Why build speakers?

[Buckle-meister]

All,

Over time I've seen various threads about folk who're thinking of, or are in the process of building their own speakers.

I appreciate that some want to do so purely out of enjoyment of DIY and others to better understand how speakers work; I myself fall within the latter category.

These are fine reasons to build speakers. However, I can't quite fathom how anyone, barring those who truly know what they're doing, expects to make a speaker (assuming it's not simply a kit) of comparable (or better) sound quality to that made by a manufacturer. After all, a manufacturer does this for a living.

I'm pretty sure that there's more to building speakers than simply purchasing high quality drivers and fitting them within a cabinet. I've seen it written that crossover design forms an important part of, and influences the sound of the speakers. However, unless I'm mistaken, most people do not test their completed designs in an anechoic chamber, nor measure the completed speaker's performance.

Assuming this to be true (correct me if I'm wrong), isn't the building of speakers an iterative process of design, manufacture and measurement? Thus, in terms of sound quality, aren't these people wasting their time? If they don't measure their completed speakers performance, aren't they effectively relying on blind luck that the speaker they build will exhibit the desireable qualities of a quality loudspeaker?

 

[Audioholics]

I would hope that first-timers do it merely as a hobby and for enjoyment, but I have talked to people who think the first speaker they ever built is much better than anything they could buy at twice the price... Now, this may be true, but it also may not be. Rarely do I hear of people building speakers with anything other than their ears as measurement guides.

But if you're happy (and the wife's happy) - I suppose that should be good enough!

 

[Swerd]

Buckle-Meister

I fall into a similar category as yourself, I wanted to understand what made speakers sound so different.

...However, I can't quite fathom how anyone, barring those who truly know what they're doing, expects to make a speaker (assuming it's not simply a kit) of comparable (or better) sound quality to that made by a manufacturer. After all, a manufacturer does this for a living.

I'm pretty sure that there's more to building speakers than simply purchasing high quality drivers and fitting them within a cabinet. I've seen it written that crossover design forms an important part of, and influences the sound of the speakers. However, unless I'm mistaken, most people do not test their completed designs in an anechoic chamber, nor measure the completed speaker's performance.

Assuming this to be true (correct me if I'm wrong), isn't the building of speakers an iterative process of design, manufacture and measurement? Thus, in terms of sound quality, aren't these people wasting their time? If they don't measure their completed speakers performance, aren't they effectively relying on blind luck that the speaker they build will exhibit the desireable qualities of a quality loudspeaker?

Your points are very good. To make a good design, you do have to know what you are doing. That includes having good measuring equiptment and software, and knowing how, and how not, to use them. It also helps to have wide experience in what the many commercially available drivers sound like. That's why I don't try to make my own designs. I rely on accomplished amateur designers. There are plenty of good ones on the internet. I think of it like cooking. Many people can cook well, but there are much fewer true chefs. A good cook can understand and modify recipes from cookbooks to make them work under different conditions, but a chef creates new recipes.

There is another reason for making DIY speakers that you didn't mention - price. In the USA retail prices of manufactured speakers are marked up significantly. The DIY speakers, that I know in detail, cost about 3 to 5-fold less than any commercially made equivalent speakers sold in retail stores.

Believe it or not, many commercial speaker builders, especially the large companies that aim for the low and medium priced markets fail to produce a crossover as good as many amateurs can design themselves. The pressure to keep their prices low forces some unfortunate compromises. They have to make a profit in a very competetive world, whereas amateur designers don't have to worry about that.

I started by reading. I recommend Speaker Builder 101 by Ray Alden. There is another book available, The Loudspeaker Cookbook by Vance Dickason, but I found that author's writing style difficult to understand. Both books cover the basic material, but Alden presents things more clearly.

There are quite a few DIY speaker designers with their own websites who publish designs that they have worked on, tested, modified, and retested before they are satisfied. I have built several of their designs - they are not kits, but they are like recipes from a cookbook - and have been very happy with the results. The DIY designers that I would recommend are:

Dennis Murphy http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=main.html He is my personal favorite.

