Question about building speakers

[hrtbeat2]

I'm very new at this Home/Audio stuff, and building as I go. I was thinking of doing my own center channel speaker with speakers I was going to buy. I was looking at using B&W 4inch with a pair of Dynaudio tweeters. Could I buy a box with these size openings and place the speakers in or will I need to buy a crossover also?

 

[Dan]

There is a lot more to building speakers than putting drivers in a box. Center channels can be especially tricky since they need to be reasonably well matched to the front speakers especially in the midranges. You don't say what your main speakers are. In addition, the speaker must be sheided if near a cathode ray tube or the magnets will mess up your picture.

If you are new to speaker building I recommend "speaker building 201" by Ray Alden available through www.partsexpress.com. The book goes through the physics in a reasonable manner if you have had math through trig and some physics of electronics. You can still manage it if you haven't. The book includes instructions for several types of speakers including a five channel set up and a subwoofer.

Speakers that sound good are a bit tricky but are certainly doable. I recommend that anyone jusst starting out adhere to a well proven design and gradually learn to modify with the experience gained.

 

[hrtbeat2]

Thanks, I really hadn't thought about it that way.

 

[hrtbeat2]

So are you saying with this book I could reproduce a speaker that is in the book including crossover configurations? I been doing some reading and I think that (crossover) would be the hardest part for me. I will give it a shot. if anyone has this book and they no longer are using it I would buy it off of them? Thanks again.

 

[Dan]

I haven't built them myself. They are tried and true designs worked out by professionals. Some are available in kit form if your woodworking skills and tools are limited. All of the drivers and crossover parts are available from reputable places like parts express and Madisound. The writer is a high school math (or physics?) teacher who also teaches a class in speaker building.

There are about eleven models including a 5 channel system, a subwoofer, a two way sealed box, at least two D'Appolito (MTM) designs, some ported three ways, a horn loaded model and some more complex three way two chamber designs.

The bulk of the book is theoretical and you will likely know a LOT more about speakers after reading it. I have loaned mine to my brother. It is only $24 at partsexpress.com.

There are other designs you can find on the net. My brother built a great sounding ported two way from an Ed Frias design. He built the crossover (it's basically a resistors and capicitors in parallel and in series.) Some fine tuning is required. He bought the boxes from a kit since his access to wood working tools is limited.

 

[nm2285]

I built my first pair of speakers over the summer using my own design. However, it seems that I had more knowledge of the concepts coming into the project than you do now and so I was comfortable with designing them myself (no offense of course). My design turned out great, but since you seem to be very new to everything, I agree in trying out a tried and true design. That way you'll have step by step instructions and all calculations are already done (crossover, box size...). Theres still plenty involved in the actual building and you can customize the looks anyway you want.

One suggestion I have is if you purchase your mains, you should also purchase your center to make sure they are tonally matched. Building your own could result in a center channel that sounds much different from the mains. If you want to build both the mains and the center, more power to you!

My speakers turned out great. Speaker building can be very rewarding, but you should have some knowledge and do plenty of research before you begin.

 

[hrtbeat2]

Thanks, As I was reading some info their was so much to try to understand and I'm so busy with my life and a baby on the way it would take up to much time. I recall in my younger days building a speaker box throwing in some 12" woofers and that was it. But thanks again for all the info. I'm just going to play around and redo my KLH speaker box.

 

[mustang_steve]

for what it's worth, check out the manual for the partsexpress.com BR1 kit, it's pretty much explaining why he chose what parts, and so on....it will give you a good idea of what to expect.

Oh, and that aprticular kit speaker sounds pretty darn good, I use those as my main listening speakers, and love em.

but as far as building your own...buy the drivers first, then decide what you want your speakers to do, and be ralistic about it...then you have to go through all kinds of math involving the characteristics of the drivers to determine where and what slop your crossover will be, the size of your cabinet, and if your crossover needs baffle step compensation, etc. It's far more than slapping a 3-1/2" car speaker into a carboard tube and seeing how much bass you can get out of it (one of my early experiments as a kid...that woofer actually caught fire as I put nearly 200w through it).

Either way, if your willing to take your time, start off small, and experiment a bit. The smaller tang band drivers are fun for starters since they really don't need a crossover, so are good to experiment with box designs, and such. Then you can move on to something like Dayton components and playing with making crossovers to get them to paly nicely...dayton is low enough cost that you can buy lots of em and not anger the wife too badly.

...from there, the sky's the limit!

 

[SQ Kid]

i've been getting into a lot of speaker building in the last year or so and found if its your first time, go with projects and designs that have already been made and tweaked. a couple good links are http://www.partsexpress.com/projectshowcase/homeaudio.html and www.diyaudio.com (they have tons of good projects and some nice ideas). i'll be building a couple of Wayne J's designs for my ht. one of the most important things to remember for home theater is getting similar (or identical) speakers all around. being on a college kid budget, i'm going with all dayton audio drivers.

now just gotta get building an amp for 4-ohm speakers, but that wont be too bad....