Why DIY Speaker Kits - Because They're Better and Cheaper - CSS Audio and GR Research

I worked at the largest consumer and pro audio distributor in North America and if for example a JBL speaker costs $600 retail dealer cost is $300 and landed cost for the distributor is $150.

I think one should always take a look at the used market. I just got a pair of Teufel T500 for 140€. And its hard to get something similar even DIY for similar or less

Even better no kits at all. Make it all yourself

No

Isn't another disadvantage the resale value? When I want to try something else, very few people, I would guess, would be interested in something built by an amateur. That is then compounded by the learning curve, figuring my first set (or two or three), would be less than perfect.
I completely understand the satisfaction of building it yourself, I managed to put together some headphones, though I had someone willing to do there woodwork for me.

Can you just buy the speaker enclosures?

Funny guy….ok?

With parts express and box building and crossover building programs for free, all you need is some plywood these days and your good to go.

lol what - diy in this case means they get to cut their production costs and you get to work for them on the assembly line. haha diy kits is just you paying someone to work for them.

The benefit of brand name speakers, especially from a company that manufactures their own drivers, is that they can match each driver pair to get the closest frequency response, impedance, etc..

I've built my share of speakers both from kits and from designs of my own. My current 2.1 system is my own design and I have been using them for 30 years. They have not stopped sounding great and earning compliments.

I have learned that at a given price point, multiple brands sound very similar to each other because of the use of computer modeling.

Surely good quality kits exist, but the same drivers built by a brand name companies are built with matching that's better than most DIYer's can't achieve.

Have you ever used drivers from Focal, Dynaudio, or Scan Speak?

I don't think there are many other brands available that can compare or compete.

If you try to improve the cover of a factory speaker you will likely be disappointed. This is true in kits as well. The designer will specify a particular component or combination of components because they achieve the correct xover point and FR, slope and so on. If you try to "upgrade" by using more expensive parts they won't perform as designed.

Speakers are the weakest link in the audio chain. They have vastly more distortion than any other part of an audio system. They sound different from model to model and brand to brand, often because they are designed to sound different.

If you have time and especially resources you can achieve good sounding speakers from kits but part for part and dollar for dollar it's nearly impossible to improve on what a manufacturer can achieve.

Siegfried Linkwitz' designed kits will, as someone else said, blow your mind. They aren't boxes and give the most open, unboxed sound you're ever likely to hear.

Why didn't you show the process of building a DYI speaker. Another video, perhaps?

Speakers?? Ahh man.. I came here for wooden devil skull reviews. Sht.

My Klipsch Corner Horn IIIs with my upgraded La Scala center sounds like a live orchestra right in front of you. By careful shopping I have about 5000.00 in them. Screw DIY.

Good Day, sir.. Is it also applicable if we want to DIY monitor speakers for audio mixing? Any heads up and pointers for choosing the correct components? 🙏

nice one

The speaker on your left looks current and retro and HOT. The speaker on your right looks Kmart or WalMart and no way my wife would allow it in our “her’” house lol.

…aside from the other qualities that matter to “us” :))))

Where’s the link to the Devil skulls?

Couldn't agree more with the statements on cabinets. For speaker companies, a 350lbs cabinet for a medium sized 3-way speaker is just not something you can easily mass produce and distribute under most circumstances. But as a builder with a reasonable number of tools, you can design and build them yourself. And, of course, control over individual components (crossovers, wiring, driver selection, damping materials, etc) lets you experience so much more music than anything else with a reasonable price tag. Add to that the joy of hearing magic you created with your own hands... it's so much fun!

I've been making my own speakers for about 25 years. DIY speakers from a kit is like calling Ikea furniture DIY. As you said it's more like assemble it yourself, AIY.
Here is how I do it. I don't mine my own copper or make my own paper pulp to make drivers either. I scrounge drivers from bargain electronics stores, garage sales, thrift stores, or salvage them from damaged speakers that were thrown out. You can sometimes get crossovers that way too. I've repaired driver surrounds by rebuilding them with T-shirts and silicone or urethane. After gathering those critical parts I design my enclosures to suit the electronic parts.
My first speakers were heavy, so they were small speakers built for 6 to 8" drivers. I had been informed by everybody that the walls of the boxes had to be massive to dampen vibrations. But you know, church bells are massive too, but they ring like crazy. I now build light weight speaker enclosures with light weight materials. I dampen their walls with viscoelastic material sandwiched between layers. Look up Green Glue. I made my own a couple of ways. I won't get into those details.
I built a new enclosure for a single found-in-the-trash Optimus Pro 4000 containing a 15" woofer. My "new" speaker weighs 50 pound less than the original with its water damaged particle board enclosure. I rebuilt the 15" woofer surround with cloth from an old T-shirt and black silicone, using a ring made from a garden hose as a form. My "new" speaker sounded amazing, but I needed a pair for stereo. No problem. DIY to the rescue. I then built a matching speaker using the cheapest new drivers, 15" woofer, 5" midrange and piezo electric horn tweeter, I could find at the local electronics parts bargain store. I made high pass, low pass and bandpass "crossovers" from resistors and capacitors. No, I haven't experimented with coils yet. I adjusted the sound by ear to match the sound of the original Radio Shack speaker parts, containing its original crossover, in its new enclosure by varying the resisters and capacitor values. These speakers do not look alike until I put the grills on. I use these speakers with my Yamaha stereo. They sound amazing and costed me about $50 in parts in about 2001 including the leather-look vinyl fabric covering.
I designed and built some wave-guide, sometimes called folded horn (bose style) speakers each with a 6.5" woofer, a tweeter and a single resister to balance the sound by ear. How did I design such a speaker you ask? DIY research online of course. On one of these enclosure I used two sheets of 1/8" tempered hardboard sandwiched with never-hardening floor adhesive. It sounds good, but was heavier that I was shooting for. The other look-alike enclosure has the same drivers and resistor inside, but has walls built with polyisocyanurate foam board with patches of 1/8" tempered hardboard stuck onto the inside with the same sort-of viscoelastic flooring adhesive. I've been using these speakers with my computer for about 6 years. They still sound great.
Now maybe I could take these speakers to some audio engineer to be tested with all kinds of fancy devices and software. No doubt such an engineer could point out that the audio spectrum has some peaks and valleys and are therefor not perfect. All that matters is they reproduce music faithfully and do not introduce any sounds of their own.

