Aboslute best CHEAP DIY speaker

[mga2009]

Probably not the "absolute best" but assembled from relatively inexpensive components that are easy to get.
The entire project is published including .vxp with full off-axis measurements, so it can be a playground for own modifications and experiments.
LINK

It looks really good!!! Congrats!! Thinked of sending it to Amir for measurements??

Also, why almost everyone design speakers to "avoid" subwoofers? Why not design a DIY speaker thinking it WILL be used with 1+ SW...

 

[ChargedCapacitor]

Check out the Audiopoli Protone. It's a very cheap speaker with an Augerpro waveguide. Link

 

[jaakkopetteri]

Check out the Audiopoli Protone. It's a very cheap speaker with an Augerpro waveguide. Link

It's a nice build, but 700€ is hardly "very cheap"

 

[ChargedCapacitor]

It's a nice build, but 700€ is hardly "very cheap"

That's just one version of it, they are making another version that will cost ~100.

 

[jaakkopetteri]

That's just one version of it, they are making another version that will cost ~100.

Interesting considering the drivers alone cost 120€ per speaker

 

[mga2009]

Interesting considering the drivers alone cost 120€ per speaker

When it says is a 700 euro speaker?

I cant find the XO nor the price.

In looks just as the speaker I want for my TV room... all5 channels with the same speaker, sealed, with waveguide, 6"+ inch.

 

[jaakkopetteri]

When it says is a 700 euro speaker?

I cant find the XO nor the price.

Indeed, I don't know why they're shilling the speakers at this point The people behind the speakers have mentioned the cost of 700€ on their Telegram channel

 

[XMechanik]

It looks really good!!! Congrats!! Thinked of sending it to Amir for measurements??

Thank you.

That would be great to see how much home-made measurements and simulations based on some simplifying assumptions comply with the outcome of a professional measurement equipment.

As I can imagine, there's a lot more interesting stuff to review, but I'll try to get in touch and ask if there's interest.

 

[Puoskari]

Hi!
Nice to see discussion about our stuff here! (I'm the vp of Audiopoli, in charge of the project wiki)

The speakers will never be 100€ and I have no clue where that idea came from but for now the max price will be 700€/pair, so 350€/speaker.
The BOM would be roughly (for 50pcs.):

• MDF housing (CNC'd parts, waiting for quote, we also have facilities to do it ourselves)
• custom analog crossover ~16€/speaker
• Icepower amp, 77€/speaker
• 3d printing the waveguide+clamp ~6€/speaker in materials
• woofer+tweeter ~120€/speaker
• connectors ~15€/speaker (xlr input)
• internal cables and such ~10€.

so around 240€/speaker without the housing... The quote better be good
The design philosophy was originally to create better version of the old Aniversarios, that have been a building kit for a while now. They were too small (not enough bass), but good for student apartments. pics here: https://www.audiopoli.fi/pics/20080214_aniversario_kaato/ They evolved to active (Anni's were passive) due to design limitations of passive speakers.

Anyways, just send me questions as they arise. We're still in the middle of finalizing the design so I might not have the answers to all of them, but the wiki will be updated quite frequently. If you want to see the old digital crossover's response measured in the acoustics lab just hit me up!

 

[ChargedCapacitor]

Hi!
Nice to see discussion about our stuff here! (I'm the vp of Audiopoli, in charge of the project wiki)

The speakers will never be 100€ and I have no clue where that idea came from but for now the max price will be 700€/pair, so 350€/speaker.
The BOM would be roughly (for 50pcs.):

• MDF housing (CNC'd parts, waiting for quote, we also have facilities to do it ourselves)
• custom analog crossover ~16€/speaker
• Icepower amp, 77€/speaker
• 3d printing the waveguide+clamp ~6€/speaker in materials
• woofer+tweeter ~120€/speaker
• connectors ~15€/speaker (xlr input)
• internal cables and such ~10€.

so around 240€/speaker without the housing... The quote better be good
The design philosophy was originally to create better version of the old Aniversarios, that have been a building kit for a while now. They were too small (not enough bass), but good for student apartments. pics here: https://www.audiopoli.fi/pics/20080214_aniversario_kaato/ They evolved to active (Anni's were passive) due to design limitations of passive speakers.