Lou Coraggio http://www.lonesaguaro.com/speakers/ Lou Coraggio has some very interesting designs, although I've never heard them. His woodworking skills look very good. That's always something to strive for.

Wayne Jasche http://www.speakerbuilder.net/web_files/default.htm He has some articles on his site that helped me learn quite a lot when I was starting. See his article titled "Finding the Optimum Crossover Frequency". His designs tend to use less expensive Dayton drivers.

Roman J Bednarek http://www.rjbaudio.com/ Like Dennis Murphy, Roman likes paper coned drivers and textile tweeters. The more I read of his stuff, the more interested I am in his designs. He seems to like drivers that I have heard and know that I like. I am especially interested by his Asterion design.

John Krutke http://www.zaphaudio.com/ John Krutke, on the other hand, loves metal coned drivers. He also has a lot of test data that can be interesting, although some of it is above my head.

All of the above write well and present reliable info in a form that I can easily understand. All of them test their designs carefully both by computer modeling and by real world listening. Note that all of the above designers are in the USA and tend to use drivers and parts available in this country.

Troel Gravesen http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Diy_Loudspeaker_Projects.htm is also very good and is in Denmark. The parts he uses may be more easily obtained by you in the UK.

All of these guys, except Wayne Jasche, will answer your questions if you email them, or if you post on the Madisound discussion board http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/discuss.cgi, or the Parts Express Tech Talk forum. These forums are the best DIY speaker builder hangouts on the internet.

 

[highfihoney]

Im a pretty decent builder & have a well stocked work shop with most the tools needed to build a quality pair of speakers,ive seriously thought about building my own line array's from a set of plans i have & using all off the shelf parts,after i totaled up the cost of wood,drivers,xovers,wiring & veneer it wasn't that much cheaper than buying a new pair of speakers of comporable quality,all this is not even taking into consideration the resale value of a home built speaker is just about zero.

Other than the pride of building your own speakers or the fun factor of it all it building your own makes no real sense to me.

 

[jonnythan]

I know a guy who is *super* into building his own speakers.

First of all, he's excellent with the materials, and the speakers he builds are absolutely gorgeous.

Second, he loves the process of designing a speaker.

The speakers he designs and constructs for hundreds of dollars really do have no equal in terms of looks and construction unless you're spending many thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. I can't vouch for the sound, as I haven't done any direct comparisons, but he (and the other members of the DIY community) absolutely swear that the audio quality from these speakers is as good as anything else out there. I believe them.

It's not like these guys are clueless compared to the designers at a company like Ascend or whatever. They work with real data, real measurements, well-understood design principles, etc. These things are seriously high quality.

This is almost like asking why build a piece of fine furniture when you can go to a furniture store and buy one.

I am a total amateur, but I built my own subwoofer for just over $300 whose output would rival commercial subwoofers costing over twice as much. I'd love to learn to get into some woodworking and build my own speakers some day.

 

[Swerd]

Im a pretty decent builder & have a well stocked work shop with most the tools needed to build a quality pair of speakers,ive seriously thought about building my own line array's from a set of plans i have & using all off the shelf parts,after i totaled up the cost of wood,drivers,xovers,wiring & veneer it wasn't that much cheaper than buying a new pair of speakers of comporable quality,all this is not even taking into consideration the resale value of a home built speaker is just about zero.

Other than the pride of building your own speakers or the fun factor of it all it building your own makes no real sense to me.

Your comments about the cost benefit of building DIY speakers seem to conflict with mine. Line arrays (with how many drivers?) differ quite a bit in cost from more standard 2-way or even 3-way designs that I had in mind when I compared costs.

I do agree that choices in the veneer and finish can run up the cost by a lot!

 

[sploo]

Largely just backing up what Swerd has already written, but from my experience, it is a very cost effective way of getting good sound (assuming you are already a talented designer of crossovers and selector of drivers, or, as in my case, buy a design/kit from a good source).

