Built your own speakers ?

Hi, I've been an electronics hobbiest since I made my first spark as a kid! I've built many amplifiers over the years and within the last 15 years also taken great pleasure in designing and building several speaker systems. The very first ones were just built seat of the pants style, no formulas, computers, etc. with varying degrees of sucess. My most recent design was a dual cabinet set, Di Appolito tops sitting on seperate subs in a push-pull bandpass box, all designed with the aid of some downloaded freeware. Very pleasing sound and fun and inexspensive to build. I've sold or given away all of the speakers I've built over the years and I beleive they're all still in use! I now own a pair of VR-4's which are quite a piece of engineering, with a $3800 price tag of course! I'm the first to admit none of my own designs are as good as the VR4's, but speaker building is still a great hobby! Check out partsexpress.com for lots of good deals on components and as I said there are a number of freeware speaker design programs available, just do a search. Good luck, happy listening, Jim

I have built about twenty pairs of speakers over 30 years, from folded corner horns to hemi-spherical satellites to transmission line towers, using KEF, Peerless, Vifa, Altec-Lansing, Electrovoice, Radio Shack, Phillips brands of drivers. No, you cannot surpass the quality of what any decent speaker manufacturer can produce in their factory. Yes, you can make pretty good speakers at a fraction of the cost, if you enjoy woodworking and tinkering. You can spend a lot of time and a fair amount of money to gain a lot of satisfaction at having made something yourself. Try a standard kit from Madisound or North Creek before attempting your own design. The more you read before you start, the better off you'll be.

Mine will be better than you think.

Carl , You are truely multitallented , Builds speakers and reads minds . Just a pun , no offence intended .Care to elaborate ? There is also another thread in Tech Talk .FBI.

I have tried to build my own speakers as well using Dynaudio drivers. It took years and lots of tinkering. I was never satisfied. I thought I could make them sound even better each time I played with the cross-over and box. I spent more time playing with the design than listening to music. After a few years and much frustration I bought the North Creek Rythmn speakers and I am again listening to music not frustrating myself with speaker design. If you do not have an excellant understanding of electronics and are skilled in cabinet making and have software to design x-overs and lots of time and patience, do not do it! Buy a good designed kit!