Is it time in your hobby to build a speaker kit?


Not to save money, but to learn what you are talking about. Get your hands dirty. Touch all the parts. Can you screw? Can you solder? Want to experience something most of your audiophile friends never will?


Try out these sites:
www.madisound.com
https://meniscusaudio.com/
www.solen.ca

http://www.taylorspeakers.com/

https://greatplainsaudio.com/

Do this to have fun. Do this to roll your own crossover out of exotic Teflon and copper foil.

Best,

Erik
erik_squires
or you could just modify an existing speaker by modifying its crossover preferably using an active one. 
I'm intrigued by the idea. Have done a bit of research.

And agree with you, it shouldn't really be about saving money because the good kits are damn expensive.

I'm a DIY sort of guy and would like to do this one day. I'm probably more interested in the cabinet/wood work. I would want the appearance to be something special. Not fancy or odd, just well done.

The thing is, most of my DIY'ing is to meet a need. And I don't need speakers right now.

Its on my list of possible 'to dos'.
Yeah, I have built an amp, transmission line, ESL, turntable, interconnects, equipment rack, and distributed bass array subwoofer system. Each time it was to fill a specific need. Same with mods- speakers, crossovers. I never just built or modded anything for the fun of it or just to be tinkering.

My experience has been so good I would highly recommend DIY. About the only thing I would add is to carefully consider and understand your reasons for DIY. There’s a million reasons, all pretty much equally valid. But there’s great wisdom in the phrase, Know thyself. If your reason is to save money you can do that. Totally. Guaranteed. No problem. If your reason is to make something to fit your particular requirements- whether size, color, shape, or whatever- perfect, go for it. Just be clear and honest and don’t go kidding yourself. Be realistic.

About the only DIY yellow flag I would throw is if you think you’re gonna make something like an interconnect, power cord or speaker cable. For some reason people think this is easy. Well, its easy in terms of assembling and soldering. Getting the signal from A to B is just not that hard. Winding up with something that sounds better than what you could have bought for your parts money, that I’m here to tell you just ain’t happening.

Everything else, go for it. Time well spent. Even if you ignore me and try and build some cables, you will learn something. About how hard it is to beat the pro’s. But still, something.

@n80, GR Research sounds perfect for you. Danny Richie supplies the drivers, x/o parts, enclosure damping material, connectors, hardware, etc. He leaves the enclosure to the customer, providing he or she (yeah sure ;-) the internal cu.ft. volume required for the speaker design you order.

As you are content with your speakers (for now ;-), take a look at his subwoofer designs. He developed them in partnership with Brian Ding of Rythmik Audio, and they are something special. Sealed and OB/Dipole, both with Rythmik’s Servo-Feedback circuitry, and Danny’s paper-cone version of the Rythmik 12" aluminum cone-woofer. He provides the plans for his 2 cu.ft. enclosure design for the woofer, both a normal sealed version, and one with double walls, the space between them intended to be filled with sand, for damping of the enclosure walls. Advanced subwoofers designed not for home-theater use, but for music.

DIY is great stuff! I've built a few tube amps, and enjoyed doing that quite a bit