After thinking about a few different alternatives, I finally settled on building a set of the Exodus Audio Kepler monitor speakers (
http://www.diycable.com/main/product...roducts_id=667 ). I can say I couldn't be more pleased with the whole purchase so far. Kevin, the owner, has been such a tremendous help, first in explaining the product and his methodologies, all the way through my multiple questions regarding assembly. I received the kits last week and just got around to setting them up yesterday.
The assembly is extremely easy for anyone with minimal woodworking skills. If you've got a router and a circle jig, you can build these to look like a pro. I'm doing 5 speakers for a surround setup and I was able to cut all the baffles and cut in the ports and got one speaker setup with crossovers mounted to check for clearances. I would have gotten them all setup and wired, but my 3 year old decided he wanted to learn about woodworking, so the pace was slowed a bit. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back to them tonight. I wouldn't even consider using a soldering iron with him around, just seems like impending disaster.
Here are some shots of the speaker I setup yesterday.
Sorry about the poor quality of the pics, I just wanted to get something up quickly for all to see. Not bad for a first DIY speaker, huh?
I would say for someone who never used a power tool before, you could easily put these together on a Saturday and listen to them Saturday night. Super easy with the Parts Express .5 ft^3 cabinets, and they are incredibly well built. You could spend a lot more to get the paint work done than the entire cabinets cost, and they almost look too good.
I'll let you all know what I think of them once I get them fired up. From what I've heard from different sources I know I will not be dissapointed.