From a quality point of view, does it make sense to DIY loudspeakers?

[Helicopter]

I think the pride of being able to say "Made it myself!" is as a good a motivator as any for a DYI attempt. Even a lousy sounding DYI speaker plays, to some extent. It's not like a S.S. amplifier attempt, where if you don't get it right, poof! a puff of smoke and no sound, however lousy.

Yup. And blasting some tunes through your $1200 in tools / $40 in parts Piezo horn speakers is a lot of fun.

 

[Zvu]

I am buying mdf, at the same place cutting is free if you buy it there. They also do a cnc service so i measure driver dimensions and they enter it in some cad based software. Mdf for standmounts usually costs about 50€ per pair and 100-120€ for floorstanders. I choose drivers that work great for the intended passband regardless of their price. I am diy-ing loudspeakers for a very long time and since i have aquired LspCAD years ago, i never looked back (using VituixCAD now). Yes i go a few extra miles by renting a gym in a nearby school for speaker measurements but my measurements are spot on down to 100Hz and i use ground plain for under that.

I love to squeeze the last drop of performance from drivers i'm using (unlike big manufacturers) even from simplest two or three ways. The subjective performance is so much better than most speakers on the market that i really need to spend quite a bit to get to something that is even a little better.

Only speakers that sounded better than what i've made were sbir loudspeakers (Kii and D&D to be precise).

From tools i have cheap Bosch router (80€), hand drill (30€) and electric sander (30€). Most of the woodwork is done at mdf supplyer, i do gluing and sanding.

I wind my own coils, buy low voltage (63-100V) foil capacitors of known brands from ebay and resistors are cheap.

I don't see myself buying a factory loudspeaker ever again unless i am after the drive units used - as is the case with Kef.

DIY-ing saves me a lot of money and i am making the loudspeakers that look/sound the way i want.

 

[ta240]

Yup. And blasting some tunes through your $1200 in tools / $40 in parts Piezo horn speakers is a lot of fun.

Any project that gives an excuse to buy more tools is a good project.

 

[H-713]

Any project that gives an excuse to buy more tools is a good project.

Yes. Agreed.

 

[mtmpenn]

The key is the time.

If you have the time to spare and you enjoy the work, I believe that DIY has tremendous potential.

I lack the ability to design my own speakers but I have built several kits and have been impressed with the end result. My first pair of speakers looked like trash but sounded good. Second pair looked fine and sounded good. Third and fourth were total successes. My main take away is that paint (especially gloss) is hard. Veneer is relatively easy (I have only used paper backed with iron-on adhesive) and this is where a DIYer can really up the quality of their end result.

Some pictures of my tritrix build attached. I made these about 10 years ago and it is the first time I ever veneered anything. The veneer cost about $80. I did not own a router, table saw, or proper work bench when I made them (just saw horses and a piece of particle board). The kit (which included flat pack cabinets), plus veneer, a few miscellaneous tools, glue, finish etc probably cost $500 or less and I think that the end result punches way above that price point. My veneer wrap is not a match for the Dynaudio heritage special, but it looks a lot better than most $500 speakers.

They took a lot of time and had I chosen to work during the hours that I spent building them I could have certainly bought more expensive and higher performing speakers with the money that I made. That was not the point though. I work enough and I wanted to spend my time in a different way.

All that said, my next pair of speakers may well be commercial because I cannot justify the time commitment/am choosing to spend my time in a different way at present.

 

[egellings]

I successfully built a small S.S. amplifier that worked, and I was disappointed when I found it sounded identical to the commercial one I had been using. Mine wasn't as powerful as the commercial one, but when both were auditioned, played no louder than mine could go, I could not tell. Shoot!

 

[daftcombo]

The best speakers I heard were 100% DIY (3 ways + subwoofers). Active Xovers with 96dB/oct slopes, 4 amplifiers.
You could go as loud as you want without distortion at all and, actually, not realizing it is loud.

I'm just not sure about how it would sound outside of the sweet spot (no waveguide).

 

[H-713]

The best speakers I heard were 100% DIY (3 ways + subwoofers). Active Xovers with 96dB/oct slopes, 4 amplifiers.
You could go as loud as you want without distortion at all and, actually, not realizing it is loud.

