To Buy or to DIY, here is my question

carlsbad,

There are some in this hobby that believe if you spend more it must be better. 

I've been using power tools since I was very young so I have a great appreciation for having the skill set to build your own speakers. 

With what I do for a living,  using power tools is not even an option. It's a different skill set but nonetheless equally satisfying to use a 40 hp router and create parts with such a tight tolerance is very rewarding to experience. 

I'm building speakers cabinets with Panzerholz and making my own footers on CNC lathe. I've never seen a commercial speaker mention or show locking 45 miter joints but building an entire cabinet with this complex joint is a learning curve for sure.

Panzerholz is so dense I tap a thread into the wood to take a machine screw like you would tap metal, I do this for all the drivers instead of screwing a wood screw into MDF as commercial speakers offer. 

All my bits are carbine not carbine tip as this wood will tear them up if not. 

In college I wanted speakers that rocked the campus (off). So I researched and found the perfect sized enclosure (like 5’ tall, 3’ deep an 4’ wide… just small enough to fit through a door. 2” x 4’ reinforced. Designed for Voice of the Theater 15” woofers. 1973 (?). Glued and screwed. I couldn’t lift them. They would have been fantastic… not audiophile… loud with great bass. I ran out of money before I could buy the speakers. Big boxes in 1973 , we’ll not audiophile… but loud. That is the limit my wood working interest.

I couldn’t produce the set of Sonus Fabre Amati Traditional if my life depended on it. Building a set of speakers that sound better than $500 of the shelf… I could do that.

Please post your results.  I'd love to hear these when you're done. 

@chorus first step, head over to the DIY forums, very limited experience here.  

IF you are an extra-hands-on type person and normally build things yourself at home, with good plan/design/specs, go DIY and build it yourself. Madisound sources specs from the driver manufacturers, which helps. Check out Troels too, http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Diy_Loudspeaker_Projects.htm 

If wood making is not for you, source a local cabinet woodworking shop to build you furniture grade enclosures, and wind up with much better parts, better results, better enclosures, at half the cost of new. Buy all top the shelf drivers if you proceed. All new parts! You won't look back with high quality diy keeper-speakers, and less likely to resale them later. Can be very rewarding. Best of luck.     

WAF. And where are you going to build them? Clear it all with your family first - that's the MOST important consideration. With support, joy - without support, pain and more pain. Trust me on this.

If you decide to procede: ScanSpeak makes a lot of different speakers, but I expect that they don't all play nice together. If you get good advice and buy high quality drivers, chances are that you are building to a very high standard. If you buy high quality caps, like styrene or teflon, ditto. But - you may not be used to sound of that quality, and may not recognize it. The sound should be smooth and get better hour after hour.

Then it's 'only' a matter of cabinets and crossover design. As mentioned, expect to spend a lot of time, years, before it sounds as you want it to. But it's fun, it's educational, and you MAY end up with speakers that you couldn't possibly afford otherwise. That's what happened with my modified ESL speakers, my DIY electronics, and my DIY turntable. I was lucky, and I planned and calculated and planned some more.

Remember: WAF, WAF, WAF. Then you can start planning.