Building Custom Speakers?

Anyone know anything, or have any experiance with building your own speakers?

I was thinking of having a go at it in the summer (after exams), only problem is I have no idea what i'd be doing.
Wirings not a problem, I understand how to wire speakers up to an amp etc. but when it comes to inside the speaker, i'm pretty lost. Does anyone know what crossovers to use when etc, and which are good.

Anyway if anyone has done it before, would'ya show us your efforts?

Anyone know anything, or have any experiance with building your own speakers?

I was thinking of having a go at it in the summer (after exams), only problem is I have no idea what i'd be doing.
Wirings not a problem, I understand how to wire speakers up to an amp etc. but when it comes to inside the speaker, i'm pretty lost. Does anyone know what crossovers to use when etc, and which are good.

Anyway if anyone has done it before, would'ya show us your efforts?

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1976-29.pdf wiring

look up rodgers bbc reference. These are more monitors.

My friend, you are skimming a casual stone across the surface of perhaps the geekiest abyss known in the dark, square corners of DIY hifi land. Do you really want to dip your toe in? Don't mean to quash any enthusiasm - but it's a serious question of what you want to acheive, as well as how much money, time and skill you have. Remember: all that time faffing around with with walnut veneer and loft insulation you'll never get back and you could be out riding bikes. Or doing cultural stuff. Or chatting up girls. Or on the internet. #foreveraloneface

Give us a clue: what kind of system do you have? what music do you listen to? What other speakers have you owner or heard and what attributes do you hope to emulate or improve upon? My guess would be that fleabay would give you something 2nd hand for the same money that gives a better result than what you could make at home. But where's the fun in that, eh? Of course, if you already have some drivers knocking around, then it's rude not to.

Some teaser reading:
http://www.lampizator.eu/SPEAKERS/PROJECTS/Speaker%20projects.html
http://www.t-linespeakers.org/
http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144:designing-loudspeakers-open-baffles-and-bass-part-15&catid=68:technology&Itemid=60

Speak to Wilmslow Audio as they do home kits and will happily give advice on design. I built a pair up with Scanspeak drive units and one of their crossovers and have to say, they are amazing quality. I'm assuming you know your hi-fi and will be making a quality job of it so these guys would be my first and only recommendation.

Good luck!

Haha yeah dig speakers are like the gateway drug into diy hifi. - you will be building amps and turntables soon.....

Loads of designs already out there and quite a few decent kits.

You wont save any money making them but will likely end up with something very good sounding that blows away similar priced speakers (if you don't take into account your time...)

In my opinion fullrange single driver speakers are my preference and a good way to start as there is no crossover etc to worry about - trouble is for decent bass they tend to be BIG

I made some with the cabinets and crossovers from some old Sharp speakers that came with a 70s music centre, and some drivers from Celestion, plus a lot of foam glued inside the cabs from an old armchair.

My methods were not very scientific.
I just kept testing and cutting away, moving or adding foam, tuning them by ear until they sounded kick-ass. Still using them 15 years later.

Stick the most concentrated foam you can find to the cabinet insides and then cover it with some thick curtain material to provide extra sound deadening. Then stuff the whole inside with something like pond filter wool to really dampen any internal sound pressure. This will save you buying the proper sound deadening panels and wooly stuff for many pounds like I did.

Damn you, I fancy a new project now.

I made some with the cabinets and crossovers from some old Sharp speakers that came with a 70s music centre, and some drivers from Celestion, plus a lot of foam glued inside the cabs from an old armchair.

My methods were not very scientific.
I just kept testing and cutting away, moving or adding foam, tuning them by ear until they sounded kick-ass. Still using them 15 years later.

I like this story. Hacktastic.

I found everything (including unused Celestion drivers!) in the barns of a farm my parents moved into.

total expense: £0.

i haz a question. if you totally fill the cabinet with foam, padding, wool and other things to completely deaden the sound and eliminate any resonance... what's the point in having the cabinet?

http://www.speakerplans.com/

Will answer every question you ever had about speakers ever.

See that thing in the corner? No, not the foot, the other corner. I built those. Can you say boom?
Fuck yeah.

There are LOADS of online guides outlining every possible way of building speakers. There's probably handy guides in Maplins too. In Aus we had a cool electronics dealer that could supply anything you wanted. I never did get around to fitting my two carbon fibre 15" sub-woofers into a cabinet for my home-theatre setup. Oh well.

every home made speaker i have heard has sounded poor compared to what's available from manufacturers with years of R&D and experience plus the use of anechoic chambers and test equipment. homebrew ones usually look shite too unless you have cabinetmaking skills.
best left to the experts imho
turntables and sometimes amps are a different proposition.

i haz a question. if you totally fill the cabinet with foam, padding, wool and other things to completely deaden the sound and eliminate any resonance... what's the point in having the cabinet?

