Building custom speakers without a design

Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Both books cover the basic information, but I think that Ray Alden's book is written more clearly and would recommend it over Vance Dickason's for that reason.

Alden's first 2 or 3 chapters tell all about how to figure out what volume cabinet to build for a given woofer. There are separate chapters for sealed and ported or bass reflex cabinets. It explains how to calculate the cabinet volume, and how to predict the bass response depending on the woofer's electro-mechanical parameters, the Thiele/Small parameters. These methods are tried and true. They've been understood for over 30 years, and they take the guess work out of designing the lower bass response. It takes some math, but no more than high school algebra. Once you understand what's going on, there are calculating programs available on-line to do the math quickly for you.

Please take some friendly advice, and hold off on the idea of using pre-made crossovers. They will not get the job done correctly.

One of the best things about DIY speaker building is that you find out how little money good speakers can cost. $500 per speaker is, in my opinion, a lot more than you need to spend for really excellent speakers. For about $500 a pair (not counting woodwork), you could build some truly excellent speakers.

If you are seriously curious, I'll be glad to talk with you. Get started with the Ray Alden book first and get the basics out of the way.
 
jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
Before one embarks on building a speaker one needs to learn what a good speaker is. One can not build a speaker if one has not a clue as to what a good speaker is supposed to sound like in the first place. One should learn to take the advice one is given and not embark on fools journey of becoming a speaker builder when one has only less than rudimentary knowledge. If at last one reads, one learns and one takes the advice one is given and graduates from high school then some day one may embark into the world of speaker building. At this point in time however, one is trying to put the cart before the horse and the horse does not even have shoes on its feet yet.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
well i really dont understand why i am getting attacked, but i will get and read the books and just experiment. and i do have some idea about how much this will cost me, its going to be around 500 a speaker minimum, and i am planning to use pre-built crossovers. secondly i am cooling it and learning, someone suggested i post and ask about about building my own speakers, so i did, i am learning obviously.

and for the last time, this does not qualify as trolling.
If you are going to build a credible speaker like you envision, you will be in for a minimum of 10K at the minimum, not $500.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
this is why i am going to get the books, read them, then go from there.
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
Your speaker...

Has already been done by John 'Zaph' Krutke.

Check out his SB12.3 at Madisound.

Good place to start...
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
If you are going to build a credible speaker like you envision, you will be in for a minimum of 10K at the minimum, not $500.
Jeez- with that view, I wonder why people bother to get out of bed in the morning.

Give the guy some encouragement and useful information. You have posted about small speakers that you built- should I assume they were all perfect the first time? Your first attempt was better than what was commercially available, right?
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
i calculated the price and including lumber and tools it will be 500 a speaker
 
Seth=L

Seth=L

Audioholic Overlord
I'm going to stand up for yepimonfire (Jonathan) here and state that I do not believe he is a troll.

Alex, TLS Guy, Jamie, Isiberian, Swerd, and anyone else accusing him of being a troll just because he started this thread is ignorant to the reason the thread was started. I told him that he should start the thread so he could learn from the responses. Your responses, aside from parts of TLS Guy and Swerds' posts are deconstructive, rude, misplaced, un-called for, and from reading the posts on this thread and other threads he got slammed for it seems this all stems from intolerance toward Jonathan because he posts a lot and he defends his Sony speakers. It's perfectly reasonable for him to defend the speakers he owns, he likes them. I've been talking to him about reducing the amount of seemingly pointless posting like the thread about Klipsch.

What you have to remember is that when I joined AudioHolics I was as about the same age as Jonathan and had about as many pointless and incorrect information spewing from my posts. I learned because I was allowed to stay (thank the admin/mods). Not tooting my own horn, but I'm fairly certain many of you respect my knowledge and helpfulness in certain areas. I'm certainly no expert with speaker design, but I can see that Jonathan doesn't necessarily have all the pieces when it comes to designing and building speakers, but he does genuinely want to learn. He wouldn't have asked if he didn't want to.

All that said, I request that the insinuations that Jonathan (yepimonfire) is a troll come to a close.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
Let me help you with that.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/search.php?searchid=4400033

So everybody is off the mark except you? ... :confused: ... Gotcha. :rolleyes:

EDIT: krzywica and nibhaz have shown there support as well ... I submit that you take a look at his post history to disclose true rudeness to my BFFF Jerry Love, general bad info and contentiousness. I hate being singled out or accused of being party to an uncalled for witch hunt.
 
Last edited:
JohnA

JohnA

Audioholic Chief
I second the TriTrix kit...

It would be a very good starting point to get into speaker building, and they are a very good sounding set of speakers for the price. Also Check out the Tech Talk forum, you will get a lot of help there and how to go about getting started. One thing to note is that a 4-way design or even a 3-way might be biting off more than you can chew at this point in time, they are hard to design right. Keep it simple and try a 2-way.
 
JohnA

JohnA

Audioholic Chief
I second the TriTrix kit...

It would be a very good starting point to get into speaker building, and they are a very good sounding set of speakers for the price. Also Check out the Tech Talk forum,

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/

you will get a lot of help there and how to go about getting started. One thing to note is that a 4-way design or even a 3-way might be biting off more than you can chew at this point in time, they are hard to design right. Keep it simple and try a 2-way.
 
J

jamie2112

Banned
I never said he was a troll.Nope not me....I just think he needs a dose of reality thats all........it seems as though he got it....
 

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