DIY Speakers, worth the hassles?


Are DIY speaker kits as great as they claimed? I mean several places claim that thier products are as good as 5 to 10 times higher-priced brandname products. Are these true or if it's just a hype?

Say will $1500-2K DIY speaker kit are as good as 5-10K speakers? Or will the sub 1K kit be as good as 2-3K speakers?

Are there any real A/B test reports somewhere?

Also any real experiences from the real DIYers in the group would be really appreciated.

thanks,

ake
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.
Part of the DIY is the actual building. You want good results in the end, but I believe part of the reason to do DIY is so you can experience what it takes to build a good speaker and learn a lot about the building process.

Markup is what you are avoiding when doing DIY. There is no dealer, no advertising, no shipping fees. Except of course for the parts you need. But over all you aren't going to pay near as much for a DIY as you will a brand name speaker.

What it boils down to for me is, is it fun or not. If not, I wouldn't bother.
It's going to be hard to beat the GR Research Offerings.

The web site is www.gr-research.com

If you go to Audioasylum and do a search you'll find tons of information and some good reviews.