DIY Speakers, worth the hassles?

The results you get are very good, if you have a good design, good drivers and crossovers, and execute it well. If you fall short in any of these areas, you have crap. I have designed, built, and lived with many DIY speakers for going on 30 years now. I have definitely had some pieces of crap. The ones I have now are glorious. I have even had ones where I salvaged the drivers and electronics, and burned the lousy boxes I made that sounded like crap. Then, I sold the rotten sounding drivers and hardware that someone had told me were good for my project. That was a 3-way B&W 801 clone. Probably lost about $300 on that one. Another fiasco was a horn loaded 3-way that didn't match up with driver sensitivities. A horrid mess. Then I got smart and started learning what I needed to know. Amazing how much better things started sounding. I made a nice pair of 2-ways for my mother's system that sounded alot like the old B&W DM601. Probably a little better on the bottom end. However, the Dalesford 1" dome tweeter was a little grainy, and I could't afford the ScanSpeak that I should have gotten. I had finally got my crossover and driver matching skills. I made a 12db/octave crossover on that one that was perfectly matched to the drivers and was pretty seamless sounding. That was 20 years ago. If I could give you some advice, I would say go with top quality drivers for the design you have in mind. If the drivers aren't up to the task, it won't matter how perfect you do everything else, you'll be stuck in mid-fi land. Also, keep it simple. A good 2-way mini-monitor is a good place to start. Make your own crossover networks. Don't buy some generic crossover and expect it to work like it should. Finally, if your effort sounds like crap, remember that TWL had his first few speakers sound like crap too. That might make you feel a little better. It's the first step on a long road. Good luck!

I should have said that I am interested in the DIY kits from various companies. Are they really that great as they claimed?

ake

Ake,

Check out this site:
http://www.lowtherspeakers.com/lowther.html
If you would like to get it pretty darn close on the first try I would look closely at these. Based on what you have posted here previously you will love these with tubes. Also, if you ever want to upgrade the cabinets, such as Twl's design, the drivers would be a drop-in into new cabinets. I'm considering this myself.

Good luck,
Patrick

HeY Ake, in about 2 weeks i'll have a 3 way designed and built by Rick Craig, Selah Audio, a member over at Madisound. Seas W22+Accuton C79+RT8P. I choose the Seas and Philips ,Rick choose the C79. He's using superior xover parts. So i should have them up and running and will post the review. Yes kits are a good alternative to the commercials, but for lack of time and more importantly the experience, i prefer to have a designer do the work.

Just wondering, Tweekerman, how much they charge more for the shipping??