Opinion - Every audiophile should build at least 1 pair of speakers

Soundsreal....well, considering the plethora of offerings 'out there', I think we'd hardly notice an influx of 800...*L*

The similarities between one's personal audio equipment choices for the spaces they listen in and the complexities of various programs on one's personal computer type and the configurations within that....making these things 'coexist' with each other, without random violent hair removal....

I'm sometimes thrilled that any and either work as well as they do at all. *G*

...and no, Eric, you can't stop...this is one of those threads that should grow a life of it's own, expanding exponentially until the AG server goes *poof*. *L*  And then we can move on, like locusts, consuming terabytes in our path...

And everyone's scared of AI...

"All thee have to fear....is Me..." *LOL*  Or us.... ) 

Having a great time and learning experience building an active tri-amped 2.2 system. 3 Crown XTi-2 power amps contain all the digital adjustment control over EQ, crossover, driver gain and delay one could conceivably ever need, no limitations with crossover design ever again. About $500 for each amp and they happen to sound terrific. Aurum Cantus 25120 tweeters (1 per channel) and 3" GR Research "LGK’s" (4 per channel) to make for a MMTMM config. This is loosely based on Danny Ritchie’s "Wedgie" design, except that, on a bit of a whim really, I’m adding horns into the equation, just to see (Flying Wedgie??). An OmniMic 2.0 rounds it out.

The standmounts are about $900/pair to make and the pair of 15" Hawthorne Audio "Augies" add around another $500. The amp/speaker package is roughly $2900 retail. Pretty sweet considering that I’m no longer paying a speaker manufacturer to try to guess, or suppose, what it is that I want from a design. Now I have what I’ve been after all along: the flexibility and control it takes to dial in just exactly the kind of sound I happen to want, regardless of whatever room it all goes into or whatever source I ever end up using.

I now know it would take me a whole Heap of money and a long time looking to find the next best thing in the speaker market, new or used.

No going back for me. I don’t think I’ll ever buy another pair of manufactured speakers again. :)

Doing it right now. A pair of Bill Fitzmaurice Davids with upgraded drivers and a flat pack from speakerhardware.com. Just finished the crossovers a couple of weeks ago. Total cost will be less than $1500.

If not these, my second choice would probably have been Statement II (speakerdesignworks.com and meniscusaudio.com).

I now know it would take me a whole Heap of money and a long time looking to find the next best thing in the speaker market, new or used.

This brings up two major reasons to build yourself:

1 - Make exactly what you want
2 - Price performance is unmatched vs. commercial

The high end brands charge around 10x the driver cost. Some much more. a few less. My main speakers would be around $12k if I tried purchasing, and they may or may not sound like what I want them to sound, exactly. 

Amen, Erik.

From the looks of this thread, and the amount of people who might lament about how much speakers cost and/or how hard it is to get what they’re after, then, among existing audiophiles anyway, this may be the next wave...if it isn’t already.

DIY speaker building has been around forever, but everything (increasing costs in the speaker market, less disposable income these days, the overall lack of movement in the global audio market and the wide availability online of affordable, high-quality parts, materials as well as easier, faster testing methods, etc) seems to me to be pointing in this direction more and more.

Increasingly I have learned to tweak, modify and now DIY my way forward. Just accepting at face value alone the terms that manufacturers are willing to dictate to everyone has grown to be no longer an option for me. Lots of gains to be realized IMO once you decide and bother to learn how to start to buck that established trend.

And yes, I said "buck". What did you think I meant? ;>)