My understanding (having spoken to a few ppl in the industry) is that in the commercial world, the cost of the enclosure forms a very large part of the street price of a speaker. Handling, shipping and displaying large, heavy, boxes of air is pretty costly.

I was once told that a pair of speakers retailing at 1000GBP would be likely to have as little as 150GBP worth of drivers and crossover.*

As the difference in cost between excellent and mediocre drivers is often not that great (few hundreds of GBP) you could sell a great speaker for not much more than an average one. A vendor will therefore add a price premium to better speakers, in order to sell the cheaper units, and create a perception that the better unit really is that much better.

You can therefore buy those great drivers, a few cheap panels of MDF, and make something great for relatively little money.

Do a search for "ProAc Response 2.5" - you'll find quite a few DIY copies, which can be built for hundreds of USD, whereas the original sold for thousands.

* I don't have any definitive references to back that up, but I'd love to know if it's true.

 

[Buckle-meister]

...I have talked to people who think the first speaker they ever built is much better than anything they could buy at twice the price... Now, this may be true, but it also may not be. Rarely do I hear of people building speakers with anything other than their ears as measurement guides.

Exactly. I'll not put you on the spot by asking you, but in a world where (manufactured) speakers are tested so as not to rely on fallible human perception, logic would tend to dictate that the placebo effect is in full swing for the above individuals.

...if you're happy (and the wife's happy) - I suppose that should be good enough!

I absolutely agree, and I'd like to stress that in no way am I putting down anyone who's made, or currently is making their own speakers. All I'm querying here is sound quality.

In the USA retail prices of manufactured speakers are marked up significantly. The DIY speakers, that I know in detail, cost about 3 to 5-fold less than any commercially made equivalent speakers sold in retail stores.

The pressure to keep their prices low forces some [manufacturers to make] unfortunate compromises. They have to make a profit in a very competetive world, whereas amateur designers don't have to worry about that.

True, but considering both the above quotes, would you then agree that the advantages offered by DIY speakers, namely as good as or better performance than equally priced manufactured speakers, diminishes as price increases?

...I built my own subwoofer for just over $300 whose output would rival commercial subwoofers costing over twice as much.

I believe you, but with all due respect there's more to subwoofer design than extension. Have you measured your sub? If not, how do you know that the frequency response isn't all over the place?

 

[sploo]

IMHO sound quality is about good drivers (good on and off axis response, low distortion etc.), how well the crossover integrates the drivers together, and with the enclosure (smoothing off resonant peaks, working well with the baffle size etc.), and the quality of the enclosure construction (dense, solid).*

A great many speakers I've seen use thin chipboard or some other similarly poor material to save on weight, thus sacrificing density and rigidity.

As I said, you can buy the good drivers, a well designed cross over and make a box to a plan, using some nice dense MDF. Assuming the designer knew what he was doing, I can't see how you can go far wrong.

* Your room makes a difference too, but you already know that.

 

[jonnythan]

I believe you, but with all due respect there's more to subwoofer design than extension. Have you measured your sub? If not, how do you know that the frequency response isn't all over the place?

It's on the list of things to do, certainly. However, many people have built subs very similar to mine using the same components and *have* measured them. I'm not just making this stuff up because I want it to be true

My particular sub may or may not be up to snuff, but that's purely because of my (lack of) building skill. And it was my first ever project.

 

[Buckle-meister]

A great many speakers I've seen use thin chipboard or some other similarly poor material to save on weight, thus sacrificing density and rigidity.

Hmm, yes, that reminds me of something else that's always confused me. As far as I'm aware, MDF isn't that expensive, at least not compared to similar panels of, say, Teak etc. Why then aren't more speakers made with, say, 1" thick MDF? Especially with regard to manufacturers who, at the end of the day, surely buy in bulk and hence can obtain the material at an even lower cost.

