Do It Yourself Speakers

Just spent months studying and let me assure you that Elizabeth hit the nail on the head. This is no easy chore if you want to have something that sounds good. It could easily cost you more than buying some premade speakers. It's way complicated. I started out wanting to build a world beater. I am going to start with a two way and see how it goes. These will be surrounds so and will cost out of pocket around 600, at least that is what I am guessing, crossovers can get expensive if things don't work out and the theoretical is usually wrong so more expensive parts must be bought. Check out the Parts Express site for diy: http://www.pesupport.com/cgi-bin/config.pl?index
Lots of good info. Ask questions and read before you spend your money. Kits are a good way to go too. I didn't realize how complex they are even though I had a much better idea than most people.Cheers

For many years speaker building was like instrument building, an art, not a science. Now we have science, which makes the task seem very difficult, but while the science is of interest, and worth study, its existence does not prevent anyone from doing it the old way, as an art.

You can get started by imitation of a design that you think sounds good. Buy some quality drivers to play with. Build functional enclosures to experiment with, and save the fine furniture carpentry for your final design. Get an electronic crossover and biamp so that you can easily adjust crossover parameters.

Most of all, enjoy the work. "To travel hopefully is better than to arrive".

I have built a pair of North Creek Okara II's, a Vision Center channel, and am currently finishing a pair of Vision mains. The North Creek kits are outstanding and sound fantastic to me, so much smoother than anything else I've been able to compare them with. If you are of intermediate woodworking skills, I highly recommend the Visions for HT or the Rhythyms for 2 channel. The toughest part is the finish so they look pretty. North Creek takes care of making them sound great for you.

Steve

Im fixing to embark on my first speaker building venture as well.

I plan to use a set of 6.5in peerless drivers with some top-mounted tweeter. I plan tot unr the box to about 50Hz to give a nice deep full range.

Here is a good book,

Designing, Building, and Testing your Own Speaker System
By David B Weems

I reccommend reading that before you try anything. There are alot of considerations, but as long as yer not a total moron it is not too hard to understand, and it will save you alot of money and materials by preventing you from making some real stupid mistakes.

Loudspeaker Cookbook by Vance Dickson is pretty good too.

You will need some baisc understanding of w2oodworking as well. Back when i was in the military i used to use the base hobby shop quite a bit. Now im out and still working on getting a good woodshop going. Just need a table-saw at this point and im ready to go.

For speaker parts check out
Madisound. They can send you a catalog of all thier wares, they have about 10 driver manufacturers listed in thier catalog with all kinds of misc stuff, even a xover service to design a cross over for you if you are not ready to tackle that yourself just yet

Good luck dude.

I plan on building my own amps, cables, speakers, and pre-amp. The only thing i dont plan cause it is just plain too hard is the CDplayer and FM tuner.

Im gonna keep pics posted with my results. You should do the same.

Try out the Linkwitz Orions (www.linkwitzlab.com). Plenty of others working on this design and they are among the finest speakers I have ever heard, price no object. You'll be hard pressed to find a more well supported DIY project or a better soudning speaker.