The most fun you can have in audio is DIYing your own speakers

Hey @pc ,

While I agree that DIY speakers can be huge cost savers, those conversations usually devolve into "but your speakers will never be as good as brand XYZ ... " 

What I will state unequivocally is that it is fun as hell. Whether you build better than a particular store brand or not. Every audiophile should do this at least once in their hobby lifetime.  You don't have to build "the best" or even expensive to have fun and feel like the journey was worthwhile.

Best,

E

I picked up my NADA cabinets from Lee Taylor yesterday . Spent this morning and afternoon building them . Now I am listening to them with amazement . They are magical with my VTL-100 . In my system they sit on top of a couple of REL Subs with 2 more in the back of the room a distributed bass system . The kit was not cheap but sometimes you pay you get . After break in and some more adjustments good things expected .

eigendr : 

Glad you are happy with them. :) 

Not sure why you are calling them expensive though, you have spent a fraction of the cost of what they would cost in a store. With the usual 10:1 driver markup, those would be $15k speakers.  You spent around $3k including cabinets. 

Best,

E

@riley804 

I wholeheartedly agree with Erik. Note an easier way to start and learn is to follow designs that have been proven to work well. There are many sites for this. You can look at, for example, www.troelsgravasen.dk (spelling?)
Take a look.
And have fun!

Another source for the pro player and in Canada, is... McBride:

https://mcbrideloudspeaker.com/home.php

As for the 10:1 markup thing, it does not exist. You start putting your true costs on the line for making a speaker and selling it to people, with all, I mean all of the steps required to do so and the imagined ratio quickly collapses.

As a single builder you don’t have to see those, location, infrastructure, labour, transportation, packaging and so on costs. It looks like a high number or ratio --- when it really is not. Not by a long shot.

If it was 10:1 there would be a lot more speaker manufacturers out there.... or world class speakers would cost a lot less to buy. No one leaves such money lying about without taking advantage in some way or another. Market forces have reduced pricing to as low as it will go and below that -- lies financial collapse.

Just like all other ~100 year old evolved markets. These arguments are as old as the audio hills.

In essence, please, build your own speakers and have fun doing it. But don’t falsely create the atmosphere that derides the manufacturers of quality audio speakers --as being some sort of rampaging profiteering takers of advantage. It’s simply not true. :)   The market has adjusted itself to a sharp mean over the past near 100 years of loudspeaker design, manufacturing, and sales.