Speaker drivers are designed to operate with back-pressure, otherwise the cones will just 'flap about' when they are in use. No box = not enough air to support the cone. Or something. I forget a lot of the theory.

every home made speaker i have heard has sounded poor compared to what's available from manufacturers with years of R&D and experience plus the use of anechoic chambers and test equipment. homebrew ones usually look shite too unless you have cabinetmaking skills.
best left to the experts imho
turntables and sometimes amps are a different proposition.

You can tune the speakers to what you like not what the manufacturer likes.
You could even copy their design if you wished.

I just built my first set of speakers while I was living over in Sierra Leone. Really simple (all Chinese parts) and the sound is really good. Only thing is they are huge! (Sure you can avoid that problem with a little planning). Have fun with it....

Speaker drivers are designed to operate with back-pressure, otherwise the cones will just 'flap about' when they are in use. No box = not enough air to support the cone. Or something. I forget a lot of the theory.

depends on the design. sealed box, horn loaded, transmission line, front or rear ported etc.

open baffle...

re crossovers: there is a dsp plug-in for Foobar that can act as active digital crossover. potentially useful, if dangerous.

every home made speaker i have heard has sounded poor compared to what's available from manufacturers with years of R&D and experience plus the use of anechoic chambers and test equipment. homebrew ones usually look shite too unless you have cabinetmaking skills.
best left to the experts imho
turntables and sometimes amps are a different proposition.

I don't know, if you talk to Wilmslow Audio they can advise you on what drivers work well with different amps, cabinets, rooms etc. and provide a top quality crossover unit to suit. I spent ages in their showroom listening to different set ups before deciding on what to build. If they ever update a system, they will let you know the difference so you can decide whether you wish to do it, as I did changing a Seas tweeter for a Scanspeak. They really are top quality kit but you do pay for the privilege.

depends on the design. sealed box, horn loaded, transmission line, front or rear ported etc.

Obviously it depends on the design. Mine above used a tuned port for better bass around the 'ow my brain is leaking' frequency.

I have a great book in Oz for DIY speaker building. Explains lots of the basics and how-tos, etc. Wish I could rememeber what it's called.

i haz a question. if you totally fill the cabinet with foam, padding, wool and other things to completely deaden the sound and eliminate any resonance... what's the point in having the cabinet?

lining the box with a layer of foam deadens the internal reflections by absorbing and disrupting them, the theory being that you don't want reflected soundwaves coming back and meeting the soundwaves generated by the speaker as it would muddy the sound. You also don't want the bass frequencies washing out the high end so you also separate the tweeter from the midrange/woofer.

You don't totally fill it, just line it and maybe something to disrupt the soundwaves

My friend, you are skimming a casual stone across the surface of perhaps the geekiest abyss known in the dark, square corners of DIY hifi land. Do you really want to dip your toe in? Don't mean to quash any enthusiasm - but it's a serious question of what you want to acheive, as well as how much money, time and skill you have. Remember: all that time faffing around with with walnut veneer and loft insulation you'll never get back and you could be out riding bikes. Or doing cultural stuff. Or chatting up girls. Or on the internet. #foreveraloneface

Give us a clue: what kind of system do you have? what music do you listen to? What other speakers have you owner or heard and what attributes do you hope to emulate or improve upon? My guess would be that fleabay would give you something 2nd hand for the same money that gives a better result than what you could make at home. But where's the fun in that, eh? Of course, if you already have some drivers knocking around, then it's rude not to.

Some teaser reading:
http://www.lampizator.eu/SPEAKERS/PROJECTS/Speaker%20projects.html
http://www.t-linespeakers.org/
http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144:designing-loudspeakers-open-baffles-and-bass-part-15&catid=68:technology&Itemid=60

At the moment I haz a radio amp combo, with some big cheap speakers, which are bass heavy, and some smaller speakers where the driver points up at a cone, which spreads the sound out, with a tweeter on top pointing down with the same system, which are treble heavy. I have a thorens td160 mkII which i got from my grandparents, but there's a hum coming from it. it probably need earthing properly, as there is no earth, but i have read that they never had earths. I want to get a quad 303, and one of the good technics amps which had the volume control going up in negative decibells up to 0dB, cant remeber the model name, but they are cool. my dad has one. i am jealous.
musicwise, probably drum and bass, trance, jazz, abstract jazz and a bit of classical, and some hiphop...
i want some speakers which sound awesome. they should have a clear warm sound. i have a pair of headphones, and i want my speakers to sound like them (grado sr80i's), (they are sooo cleaar!) but with baaaasss. or if you have heard the griffin amplifi, but with more volume, if you get me, which they (very sadly) discontinued.

i had some ideas:

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And, oh I wanna dive in, but I think AS Levels are quite important.

there are loads of old speakers on the bay, might be worth buying some for the solid cabinets, also loads of tweeters and drivers on there