I'm just not sure about how it would sound outside of the sweet spot (no waveguide).

There are plenty of great speakers that don't use a waveguide. A well-implemented system without a waveguide is much better than a badly implemented system with a waveguide. If both are well implemented, then it often comes down to preferences.

 

[Helicopter]

There are plenty of great speakers that don't use a waveguide. A well-implemented system without a waveguide is much better than a badly implemented system with a waveguide. If both are well implemented, then it often comes down to preferences.

I am not sure what you imply, but a good waveguide and or baffle is far better than a flat simple shape.

 

[H-713]

My point was not that waveguides do not have advantages- they do. My point was that it is still possible to achieve very good performance without them. For example, a dedicated midrange can get around a lot of the woofer directivity issues that are commonly seen, and it can also deal with the rising harmonic distortion that most tweeters exhibit at lower frequencies. Waveguides are another solution. If I can find a good option, I'll probably use one in my Volt 8" 2-way project.

As can be seen in the Zaph Waveguide TMM project, they can (when used well) solve a lot of problems at once. The Waveguide TMM project would be a very good diy speaker to build, though not a particularly easy one for a beginner.

The point I'm making is that I wouldn't dismiss a loudspeaker just because it doesn't use a waveguide.

 

[moonlight rainbow dream]

The barrier to entry is so low now just buy an Overnight Sensations kit and find out for yourself. You can even skip clamps and just use tape as the CNCd panels fit together so well. The baltic birch looks amazing too with really simple finishing technique.

If you don't mind working with your hands and are passionate about speakers, I think it's worth trying at least once. You learn a lot of speaker design principles in the process.

 

[H-713]

As long as you set your expectations accordingly, the Overnight Sensations kit is a good option since 90% of the work with the cabinets is already done.

As a full disclosure, I've never heard the Zaph SR71, but from a design standpoint it looks solid and I generally trust John Krutke's measurements. Madisound sells the kit (with pre-built crossovers) for $380, which is a very good deal for what you're getting. The guys over at Madisound are also really great people to deal with and are generally very happy to help people who have trouble with their build.

 

[Ilkless]

It's a mixed bag, depending on what commercial speakers you are comparing to, the budget, form factor, your skill levels and how much you value your time.

DIY speakers:
- quicker to implement new bleeding-edge OEM drivers.
- more engineering-focused than the average boutique brand
- some very good kits allow cabinets with retail-level fit and finish even for beginners (see DIYSoundGroup/Parts Express/Creative Sound Solutions)
- (personal experience speaking) you could still end up ahead even if you commission a custom build from a specialist speaker cabinetmaker. In this case woodworking at least equal and can exceed retail offerings. Especially if you are in Europe. I have seen several German/Swiss cabinetmakers specialising in this niche.

Retail speakers:
- I would say a lower median performance than DIY, but higher peak performance for the small number of brands that practice evidence-based engineering with economies of scale, and are very meticulous - I'm talking about Revel, KEF, Genelec. Brands like these are able to use R&D and control over manufacturing not available to most DIYers to tweak the system as a whole. For instance, Genelec uses comparatively cheap Peerless drivers by DIY standards. Very good but not state-of-the-art. It is the entire system implementation (low-diffraction cast cabinet, seamless waveguide design, active XO) that makes them exceptional.
- cheaper in some cases because DIY has a lot of hidden, sunk costs associated to it.
- in some countries with an already small hi-fi market, DIY is a vanishingly small slice of that market, so pricing for parts may be unfavourable.

 

[H-713]

One advantage that I can see is that if you have the skills, you can design a speaker that is exactly what you want. The majority of the market generally seems to prefer a more "perfect" speaker like those made by Genelec or Revel, but that does not mean that everyone prefers that. After all, some rather, how should I put it, "interesting" speakers are very well-liked by some.

In a DIY speaker, if you know what you are doing, you can design it exactly the way you like it, taking all of your own preferences and your use case into consideration. Of course, this only works if you know exactly what you like and have the skills to achieve that.

