DIY vs. In-Wall

[awesomebase]

I have just a quick question, though a big build-up to it. I've been reading a lot of material about DIY speaker designers and about how they go about building their speaker systems, tuning them, etc. and the thought kept coming to me about "built-ins" and true sound quality. I'm no expert, but I have to think that with all the work put in to good cabinet and XO design, how can you possibly make a speaker sound worse than a typical built in (with absolutely no cabinet and only the interior wall space serving as an enclosure)? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are plenty of ways to screw this up, especially where XO design is concerned, but I'm talking about putting together "compatible" parts (i.e. well matched drivers in two- or three-way designs) in a simple, but well-designed cabinet. Could it possibly be much worse than a typical built-in design? Or are the built-in designs doing something critical that I'm missing in this comparison?

 

[droeses58]

I am no expert in diy by any means, but all drivers have certain parameters [i.e t/s] and to get the most out of a particular driver you must design a box around that driver. Winisd is a pretty good program for doing that.

As far as picking out compatible drivers, what I think your after is to get 2 or 3 [or however many] drivers that blend well with each other, especially at the crossover point. I made the mistake of my first diy speaker attempt at choosing a two way design with an 8" woofer, It can be very hard to get a 8" to blend in with the tweeter because typically the bigger the woofer the less likely it will perform good at higher frequencies and that is were mine sounded terrible at moderate to high volumes.

If you want to do a diy speaker I would check out some projects that have already been done and copy them. Chech out parts express's project page they have some pretty decent ones their.

Again its all about creating as "flat" a response as you can, that's the hard part to diy. [at least to me]

 

[awesomebase]

Projects

I agree with your statement in terms of achieving a good balance and one definitely wants to get a good sound stage as well. My Klipsch's have an 8" woofer with a horn tweeter and I know what you mean about having enough "middle ground" to cover without being too bright.
I certainly intend on closely following a design or perhaps creating a design and having other more experienced designers evaluate it to provide recommendations for improvement. I guess my main point was trying to understand if, bearing all of these in mind and getting the proper drivers for the task, if it is really possible to have a speaker sound worse than built-in systems. My gut feeling is no, because we all know how those sound (just go to a show-room or one of those home-theaters in a house model). Having the proper tools goes a long way in creating a great product, but by the same token, not everybody is as discerning as many experts in this field. However, there is no substitute for experience and I'm going to continue checking out other projects to evaluate my options.

 

[droeses58]

What type of project are you interested in doing? i.e bookshelves, floorstanders, sattelites, sub?

 

[awesomebase]

Home Theater

I'm actually interested in doing a home theater system. It is a 7.2 configuration and if I can't do it myself, I'll probably go with Aperion speakers and maybe just try a DIY sub design. However, I'm still looking at simple pre-designed systems or DIY kits that could work as well. I don't want to make too much of a fuss, but I do want it to be something that has good sound and is physically attractive. I'm not a "professional" when it comes to audio, at least not where speakers are concerned. But, I do like working on projects and I do like learning all I can before taking on something important. I would probably spend about $3K on speakers and a sub from Aperion. I could add another $600 for an additional sub. I wouldn't mind building my own speakers for about 1/2 that amount if I could be fairly certain that they would work and put out decent sound. I'm pretty sure that I can get a good sounding speaker and I definitely know that I can make a great cabinet. My main weakness (and they are big ones) are:

• choosing a well-matched pair of drivers (i.e. tweeter and woofer)
• choosing/building an appropriate crossover
• ensuring that I don't over power the drivers with the receiver

I'm pretty sure I can build a good cabinet (though I would like the design to be analyzed before I build it). I'm not looking to get any fancy specs from the speakers, just good quality sound. That is my hope!

 

[awesomebase]

More Details

So, ideally in this 7.2 configuration, I would like to build the front speakers to be wall mounted. I thought about doing regular bookshelf speakers, but I would rather have something a little larger, just not floor-standing. It would probably need to be taller if I want to keep the depth shorter. I can make it so that the back is wider than the baffle and ensure that there are basically no 90 degree angles. I would like to go with a 1" tweeter and two 5.25" or two 6.5" woofers. Also, I would create the center speaker to match the fronts in terms of design. The subs would contain two 10" or 12" subwoofers in each cabinet and be front-firing. The surrounds would be bookshelf speakers, though, taller again because I would want to keep the depth shorter while still mainting most of the inner volume of the speaker. I wouldn't mind trying a dipole-type speaker and going with regular bookshelfs for the rears, but I'm not confident I would know how to do that. I'll be drawing them out in Visio or OmniGraffle just to satisfy my creative urge and to get an idea of what it will look like. I'll probably also price out some parts from PartsExpress to see if the cost is justified.