...you can buy the good drivers, a well designed cross over and make a box to a plan, using some nice dense MDF. Assuming the designer knew what he was doing, I can't see how you can go far wrong.

Yes, but I'm not talking here about 'kit' speakers.

I'm not just making this stuff up because I want it to be true

I don't doubt it.

 

[sploo]

Why then aren't more speakers made with, say, 1" thick MDF? Especially with regard to manufacturers who, at the end of the day, surely buy in bulk and hence can obtain the material at an even lower cost.

I'd expect a great many (most??) high-end speakers are made of MDF (or plywood) and have a wood veneer.

The problems with MDF are that its density makes it very heavy, so it's not just the finished box that weighs a lot, the handling of the sheets during manufacture is cumbersome (and therefore costly). In addition, the dust produced by cutting MDF is really nasty. OK, so a lot of hardwood dust is dangerous too...

Yes, but I'm not talking here about 'kit' speakers.

I guess it depends on what end of the spectrum you're looking at... buying a kit may be at one end, but someone would be pretty optimistic if they just expected to buy drivers and chuck them in a box and get a great result.

Having said that, with a little time and effort, I'd think there's a reasonable chance you could match a commercial speaker with a self designed effort - given that you could buy much better drivers than those in the commercial unit (for the same money).

 

[stratman]

Fiberboard comes in different specs: Light, Medium (standard), High and Ultra-High (very especialized).

High Density 1.6-8mm Thick. 53 to 70 lbs. per cubic foot,

Medium Density 1/8"-2" Thick.


Light Density 20% lighter than Med.

Also one is available that's moisture resistant. I soaked a 4x6 inch piece for 24 hours completely submerged in water, after 24 hours it only grew 1/16", plywood would have swollen to a greater degree. Also in manufacturing, fiberboards don't chip like plywood due to it's composition. Wilson Audio has a very precise (expensive) CNC machine to work on their speakers, they work with very thick MDF looking for the most amount of damping. Look at how much wilson speakers weigh.

 

[Hi Ho]

I built my own speakers. I new a bit about enclosure design but I new nothing about the technical aspects of designing a crossover.

The first crossover I used in my speakers was THIS. It was a very basic and generic design that camr from the PE website.

After a few months using that crossover I decided I needed to change it. The speakers simply didn't sound right. They were too shrill and lacked in the midrange.

It was on the AudioKarma Forum that I found people who had the know-how and the willingness to help me design a new crossover specifically for the drivers I had. The new design can be seen HERE. The improvement in sound was simply unbelievable.

I have taken my speakers to work and compared them to speakers from Paradigm and B&W ranging in price from several hundered to well over $2,000. I'd say my speakers hold their own against all of them. This wasn't a blind test and there was definetely some bias here but I would take my DIY speakers over any of the sub $1000 speakers that are in the store. I will definetely be doing more DIY projects in the future. I hope to learn more about designing crossovers so I can do it on my own.

The finished (for now) setup

Speaker Gallery

Subwoofer Gallery

 

[Buckle-meister]

The first crossover I used in my speakers was...

Oh Hi-Ho ...what on earth is this? It's terrible!

Just kidding!

The new design can be seen HERE.

Much better. Seriously though, I'm always struck by how basic crossovers look. This of course tends to make me think that they must therefore be really simple things.

I appreciate that I'm wrong.

 

[Hi Ho]

Hahaha, yeah that was some pretty high end soldering on that old one wasn't it. I wouldn't call the new one real pretty either but it does it's job. I used those copper crimp connectors, then soldered. The connections are solid, the crossovers are inside the speakers never to be seen again.

Crossovers really aren't that complicated. Desinging them and getting them right can be complex and time consuming but I would think that it is best to have the fewest number of components to get the job done. More components than necessary can create potential sound degration.

The total cost of the old crossovers, I believe, was under $15 for two speakers. When I ordered the parts for the new crossovers for all three speakers (and even reused one part) the cost was over $100. Crossovers can get expensive.

