Thought I'd share my experience building a set of speakers..
I'd been hanging around some AV forums when I got bit by the DIY bug. Bad enough, but it could have been worse, it could been have been
Upgraditis.
After picking a budget (hahaha.. a budget he says
) of ~$500, I scoured the internet and solicited opinions on some of the forums on what would be a good project. In the end, I decided on the Usher 2.5 (
http://www.zalytron.com/usherkits.htm). I hadn't heard them, so why did I choose these? One reason was that these were suggested by someone I had a certain level of respect for -- he's been building his own speakers for a long time and we seem to share the preference for the same "sound" from speakers, i.e., as little coloration to the speakers as possible. Not warm or bright but just right
Now, do I have ANY experience with such things? Nope. I know how to pound nails and cut reasonably straight lines, but nothing approaching cabinet work. Fortunately, I have a cabinet maker friend.
Do I know much about the theory behind speaker design? Nope. But, I'm willing and wanting to learn. Also, if you buy a kit, the theory isn’t necessary.
Anyway, I bought the kit on faith and began the construction process. I gave the dimensions to my cabinet maker friend and he cut the pieces at his shop for me.
The next step is to cut the holes for the drivers, input cap and port. All of this is 'detailed' on the plans that came with the kit.
If you don’t have access to a full workshop (e.g., a cabinet maker’s workshop), you’ll need a plunge router and a jasper jig to get a nice flush mount.
Here are the results:
Now that the holes had been cut out, time to assemble the box. This part was actually easier than I thought. The only tricky part was the internal brace that I inserted between the two woofers. I made a groove on the inside of the cabinet that the brace was inserted into. You can see the brace in the above picture. At this point, a little bit of nailing and a little bit of gluing and I have a box that’s beginning to look like a speaker. Finally, I caulked all of the seams on the inside to make it as airtight as possible. Again, the picture above shows the white inside seams. Have to admit, I don’t totally understand the physics involved here, especially when there is a big ol’ port hole in the back of the speaker.
Now, speakers shouldn’t just sound good, they should look good as well. MDF isn’t all that exciting, so I put a layer of lacewood veneer over the speaker shell. Here’s what it looked like with the unstained veneer installed.
Let me not forget the crossover. Here is the schematic:
..which looks like this in real life:
These were installed on the inside of the cabinet.
Now, it’s just a matter of staining/urethaning the veneer and installing the speaker drivers themselves.
The (almost) final result is this:
There are still some final touches left, for example, I didn’t have the screws I wanted in the final construction – I had to use what I had at the time.
So, in the end, how did it sound? With not just a little bit of trepidation, I fired them up at my cabinet maker friend’s house on the floor of his living room. How did they sound? Pretty good I thought. They’re supposed to be on stands, and they weren’t exactly set up well, but I was happy. The next time I listened to them, they were on my dining room table. Not an ideal situation either. Again, I liked them, but not as much this time. They sounded so different. It really is amazing how much the room and setup will make it the final sound. The third and last time I was able to listen to them, I had them setup on the floor in a dedicated home theater room. The sound stage was pretty amazing here since there weren’t ANY reflections of sound in the room. It was DEAD because it was WAY overtreated with acoustical treatments. Between the overtreatments and the fact that the speakers were sitting on the floor, the bass was out of control. However, they were favorably compared to the Paradigm Signature 8’s that were installed in the room. As you can imagine, I HATED that..
Sigh, three different rooms, three totally different sounds. I haven’t had a chance to set them up in their permanent home yet – my garage that I hope to convert to a listening room. I’ll be able to give a final review at that time.
That being said, I enjoyed the whole process and would encourage anyone with the inclination to give it a try. You can get some great sounding speakers for 25-50% of what you’d have to pay at an audio store.
Overall, the following is what I learned from this project:
1) A table saw really is a must for a job like this. You can get away using a circular saw, but spend the $100 for an inexpensive table saw. It might not be the best, but it'll be better than cutting with a circular saw.
2) A router is also another piece of equipment totally needed.. with the proper bits.
3) Patience is a virtue. Take the time to do it right.
4) You're going to set a budget -- know that you're going to exceed it
5) It's actually easier to build than I expected (so far) but far more time consuming than I thought. Naturally, I expect the next one to go much more smoothly.
JCD