 

[Phorize]

IME undertaking such a highly technical, specialist task as a layperson is a terrible route to a good product, but can be very rewarding if the outcome one is seeking is more about learning and the satisfaction of doing something for oneself. I’ve never built a speaker but I used to brew beer to a good standard. It took 000’s of hours of reading, experimenting and a huge amount of money to get repeatable, never mind optimal results. I hit a wall in the end where to improve more I would have had to have turned pro. The difference between a pro brewer and an outstanding amateur is vast. However, pro brewers can’t just wake up one morning and do a historical London stout or old ale that would literally cost orders of magnitude more per pint than a commercial beer. I’d imagine that speaker designing is similar, fun if you don’t take it too seriously, but a beautiful and possibly ruinous obsession for those who have the vision to pursue excellence. I buy my speakers ready made.

 

[H-713]

I think the difference with speakers is that a good amateur, armed with the correct tools and some reasonable background knowledge, can do very well. Whether they can compete with the very top of the market is up for debate, but it's well established that in the mid-price bracket, it can be very worthwhile so long as you don't mind taking the time to do it. If you're worried about the time involved, don't do it.

The high-end is where it gets complicated, and it depends on who the person doing this is. DIY equipment, both loudspeakers and electronics, can perform with the best of the best... but keep in mind, that it depends on who designed it. There are a good number of people on the diyaudio.com forum who are extremely smart. Many are physicists and engineers who build audio equipment as a hobby, others have worked in the pro-audio industry for decades.

Generally speaking, however, people who are into DIY audio projects are usually just as interested in the design and build process as they are in the usage of their gear. If you don't have an interest in either the construction or the engineering side of it, then I don't see as big an advantage.

Amir has only measured a few DIY speakers, and as far as I know they have all measured well for what they are. Two have gotten his recommendation, and the one that didn't (The Zaph ZA5) is a 5" 2-way optimized for midrange, and the measurements show that it performs well in that regard.

 

[SnoopKatt]

Lots of great comments here regarding DIY vs retail. One comment to add is that if you can buy a kit where the cabinets are pre-cut (e.g. C-notes), you won't need to go too crazy on buying/borrowing tools.

One kit I'd like to vouch for is the Solstice MLTL kit from Parts Express. It's not cheap ($560/speaker) but it's a great deal because you're basically getting the crossover components and the pre-cut cabinets for free. Unless you find a smoking deal on a second-hand pair of speakers, I don't think there's a better set of speakers you can get for anywhere close to the money. It has an exceptionally flat response, extremely low distortion, and responds down to 30 Hz.

https://www.parts-express.com/Solstice-MLTL-Reference-Tower-Speaker-Kit-300-708

 

[Colonel7]

Lots of great comments here regarding DIY vs retail. One comment to add is that if you can buy a kit where the cabinets are pre-cut (e.g. C-notes), you won't need to go too crazy on buying/borrowing tools.

One kit I'd like to vouch for is the Solstice MLTL kit from Parts Express. It's not cheap ($560/speaker) but it's a great deal because you're basically getting the crossover components and the pre-cut cabinets for free. Unless you find a smoking deal on a second-hand pair of speakers, I don't think there's a better set of speakers you can get for anywhere close to the money. It has an exceptionally flat response, extremely low distortion, and responds down to 30 Hz.

https://www.parts-express.com/Solstice-MLTL-Reference-Tower-Speaker-Kit-300-708

Do you know of any measurements for the Solstice, in-room or quasi-anechoic? I tried to find some awhile back but wasn't successful. It looks interesting

 

[SnoopKatt]

Do you know of any measurements for the Solstice, in-room or quasi-anechoic? I tried to find some awhile back but wasn't successful. It looks interesting

I thought Parts-Express had some but I don't see them posted anymore. I've been doing measurements, and tweaking the stuffing to get the bass response I like. I can post some tomorrow. It's just a UMIK-1 so don't expect anything of Amir's quality but I can definitely post an in-room response.

 

[Colonel7]

I thought Parts-Express had some but I don't see them posted anymore. I've been doing measurements, and tweaking the stuffing to get the bass response I like. I can post some tomorrow. It's just a UMIK-1 so don't expect anything of Amir's quality but I can definitely post an in-room response.

Thanks. When did you purchase? Seems they've been out of stock for a few months now with no predicted re-stock date.