 

[Buckle-meister]

Hahaha, yeah that was some pretty high end soldering on that old one wasn't it.

 

[Swerd]

Buckle-meister

I was out of town this weekend and was not able to follow up on this thread. I'm unsure what your specific question is that you are asking.

If you want to know what the value of DIY speaker building is, I'd rather cite a specific example than generalize. About a year and a half ago, I built some small 2-way speakers that I use in a music-only stereo system. The speakers are the CAOW-1 design by Dennis Murphy. They consist of a Seas CA15RLY 5¼" midwoofer and a Hiquphon OW1 ¾" dome tweeter. The cabinet is relatively small, 12½" tall × 8" wide × 10½" deep. It contains a 1¾" diameter port that is 4" long. The crossover is Dennis's design. The cabinet and crossover were rather simple to build. The drivers are what I consider "premium priced" - the midwoofer costs about $100 (US) a pair and the tweeters are $200 a pair. All together, the parts cost me about $380, excluding the cabinets. Wood for the cabinets was about a half sheet of ¾" MDF (inexpensive) and cherry veneer ($50 for a 2 × 8 foot roll). And my labor was, of course, free. I'm not a highly experienced woodworker, so it took me some time to build and finish the cabinets.

Let's say the finished speakers cost about $500 a pair. I have not yet found a commercially available 2-way speaker that sounded better. The closest was the Von Schwierkert VR1 (sells for $1000 to $1500 a pair depending on the dealer and the woodfinish). Although there was nothing wrong with the very good VR1s, frankly - and I may be biased here - I like my speakers better. The difference in the price speaks for itself.

If you are aiming for DIY 2-way, MTM, or 3-way speakers in the $500 or less price range, you will do much better with a good DIY design than a commercially sold speaker. I can't speak for higher prices, but I suspect there still is significant savings with DIY at prices much higher.

 

[sploo]

If you are aiming for DIY 2-way, MTM, or 3-way speakers in the $500 or less price range, you will do much better with a good DIY design than a commercially sold speaker. I can't speak for higher prices, but I suspect there still is significant savings with DIY at prices much higher.

Absolutely, and here's a case in point. I was looking at the Von Schwierkert site, from your link, and noticed their VR-7 SE. A cool $40,000.

The bass drivers look like Seas Excel W26FX001 units to me. Going by some UK prices I have, you're looking at around 400USD per unit - so 1,600USD for the four.

I'm not quite sure which Scan Speak treble they're using, but the good ones tend to be in the 300-400USD range. Call it 700USD for the two.

There's also a 7" midrange, a ribbon tweeter and a 1" soft dome mid/tweeter on each unit. No idea what they are, but let's call each of them another 300USD, so 1,800USD for the six required drivers.

I make that 4,100USD for all the drivers, and UK prices tend to be quite a bit higher than the US.

Now, there's going to be a fair bit of money in their crossovers, and there's a nice looking cabinet. They obviously also have their marketing and R&D overheads to cover (which wouldn't be a factor to a DIY builder).

I've no doubt these speakers would sound great, but given the same drivers I expect a decent designer could cook up something not a million miles away, and for a substantial saving.

Besides, you'd be able to save the cost of the ribbon tweeter, as their own manual states:

"Do not be alarmed if you can not hear any sound coming from the ribbon tweeter. Since this tweeter is reproducing frequencies above 19kHz all the way up to 100kHz, most people will not be able to hear frequencies in this range."

 

[Swerd]

sploo

That example of the VR-7 was fun to read. Thanks for adding to the argument that DIY speaker building is not only fun but frugal. (Note that we said nothing about the cost of woodworking tools !)

Although we may be preaching to the choir, together, we might convince Buckle-meister of the wisdom of our ways. At least he seems to understand that the crossover design process is not always simple, even with computer-aided measuring tools, and that it is almost always done better by someone with experience. I've usually been in the position of trying to explain this to some eager newbie who thinks all he needs is a circle saw, a copy of the Parts Express catalog, and an imagination.