- No, but I would like to learn how to, it's not like I have a deadline for building these speakers. Have any good guides
Well, for hands on experience, I recommend doing the two zaph designs I linked earlier, in consecutive order. The advantage of most zaph designs is how budget concious yet high performance they are. You might find other simple 2-ways out there, but they likely won't give you the same bang-for-buck.
The 3" full range will be very important as it can give you a foundation - woodworking skills, assembly, wiring, working with circuit board on the filter, and it'll be neutral. It's also dirt cheap - you could probably make a pair for less than 50 bucks for all materials. And it'll tide you over until you attempt another speaker because it'll sound better than what you've got. Don't be reluctant just because it's a single full range driver - they have their drawbacks, sure, but so does everything.
Then the small Zaph mini-monitor should let you learn a bit more about the real "crossover" concept. The KISS Principle applies! His documentation is very helpful in this regard! Further, it'll allow you to compare two small, cheap speaker designs that are fairly different. This alone should probably be exactly what you're looking for.
if however, you're interested in taking it to the next level.. at the same time, start to read up on books about speaker building theory in general.
Stuff written by guys like
Floyd E Toole
Earl Geddes
Ray Alden
Wayne Jasch
Joseph A. D'Appolito
David M. Howard / James Angus
Not all of them necessarily are going to be "right" for you, but at least some are. Don't like to read? Quit here! Once you've done all this, try your hand at assembling someone else's more complex crossover design and fully understanding the "why" as well as the "how".
A couple great designers with plans to follow include Seigfried Linkwitz, John Krutke, John Kreshovsky, Lou Corragio, Dennis Murphy, Roman J Bednarek, As I said before, i suggest any 3-way or otherwise complex crossover to at
least be after you've done a simple one.
Additionally, at this point you should start getting some speaker building tools (a quality router, WT3 woofer tester, SPL Meter), some modeling/simulation programs (I'm not saying you need to drop 1200 on a copy of LSPcad Pro or anything...i can't even figure out the demo for that program mind you!, but stuff like Unibox, winISD at least along with other programs like hornresp, martin j king's mathcad sheets, and akabak)
Once you can look at a complex crossover design you've assembled and manage to explain exactly the function of everything, THEN you can probably grab a pair of drivers and try your hand at a 2-way design (Maybe a d'appolito MTM). Chances are you'll still mess it up compared to a skilled designer but keep tweaking until it sounds right. Digital crossovers may help you in the desiging process, especially if you go the active route. Of course, getting advice as you go along on forums like here, partsexpress, madisound, avs, and diyaudio will definitely help too!
Stay away from pre-assembled crossovers every point of the
After you've designed and built your first 2-way speaker successfully, you'll probably end up attemping a 3-way design and either fail badly or fail gracefully... so good luck!
- I have a car amp that I use to power my current speakers (Kicker brand, model number IX252. I know that it isn't totally powerful, but it's powerful enough to play music pretty loudly). What are my other amp options? Can I get an inexpensive all in one amp with the same sound quality as my current setup?
It's not all about power especially if you're sitting right in front of it. I really do question using a car amp inside though - aren't thier power supplies made for DC? And I doubt they're designed for hi fidelity. I can't comment further on it but I suggest looking at something else if you're serious about this.
The gizmo amp i posted seems like a much better bet as it's actually made for home theater. A single one of those will drive any speaker to listenable near field levels... and it's inexpensive. 25 x 2 wpc might not cut it for a large room / home theater but it should be plenty for this purpose.