Anyways, just send me questions as they arise. We're still in the middle of finalizing the design so I might not have the answers to all of them, but the wiki will be updated quite frequently. If you want to see the old digital crossover's response measured in the acoustics lab just hit me up!

This is where I got my cost figures:

https://www.reddit.com/r/diyaudio/comments/12oc32w/_/jgjkh7o
I must have misunderstood them.

 

[ChargedCapacitor]

Hi!
Nice to see discussion about our stuff here! (I'm the vp of Audiopoli, in charge of the project wiki)

The speakers will never be 100€ and I have no clue where that idea came from but for now the max price will be 700€/pair, so 350€/speaker.
The BOM would be roughly (for 50pcs.):

• MDF housing (CNC'd parts, waiting for quote, we also have facilities to do it ourselves)
• custom analog crossover ~16€/speaker
• Icepower amp, 77€/speaker
• 3d printing the waveguide+clamp ~6€/speaker in materials
• woofer+tweeter ~120€/speaker
• connectors ~15€/speaker (xlr input)
• internal cables and such ~10€.

so around 240€/speaker without the housing... The quote better be good
The design philosophy was originally to create better version of the old Aniversarios, that have been a building kit for a while now. They were too small (not enough bass), but good for student apartments. pics here: https://www.audiopoli.fi/pics/20080214_aniversario_kaato/ They evolved to active (Anni's were passive) due to design limitations of passive speakers.

Anyways, just send me questions as they arise. We're still in the middle of finalizing the design so I might not have the answers to all of them, but the wiki will be updated quite frequently. If you want to see the old digital crossover's response measured in the acoustics lab just hit me up!

Also, for the active version, is there any plan to use passive components for impedance matching / resonance suppression on the tweeter? Or would that not be necessary due to having a high enough crossover frequency/order?

 

[badspeakerdesigner]

I haven't gotten a chance to read the whole thread, but my suggestion is c-notes. I would genuinely be skeptical of anyone's suggestion of something better for the cost. They kinda ruined nicer speakers for me. I've got a pair next to some 8030c and there isn't even remotely ~$1300 difference in sound there. I paired mine with a minidps flex and two subs and I just don't think it can get much better than that. It feels a little silly saying this here, but I still think a lot of people don't realize how good a little system is when you employ the sciences to optimize it, and how little it costs to get that. Neutral speaker with good dispersion and good low frequency extension shouldn't be underestimated at any price point.

 

[Puoskari]

Also, for the active version, is there any plan to use passive components for impedance matching / resonance suppression on the tweeter? Or would that not be necessary due to having a high enough crossover frequency/order?

The crossover circuit will be handling all the "signal processing". There's a few notch filters in there in conjuction with the LR4 low- and LR2 highpasses to smoothen everything out. For the circuit diagram I recommend checking out the repo and cloning the kicad files.

 

[ChargedCapacitor]

The Dayton Audio B652 Air is the best cheap DIY speaker you can buy. Not only is it cheap, but it also has a 6.5" polypropylene woofer and a.75" silk dome tweeter, which work together to make a great sound.

It also has a case that is easy to put together and is made of medium density fiberboard, which makes it very durable.

The speaker is also made with vents to make the bass sound better. With all of these features, the Dayton Audio B652 Air is a great DIY speaker for those on a budget.

"The Dayton air does everything wrong" and "some of the worst I've measured":

Dayton Audio B652-AIR Speaker Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Dayton Audio B652-AIR budget bookshelf speaker. I purchased a pair of these for US $67.70 from Amazon with Prime shipping. A kind member also bought a pair and sent them to me. The measured speaker is his. I have to tell you, someone in China...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Yeah, maybe skip the Dayton.

