End Game DIY Loudspeakers

[tktran303]

I went down this road a few years ago, although my budget for end-game is much different than the OP's. I wanted to build a pair of bookshelves for my office, then use that knowledge to apply to a pair of towers for my media room for critical listening. After much research around high end drivers, I chose a Hiquphon tweeter and Revelator 6.5" woofer and went to work.

…
…
Some comments accounting for how much money you’ve spent…
…

“And I went no further with the project…

What I learned from this project

“ What I learned from the experience:…
…5. Building "end game" speakers on your first try is a bit optimistic

The sentiment I got from this post was related to this “road a few years ago” you went on. Perhaps you wouldn’t go down this road again. Or you wouldn’t have gone down this road again, knowing what you know now.

Or maybe I missed the sentiment altogether.
My apologies if I misunderstood you.

To be clear; how many speakers and of what types had you designed before you embarked on said journey?

 

[SDC]

interesting thread. As I'm building 5 way speaker with t25d-6 to replace my salon 2.

to make it short Is it waste of money? Yes

I could have bought used Magico and sell it when I'm done, will cost me almost nothing.


this diy road we don't know what you get, you cant sell it again, high quality enclosures are crazy expensive etc)


But I get what I want. And thats important if we are talking end game.

All the speakers I had, have none of them gave me the end game feeling, but this new one is like a wrapped gift to me!

 

[tktran303]

Magico lol. Sucked in by the marketing too huh?

 

[SDC]

Magico lol. Sucked in by the marketing too huh?

Just an example of high end high tech unit I could have bought with the money spent.

Aluminum Honeycomb woofer and dlc coated tweeter aren't cheap even with diy you know.

 

[tktran303]

Far enough. I see what you mean. But don’t you consider it R&D?

I have a KEF Blade 1 Meta coaxial and B&W 801D4 midrange and Purifi 4,5,6,8”…

you know, to compare and contrast the state of the art…

You can buy a production car like Ferrari or Lamborghini… or you can join a club and build race cars during the week and track them on the weekend… and you don’t have to guess which one is more expensive…

 

[SDC]

Far enough. I see what you mean. But don’t you consider it R&D?

I have a KEF Blade 1 Meta coaxial and B&W 801D4 midrange and Purifi 4,5,6,8”…

you know, to compare and contrast the state of the art…

You can buy a production car like Ferrari or Lamborghini… or you can join a club and build race cars during the week and track them on the weekend… and you don’t have to guess which one is more expensive…

Well it is off topic but I don't like KEF for very voodoo-ish reasons(ferrofluids you know). They will never be my end game speaker...
8351b was close but bit nah...
To me end game is more like peace in mind than great performance I guess...

 

[tktran303]

To me end game is more like peace in mind than great performance I guess...

Ah Yes. For me it’s is more like Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Peace of mind for some time, until the bug hits to design a bigger better, or smaller just as good, or experiment in directivity changes, remove the ferrofluid, or…

I love all my guitars. Ok so I don’t have any many as John 5 or Slash; who don’t have an “end-game” guitar… and don’t ask them to choose their favourite; it’s like choosing your favourite child… they have hundreds (and love them all)

 

[Ciobi69]

I saw some troels gravesen project like the loudspeaker 1/2/3 and others, the loudspeaker tick all my boxes, high sensitivity,big woofers. And linear enough..

 

[Vapor9]

Not yet my end all DIY, but I've been very happy with these for the last couple of years in my basement listening space.

Transducer Labs N26CS-A tweeter
Tang Band W5-1611SAF mid
Peerless 850146 woofer (sealed)

2nd order from woofer to mid (around 280 hz) and then a 1st order on top (around 2800).

Now building my next set (not yet the end all) with:

Satori TW29R-B
Satori MR116P-4 mid
CSS SDX10 woofer

I think the basic design (3 boxes, crossover types, but ported woofer) will be about the same.

 

[FrankW]

Nice ^^

 

[jesseday2]

I saw some troels gravesen project like the loudspeaker 1/2/3 and others, the loudspeaker tick all my boxes, high sensitivity,big woofers. And linear enough..

My Faital 3WC 12's are awesome. Not end game speakers but I thought I would comment on your Troels comment. If I had the space I would be tempted to try another build and go all in with The Loudspeakers.

 

[Astrozombie]

Good lord I didn't even know there were 5-way speakers, I need to do some reading.

 

[tktran303]

I have stellar pure midranges, some unobtainium…

Purifi PTT 6.5M-04
KEF Blade 1 Meta’s UniQ
B&W 801 D4’s midrange

…but I still haven’t reached my end game.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Ciobi69]

I have stellar pure midranges, some unobtainium…

Purifi PTT 6.5M-04
KEF Blade 1 Meta’s UniQ
B&W 801 D4’s midrange

…but I still haven’t reached my end game.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hahaah the blade should be a perfect speaker ,what you find missing?

 

[tmuikku]

We are not listening to brands and makes and models of drivers, but pressure variations in room and interpreting the pressure variation with brain which makes up an impression. Seek the answers more from the philosophical side than from the marketing men, think about it.

What if you walked into a room with no loudspeakers visible and heard very good sound, the end game sound, the best sound you ever heard and was always looking for. Would you recognize that it is it, the sound what I've been after? Or would you move on to a next room and rather buy the golden brand width diamonds visible there? why is that, because it sounded better or because it had brands and makes and models well visible?

