While not exactly "dirt bag" type of products, i've found some great deals in various places for next to nothing.
One day at the local flea market netted me a pair of Genesis Physics speakers for $40. They were in excellent shape. The guy selling them to me said that they almost sound as good as Bose : )
On another occasion, an older gentleman that lives locally was complaining to me about his vacuum cleaner breaking and not having the money to buy a new one. I stopped by later that day with my old vacuum that i hadn't used in over a year. While i had intended on just handing it to him and saying "hope this helps, have a nice day", he insisted that i take something in trade. He said "i know that you're into electronics, so take these old speakers. I don't use them anymore, so you can put them to better use than i can". While i was curious as to what kind of Emerson, Electrovox or Sound Design type K-Mart speakers he'd come out of the back room with, i was amazed to see him carrying what looked like a pretty stout little speaker. As it turns out, he was giving me a pair of original Klipsch Heresy's that were in pretty darn good shape !!! Needless to say, it pays to be courteous and help your neighbors : )
My brother made some small "mini-towers" out of Pyramid car stereo drivers. The 5 1/4" mid-woofer was mounted near the top of a very slender ( about 6" wide ) baffle that was about 18" - 20" tall. The tweeter was mounted on top ala B&W and set slightly back to try to compensate for time alignment. The box was filled with fiberglass to simulate a larger box, absorb internal standing waves and damp cabinet resonance. He also used cloth on the top of the cabinet to damp / absorb reflections from the tweeter. He used a very simple crossover and angled the cabinet backwards to compensate for floor mounting. For less than $50 total, the "scrap box speakers" sounded quite good and imaged like crazy due to the small baffle area and free-standing tweeter.
He has since gone on to build a 14 driver / 12 box* speaker array that is quad-amped. Now do you see how much trouble and and expense DIY speaker building can get you into ??? : ) Sean
>
* all the drivers are in their own damped & sealed cylinders except for the 4 subwoofer drivers. Each cylinder houses two drivers that are running in push-pull to reduce distortion.