 

[Barnaby1]

Maybe this is pretty good and fairly inexpensive rather than best/cheap but I just built Jeff Bagby's Tributes and I'm incredibly happy with them. The crossover is VERY simple and I believe the same drivers are used in the Buchardt S300 MKII SE's but I'm sure there are several more. I like the idea that in the future I could potentially add just a few more crossover components and make another known design. Sort of a blank canvas with these drivers. I hope that made sense.

 

[badspeakerdesigner]

It looks really good!!! Congrats!! Thinked of sending it to Amir for measurements??

Also, why almost everyone design speakers to "avoid" subwoofers? Why not design a DIY speaker thinking it WILL be used with 1+ SW...

Plenty of designs out there are made with the intent to use a sub, most sealed bookshelves for instance. Generally it's better to design a speaker to sound good on it's own in case the user doesn't have a sub, because you can always add one later and filter the speakers.

 

[mga2009]

Plenty of designs out there are made with the intent to use a sub, most sealed bookshelves for instance. Generally it's better to design a speaker to sound good on it's own in case the user doesn't have a sub, because you can always add one later and filter the speakers.

I think there are not many sealed bookshelves designs out there... For every 10 ported design you might get 1 or 2 sealed.

Of course you can high pass any ported bookshelf, but then you are designing the speaker focusing on performing good below 80, 90 or 100Hz, down to 40 or 50Hz. What i say is, it would be nice to see a design aiming on good mid woofer-mid range performance, and leave the lower end to SW. DIYSG Cinema series were designed like this, but they are long gone... I would actually pay for a DIY design of a small satellite speaker (4,5" or under with waveguided tweeter) that could rival SVS (I dont recall any other good satellite speaker).

Cheers.

 

[badspeakerdesigner]

I think there are not many sealed bookshelves designs out there... For every 10 ported design you might get 1 or 2 sealed.

Of course you can high pass any ported bookshelf, but then you are designing the speaker focusing on performing good below 80, 90 or 100Hz, down to 40 or 50Hz. What i say is, it would be nice to see a design aiming on good mid woofer-mid range performance, and leave the lower end to SW. DIYSG Cinema series were designed like this, but they are long gone... I would actually pay for a DIY design of a small satellite speaker (4,5" or under with waveguided tweeter) that could rival SVS (I dont recall any other good satellite speaker).

Cheers.

Problem as I mentioned above, making a speaker with higher freq low end roll off means you HAVE to use it with a sub or it's probably not going to sound very good. A ported cabinet generally offers much more output down low so you can use the speaker without a sub, and just hi pass if it you want to use a sub and get the same results as the sealed speaker. The ported lower tuned boxes are just more versatile.

 

[D!sco]

The kits from Swan/Hi-Vi are a really good value. They need crossover mods and/or EQ, but the drivers are quality and the enclosures are equally well tuned and braced. I have the three ways as mains in my home theater and they have fabulous dynamic range. Crossed with a subwoofer at 60hz is ideal, and I’m seriously considering getting a few more pairs at some point for surrounds/center and parts. Perfect for a small environment because they can get very loud and have a fairly narrow vertical dispersion. The perfectionist crossover mod has a spinorama up on this site.

 

[mga2009]

The kits from Swan/Hi-Vi are a really good value. They need crossover mods and/or EQ, but the drivers are quality and the enclosures are equally well tuned and braced. I have the three ways as mains in my home theater and they have fabulous dynamic range. Crossed with a subwoofer at 60hz is ideal, and I’m seriously considering getting a few more pairs at some point for surrounds/center and parts. Perfect for a small environment because they can get very loud and have a fairly narrow vertical dispersion. The perfectionist crossover mod has a spinorama up on this site.

Yup, the SWAN 3way looks really good... But it looks there are not available anymore...

Also, apart from DIY... I found the new Monoprice Encore and Audition series... they look really good. EAC reviewed the B6 and it does not look that terrible.

It would be great if @amirm should review the B4 and B5, and maybe the center channels (C4 and C5) in vertical position. At under USD$100 per speaker, they look really good against DIY.