28f option and designers and builders seem split as to which one they perfer. Personaly, I think the Dayton sounds better, but not by much.
Given that, and my opinion that the Reference Series woofers are much nicer than the ND units in every way, build quality, looks and tone, I rank "The Girls" #1 here. Although both it and the "Avia." use alum. cones, there's something about the ND140's that never let me forget that they are alum., where-as the RS does not.
If someone was to ask me what are the best sounding DIY speakers that can be built for $400, I would say these. Actually, I would say that at the very least, w/ the demise of the Swans kits, I think they would probably be competative w/ anything that could be built in the $400 to $450 range.
Final thoughts.
Tools - The Ipanemas and Nexus speakers require rebating the drivers, but I get by w/ a $50 router and two bits from Harbour Frieght and a circle jig, so this shouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker. Heck, w/ these sm. enclosures, clamps might be concidered optional.
Lastly, I have mentioned four designers here by name who have been always willing to help and there are others. Without their selfless contributions, I for one, would probably be listening to bottom of the line Polks from Best Buy today. We owe them a debt of gratitude.