You can buy second hand buchardt s400 for same money 😋

Great video! Am I the only one bothered by the overlap of the drivers in the cabinet on the right side of the screen? Probably for a good reason but looks haphazard.

This was a great explanation of the benefits of DIY speakers. Have you thought about covering some improvements folks can make to existing speakers, and the level of 'snake oil' involved with some of them? I've glued roofing shingles to the inside of a pair of acoustic suspension speakers to reduce cabinet resonances and re-stuffed them with different materials through the woofer cut-out. Both mods had a positive effect.

Excellent

What about stone enclosures instead of wood? Like 3cm granite?

Hi Randy. ???. Got a pair of BIC America DV62si Bookshelf Speakers. I'm underwhelmed with the Bass Woofer performance. I'm used to some punch, but so far no luck. I"ve tried turning up the bass on the receiver no luck. There still flat. What is a good way to get these woofers to perform, or should I replace the woofers, or crossovers or both??? Any recommendations??? Thanks.....

I can here in anticipation of the spiel on the video sponsor.

I saw the title and bam! GR reseach ! But of course!!! I knew that was it!

Man I tried and tried and tried over 30 years and I just can’t beat the cost. I really want to make them again but for example if I want a particular bookshelf speaker that costs $1500 I might save $100 when said and done. I think I need better sourcing 😢 now AMPS for sure I can save a TON. You can make an Amp that may cost $4000 retail for 1/4 that easy. Gonna try again 👍

the speaker on your left looks a bit off, raw edge of plwood exposed on face and woofer overlaps the other speaker.

This man says "mmmmmm" a lot. A lot lot.

ive been looking for videos about building/ designing crossovers. i don't really want to design them as much as understand what's going on or the way parts are chosen...or i guess more so what the parameters are for a simple crossover for a set of speakers with a mid range tweeter/ sub and tweeters...

You have been working out since this!

Thank you Randy,
Nicely done 👍

The wood for these things are not cheap. I work at a wood mill so I asked if I could have some cut and they just laughed at me. It would take a months salary to have this all properly cut and assembled. Crazy expensive at least for a scrub like me living off canned meat every day. Lol

Thanks!

You have to build the Visaton Pentaton in the PLUS Version.
Trust me. ITS for ME the best Speaker i ever listen to.

I thought the speakers were pictures on the screen until you knocked on them.

I thought there's only one kit - Overnight Sensations

Amazing sponsor 😂

Forget the box and go open baffle. GR has a 4 part series on them.

Isn’t this the “Ikea Effect”? It means that anything you build yourself is just better in your own eyes.

One of my friends works for them, and his step-dad owns the company. Pretty cool rig, I actually need to get a pair of these soon.

What size are the speakers in the video.

It's an interesting video for shure. But the way he talks and this provcative "okay?!" really annoys me so much.

I'm going to buy the Critons. Any opinions on MDF flatpacks or Baltic birch plywood flatpacks? I was going to do MDF but then it occurred to me it would cost more than the plywood upgrade to get them properly finished. I know how to finish wood but I've never worked with MDF before.

I started DIY speakers in 1975, using Phillips drivers, crossovers, and plans. I made 3-way 10-5-1 speakers for less than a decent 2-way (8" + 1" ) with minimal crossovers. I also learned a lot more than I would have just buying a pair, then another, then another, as I tweaked the sound.

Just now signed on, even though I'm a year late. When shopping for the best bookshelf I could find, (and I listened to six audiophile brands) the one speaker that sounded best in all music categories was the B&W Nautilus 805. Whether of classical piano, orchestral, jazz, fusion, rock or country, these boys shine.

I just made my own speakers from scrap.75 "oak finished plywood and I ordered a nice 10* woofer and 1.5 tweeter I just ordered the 2way capacitor all put together it was a clean beautiful well professionaly built crossover and I just bought the Sonys bookshelves that everyone raves about which I thought was good until I hooked up these I just shut off all my other speakers that I have running with them and I only want to listen to the ones I built because they so smooth and deep with the ten inch wooden it's not a bookshelves it's a big floor standing speaker and it just blows everything and it's smooth and sounds better more and just beg for more juice and they distorted or anything they wanted more than my receiver could give them but I have a new pioneer one the way so I will push them