If you were captivated by the sound in the first room without any speakers visible, what would the first thought be? would you think what brand and make and model the midrange driver is? or, is there a midrange driver at all? how many speakers there even is and where they are located? or is there a live musician somewhere? Whats the acoustics, is it a room at all? Is there electromagnetic drivers at all? If there were, would you get the same sound and impression at your place by purchasing the same driver? Or, would you think about how to get your brain into this same condition so that similar pressure waves would give similar impression at home, get awestruck every time you flick the switch? how to get similar pressure variations into the room at home? You room is probably completely different, your brain condition is probably completely different. Middle of this dream scene a marketing man appears behind the corner and sells you what ever he wants to sell, power cord or something, a magic bullet.

There is a long way to a good sound I think, 99% of the system that is part of such experience is due to something else than brands and makes and models. In this sense, any particular driver, or any particular feature of such system including room acoustics or amount of coffee consumed, is not the magic bullet for good sound, but its the system as a whole including your brain and acoustics of the room, also the make and model of a transducer, as part of the system. Not one magic bullet but whole bag full of pieces that combine into one.

Basically, you gotta find out what you are doing and what you like and how to get there given the environment and other constrains, if at all possible. You need to make a good system, think what gets the system forward, be thoughtful about it instead of following trends unrelated to your system. My stance is perhaps clear now, its not brands and makes and models I'm after, I'm not after end game speakers even, just for better sound to me in my room. End game system would describe better, I'd like the loudspeakers to disappear, I only want to experience the sound and its irrelevant how it got into the room and ears as long as its perceived good I'm sorry but I have to say that owning some particular driver is irrelevant, best system for you might be such that it doesn't have need for that sized driver.

What if never getting there, to the end? Remember to have fun the whole journey and it really doesn't matter perhaps my end game is just having fun with the hobby and some one else enjoys the golden driver in a red box while bob would like his coffee black, its all good )

 

[Adi777]

If I ever had to use the services of a company that builds speakers to order, it would be this company
I'm in love Not exactly this system fom video, more something like Canberra Opals.

Lenard Audio | Home

 

[kapone]

Hi guys (and gals), I've been lurking on this forum for a long time, but as a passive observer, since a majority of you guys are way more technical than me, when it comes to audio/speakers.

However, this thread piqued my interest, since this is exactly what I'm "trying" to do. (I'm a pretty active user on AVS, just not here).

Well, I took the 1099 offering from DIYSG and decided to customize it for myself, hoping for an end product that will kill my speaker itch for a long time.

A rough sketch.

This is a standard 1099 customized with dual 15" woofers, in bass bins, top and bottom. Overall ~75" high and 20" deep. It's a semi active setup with the 15" woofers crossed over and EQed digitally, while still using the 1099 passive crossover. Requires three amp channels per speaker.

More scaffolding ideas to merge the bass bins with the 1099 (which essentially slides in).

Prototype testing...I think I settled at ~120Hz crossover between the 1099 and the 15" woofers, with a 24db slope. But, that's prototype testing, I'll still have to measure and tweak when the final product is finished and placed in-room in the proper positions.

More scaffolding ideas (using 2x4s...)

All cabinets assembled... (I'm building 5x of these. FL/C/FR and Left Wide and Right Wide)

The scaffolding design is almost complete, I should be able to start making it shortly.

Will this be my "endgame" DIY speaker? Maybe. We'll see.

 

[Adi777]

All cabinets assembled... (I'm building 5x of these. FL/C/FR and Left Wide and Right Wide)

Respect

 

[ChargedCapacitor]

Hi guys (and gals), I've been lurking on this forum for a long time, but as a passive observer, since a majority of you guys are way more technical than me, when it comes to audio/speakers.

However, this thread piqued my interest, since this is exactly what I'm "trying" to do. (I'm a pretty active user on AVS, just not here).

Well, I took the 1099 offering from DIYSG and decided to customize it for myself, hoping for an end product that will kill my speaker itch for a long time.

A rough sketch.

This is a standard 1099 customized with dual 15" woofers, in bass bins, top and bottom. Overall ~75" high and 20" deep. It's a semi active setup with the 15" woofers crossed over and EQed digitally, while still using the 1099 passive crossover. Requires three amp channels per speaker.

More scaffolding ideas to merge the bass bins with the 1099 (which essentially slides in).

Prototype testing...I think I settled at ~120Hz crossover between the 1099 and the 15" woofers, with a 24db slope. But, that's prototype testing, I'll still have to measure and tweak when the final product is finished and placed in-room in the proper positions.

More scaffolding ideas (using 2x4s...)

All cabinets assembled... (I'm building 5x of these. FL/C/FR and Left Wide and Right Wide)

The scaffolding design is almost complete, I should be able to start making it shortly.

Will this be my "endgame" DIY speaker? Maybe. We'll see.

It doesn't make sense to put such a constraint on the location of the 15" woofers. In most (pretty much all) rooms, the subs being on the same x / y plane as the speakers will not be the optimal location. Looks bad-a though.

 

[kapone]

It doesn't make sense to put such a constraint on the location of the 15" woofers. In most (pretty much all) rooms, the subs being on the same x / y plane as the speakers will not be the optimal location. Looks bad-a though.

When I was testing the prototype, I tried every which way (in terms of placing the woofers), including stacking them at the bottom, but top and bottom gave the smoothest response.

In addition, these will be in a baffle wall, behind an AT screen, and with a ~120Hz crossover to the 1099s, forward firing made the most sense.