- Thread Starter
- #21
I am very pleased and extremely relieved to say that you’ve both convinced me to bid a sad but sane farewell to DIYing almost anything audio. Over the years, especially at DIYaudio.com and audiocircle.com, I’ve read detailed evaluations by members of what they loved or not about the sound from their finished original and/or corrected speaker builds. Their words struck strong chords and ignited my creative juices. But it didn’t take long to realize that I only had about half their technical knowledge, building skills and especially time to learn enough to even attempt any such project. And while most such forum members invited me to hear their systems many of those designs were essentially designed and built from scratch, albeit from retired physicists, engineering grad students or gifted individuals. So even if I really loved what I’d heard from their speakers I couldn’t be sure that even with the DIYer’s online guidance I could successfully clone those speakers, plus a second pair and the right CC speaker for the 5.1 system.
OTOH, “performance proven” and auditioned kits from Madisound, Meniscus, Solen and even directly from probably the leading driver brand http://www.seas.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=66&Itemid=250 , where I’d only have to install drivers and wire pre-built crossovers with excellent quality parts into finished cabinets from flat paks which I could confidently assemble myself-or into pre-built cabinets from a carpenter who cut from a debugged CNC file-seemed about the best solution for obtaining audiophile quality speakers, and with the added bonus of sidestepping very sizable designer and reseller fees. However, assuming I ended up with perfect clones of the kit speaker project there would still be no guarantee that I would be at least ~ 90% satisfied with the sonic performance parameters I’d be expecting from those particular speakers.
So, pre-built proven speakers from high end commercial brands it must be. Buyers usually get the level of quality that they’re willing to pay for, and saving very hard for many years will afford me a very good-sized budget for this 5.1 system. Likewise, speakers that win awards from reputable professional reviewers-and especially if that same speaker has also remained in production for years after such reviews-are among three to five that I will do my utmost to audition with WAV or FLAC files of CD tracks of several choice recordings.
I’m just praying that most of these speakers can be heard partnered with good DACs, amps and rooms, and not too many hundreds of miles from home, though I don't expect to get so lucky in most cases. Indeed, some of these stand mount speakers may be a bit too old and/or expensive for many people to own and/or where few dealers will still have them set up for auditioning. If I get really lucky the speaker model brand might have them set up at their factory or elsewhere for me to hear, or those from an owners thread (?) might invite me over.
Thanks again for steering me off a likely path of wasted time, money and broken dreams.
OTOH, “performance proven” and auditioned kits from Madisound, Meniscus, Solen and even directly from probably the leading driver brand http://www.seas.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=66&Itemid=250 , where I’d only have to install drivers and wire pre-built crossovers with excellent quality parts into finished cabinets from flat paks which I could confidently assemble myself-or into pre-built cabinets from a carpenter who cut from a debugged CNC file-seemed about the best solution for obtaining audiophile quality speakers, and with the added bonus of sidestepping very sizable designer and reseller fees. However, assuming I ended up with perfect clones of the kit speaker project there would still be no guarantee that I would be at least ~ 90% satisfied with the sonic performance parameters I’d be expecting from those particular speakers.
So, pre-built proven speakers from high end commercial brands it must be. Buyers usually get the level of quality that they’re willing to pay for, and saving very hard for many years will afford me a very good-sized budget for this 5.1 system. Likewise, speakers that win awards from reputable professional reviewers-and especially if that same speaker has also remained in production for years after such reviews-are among three to five that I will do my utmost to audition with WAV or FLAC files of CD tracks of several choice recordings.
I’m just praying that most of these speakers can be heard partnered with good DACs, amps and rooms, and not too many hundreds of miles from home, though I don't expect to get so lucky in most cases. Indeed, some of these stand mount speakers may be a bit too old and/or expensive for many people to own and/or where few dealers will still have them set up for auditioning. If I get really lucky the speaker model brand might have them set up at their factory or elsewhere for me to hear, or those from an owners thread (?) might invite me over.
Thanks again for steering me off a likely path of wasted time, money and broken dreams.
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