DIY Speakers

Most definitely MADISOUND!

If you can follow directions and are reasonably dexterous - get any of the Linkwitz OB speaker kits (e.g. Orion, or LX521, etc.), assemble them and treat yourself to sound that rivals the best available at any price!  

Really!

Raw drivers from Solen. That's 'stolen.ca'.

Just put together a sub using a Scanspeak (Danish - Scandinavian Speaker) Revelator 4557. Their prices are in Canadian $, so subtract a quarter. That's about $400 for a tremendous speaker: fast, articulate.

I judge a speaker, in part, by how well it differentiates similar frequencies. The 4557 easily discriminated 35Hz from 32, about a tone, which is what I want working with (and not against!) a system of planars.

Something else about Solen - They are a really great company which supports their customers. I just told them about a faulty item yesterday afternoon. Today they emailed me a transaction report for a 100% REFUND.

Now that's a quality company. Why buy elsewhere when you've got a choice like that?

I'll add my vote for GR-Research and Madisound.

GR has kits that deliver pretty amazing performance with high quality parts, starting at a few hundred dollars. I've lived with the NX-Oticas for about 16mo now, and I've very impressed with the overall performance. In my fairly large listening room, they deliver a deep, wide soundstage with excellent detail, dynamics and tone.

For a total investment of about $7K (including a pair of 3 driver servo open-baffle subs) and 40-50 hours of time, they deliver the best sound I've had in any system I've owned which have included several Magnepans and Revels (up to the Studios) and Duntech Sovereigns. 

My experience with Madisound is pretty dated at this point, but they provided good value and fast shipping. I never had an issue so can't comment on how they deal with problems.

Oh, and for the subwoofer DIYer, Rythmik offers some of their models as kits. The kit includes a plate amp and driver(s), you build the enclosure (or H-frame for the OB). The cool thing about that is, in the case of the F15HP model, the factory enclosure is 3cu.ft. (to keep shipping costs down). Brian Ding recommends a 4cu.ft. enclosure to produce the F15HP’s maximum possible output.

GR Research provides enclosure plans for his F12G sub, and both H-frame and W-frame plans for the OB sub, all viewable on the company website.