I’m considering building a pair of speakers to replace my current midrange bookshelf speakers. I’ll be using them for composing but since I’ve been mixing on consumer bookshelf speakers for years (and checking mixes w/headphones) I figure the bar is fairly low for my own DIY build.
Has anyone built their own speakers before? I started experimenting with dayton audio exciters a couple years ago and ever since Parts Express has been sending me catalogs and newsletters with DIY speaker projects that seem not impossible for the layperson to tackle. They actually have entire speaker kits for various types of speakers and they’re all pretty inexpensive – compared to a normal set of midrange studio monitors anyway.
If you’ve built DIY speakers from plans or kits or your own design, would you do it again and/or recommend it to a beginner? What are good resources for DIY speaker building?
I’ve built a Bluetooth speaker and researched speaker design a little.
It seems to me that sticking to a tried and true design would be the best way to go to achieve “something approximating” monitors. I’m quite interested to see what designs or kits people suggest.
My main issue is most kits from the US don’t make sense for me after adding shipping and stuff from China has no specs past wattage and impedance!
This is the one I’m leaning toward now – it looks like something I could do and seems to have some room for experimentation based on a variety of builds I’ve seen made of it:
Bumping this! Inspired by Devon Turnbull’s $2k diy kits, built myself some big bookshelf speakers
6 inch coaxials from sB Acoustics (SB16PFCR25-4-COAX), designed the box in illustrator, got the 18mm ply CNC locally. Lots of glue and clamps and really happy with how they came out.
The problem with this approach is that CNC cutting plywood is really expensive compared with, say, going to a shop and buying good speakers. But learned a lot, and becoming slightly obsessed. Want to do another pair now.
The speaker manufacturer publishes the schematic for the crossover - I just bought the (weird, giant) components and put it together on a bit of perf board. For me that was the easiest part.
The result looks amazing! I’m currently (naively) building my own speakers (horn+2x 18" subs open baffle) too and I’m investigating using a digital crossover. So I’m curious, have you considered going the digital route instead for this (or future) project? I’m currently looking at the miniDSP Flex or those Hypex fusion amps. It looks like a great way to DA, do a two way crossover and (room) EQ at the same time.
Yes, it would be completely do-able, but I don’t really have the space or equipment to do it. Need a makerspace or something. Also I’m spoilt by PCB design where you get something perfect on the computer then the robots make it for you.
These look fantastic! The part that is a hidden art to me is how do you decide on a good volume for the cabinet and how do you design ports? How big should they be? how deep should they be? Is there a magic formula that people in the know use?
I’m currently (naively) building my own speakers (horn+2x 18" subs open baffle) too and I’m investigating using a digital crossover. So I’m curious, have you considered going the digital route instead for this (or future) project? I’m currently looking at the miniDSP Flex or those Hypex fusion amps. It looks like a great way to DA, do a two way crossover and (room) EQ at the same time.