DIY Speakers

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It's been awhile, but I have built or help build several speakers. It quickly became apparent you had a big advantage over commercial products simply by using thick enclosures. Think 2 inch (5 cm) thick minimum. That and extensive bracing inside.

 

Because a friend and I wanted complex shapes we eventually built cabinets in a way very much like Magico does. They do it in wood and metal, but we only used wood. This way all you need is imagination, some MDF, and a good jig saw. You stacked layers and glued them together. Each layer could have a different shape, and you can angle the edge cuts to create the shapes you wish. Then some final surface finishing to smooth the surface before applying veneer or cloth.

 

I built one simple small speaker that way, but put threaded rod from top to bottom with a metal plate on top and bottom. This allowed one to clamp the pieces together with considerable force which increased rigidity of the cabinet some more. When done the bottom of the rod became spikes that ran all the way through to the top of the speaker, and at the top everything was covered with a decorative bit of work.

 

It was tedious and time consuming. Now if you had CNC gear, piece of cake to do in metal. Such a speaker will be heavy even in aluminum.

 

It is surprising how good cross-overs and a good cabinet can make some rather pedestrian drivers sound very, very good. Of course using good drivers elevates the sound even more.

 

Below are some pics of a Magico cabinet and a Magico clone someone made. Shows you can create nearly any shape you imagine with as much bracing or thickness you care to use. You can create complex curves as well though these pictures show they kept it to 2D for the most part.

 

 

 

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I may be mistaken but I think many church bells are made of bronze.

 

R

As is the Liberty Bell and many ship's bells. Bronze rings quite nicely.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Computer Audiophile mobile app

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I have yet to build mine (open baffle) as I am in the research/design phase, but I believe it to be less complex than building boxed designs, although I also got two (boxed) loudspeaker design handbooks recently.

 

There's much less of cabinet design and bracing and then of adding the damping material inside, etc...

 

There are a few things you need to research first though, and that is the principle of building one and also select the proper drivers. The rest of the build is far less complicated.

 

I have heard 4 of those done DIY. All sounded shall we say problematic. Which isn't to say the idea isn't a good one. Always seemed like a good idea to me. The phasing and crossover would seem to be the big issues, and there is more computer design help than there used to be.

 

Take a look at the pics in post #7 and the co-designer's comments in post #8 for these Phase Linear jobs Bob Carver had or maybe by then it was Carver as the brand.

RC: Bob... ER, I mean... Mr. Carver...Is that you? (Page 1 of 2)

 

Now that just looks hopelessly stupid as a way to do a dipole (I guess they actually were bipoles). I heard them on two different occasions in two different places. They were very good. The had all the good attributes of an open baffle speaker with better bass and imaging cues. Like much of Bob's work it is out of the box and trying to sound like a million bucks for peanuts. I take it few listened or I believe we would have had other attempts along this line. Then again, it just looks so ridiculous you know it could never work, but it did anyway.

 

Here is one of the pics:

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DIYers can be very inventive. Often figuring out ways to make something that seems hopelessly beyond garage operations. Often with surprisingly simple tools and a big dose of ingenuity. People have made Magnepan-like speakers, Heil AMT transducers, ribbons, ESL's and large panels driven by conventional coil and spider drivers in the middle of the panel. Plus plasma drivers and probably some I haven't seen.

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All of which are probably in short supply compared to a team of experts at a reasonably large company.

 

Not in terms of per speaker budget, cost, size etc.

 

20 years ago, buy quality drivers, build big heavy solid cabinets, get the crossover even close and you had lots of very pricey commercial speakers beaten. You didn't need to think of shipping costs so your cabinets could be heavy. They didn't need to be easy to assemble. No ad money required. Lots of advantages. There were a several highly regarded $10k speakers for instance using tweeters that cost between $10 and $20 each. Much better tweeters were available without being beyond a dedicated DIY builder's budget.

 

I think in the last decade some of the best have moved beyond those simple things getting you to a point of equality as a DIY project. Directivity, DSP, digital xovers of better design etc. using design abilities few amateurs have. Then again, measuring software, and knowledge of these have increased as well for affordable amounts. So maybe it isn't that different.