A conversation with someone today got me thinking about what cost saving is really involved in making your own speakers.
To be more precise, what would you say is the percentage of materials to sales price of a good loudspeaker? 10%, 20%?
When looking at respected DIY designs, I immediately look at how considerations such as diffraction, standing waves, time alignment, bracing, stuffing etc. have been applied, but at what price range would you expect these considerations to be met in a commercial design? £500, £2000?
I've have the uncomfortable feeling that to gain something over commercial designs (more than the self satisfation of doing-it-yourself), you have to use better drivers/components. If I spend £200 to make a set of speakers (considering all drivers/materials/finishing) then will it really be better than a commercial £200 design?
Your thoughts...
To be more precise, what would you say is the percentage of materials to sales price of a good loudspeaker? 10%, 20%?
When looking at respected DIY designs, I immediately look at how considerations such as diffraction, standing waves, time alignment, bracing, stuffing etc. have been applied, but at what price range would you expect these considerations to be met in a commercial design? £500, £2000?
I've have the uncomfortable feeling that to gain something over commercial designs (more than the self satisfation of doing-it-yourself), you have to use better drivers/components. If I spend £200 to make a set of speakers (considering all drivers/materials/finishing) then will it really be better than a commercial £200 design?
Your thoughts...
It depends on who's breathing in the saw dust.
If you are starting anew at this hobby you probably wont end up with great savings by designing a speaker from scratch.
If you build a well designed kit you could expect great savings.
Of course a DIY builder has the ability to do things that would be unreasonable in a comercial design.
What is the education gained worth? Certainly it has a value. Pride of workmanship must be added. The ability to customize finishes. These are some of the intangibles that make DIY such a bargain that it's possibility should always be examined.
Not to metion the story of how you got that great scar.
If you are starting anew at this hobby you probably wont end up with great savings by designing a speaker from scratch.
If you build a well designed kit you could expect great savings.
Of course a DIY builder has the ability to do things that would be unreasonable in a comercial design.
What is the education gained worth? Certainly it has a value. Pride of workmanship must be added. The ability to customize finishes. These are some of the intangibles that make DIY such a bargain that it's possibility should always be examined.
Not to metion the story of how you got that great scar.
If saving money is the goal then DIY speakers can be made much cheaper and better sounding that $200 commercial speakers. For example, for my desktop I use an OB line array that cost a total of $25/pr and they sound really nice. I'd put them up against any $200/pr commercial speakers.
You'll find that most here do it as a hobby with sonic excellence as the goal, not necessarily cost savings. The result is typically the same price as commercial, but superior sound.
You'll find that most here do it as a hobby with sonic excellence as the goal, not necessarily cost savings. The result is typically the same price as commercial, but superior sound.
If I have ever heard anything that sounded this good http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=368532#post368532, I reckon they would be well over a thousand bucks, maybe two. Cost me $250.00.
Chipco,
Don't you just love OB arrays? You've got room in the bottom for
some dipole bass. A couple of cheap 10's or 12's in a W baffle on each speaker. You can find something that will work locally and cheap. Look for the smaller magnets which indicates lower Qts. Bring cardboard and a knife with you, so you can pick the ones with the best sound and verify that they'll make bass on OB. It will really fill out the sound.
Don't you just love OB arrays? You've got room in the bottom for
some dipole bass. A couple of cheap 10's or 12's in a W baffle on each speaker. You can find something that will work locally and cheap. Look for the smaller magnets which indicates lower Qts. Bring cardboard and a knife with you, so you can pick the ones with the best sound and verify that they'll make bass on OB. It will really fill out the sound.
tom1356 said:
What most DIY gives up is in looks and a certain amount of effort. There are a number of great kits out there for less than a $1000 that will sound better than many products costing multiples of the price -
However, I am not aware of kits that you wind up with really slick fit an finish that you would find on a set of B&W top of the line speakers -
Kits are fine sounding and look very nice. Production speakers are fine looking and sound very nice.
The marketing of kits has a primary focus on sound with most of the costs being development and raw costs.
Finished products, however usually are sold through a dealer chain that has a much higher overhead storefront that must be added into the cost - Their speakers have to _look_ better because of expectations in the market place at their price points
Further, the manufacturer of a finished product has to put a great deal more into advertising, trade shows, etc. all involved in a great deal more cost related to marketing that increase the selling price of the speaker without increasing the performance of the product.
Kits are sold by word of mouth and by the parts houses.
You will get far more sound for your dollar with kits.
what do you want most from your dollar? Great sound?
Or pride of ownership of great cabinetry that looks really sharp?
Kits/DIY are a no-brainer - If you have the time and inclination.
Regards
Ken L
In this hobby, I don't think that saving money is the main goal... We all just have some itching hands that want to built something from scratch!
how about the comparison of the real proac 2.5 and the clone. Overhere in Europe, the real stuff is about 6500 euro, while the clone can be made for about 500 euro using good components...
how about the comparison of the real proac 2.5 and the clone. Overhere in Europe, the real stuff is about 6500 euro, while the clone can be made for about 500 euro using good components...
It's easy to save money, but it depends how you look at it. If you look at the money value of your time if it was spent working, then you probably don't save. Yet, if not for such a hobby you could end up spending that time time on other things which would cost you money - now if you were in a pub drinking beer, then DIY saves you even more! 
After I built my speakers for $1000, I had great satisfaction in seeing some $2500 speakers that were inferior in appearance, build quality and sound, although of a similar size. I'd be quite happy to build copies of mine for $2500
After I built my speakers for $1000, I had great satisfaction in seeing some $2500 speakers that were inferior in appearance, build quality and sound, although of a similar size. I'd be quite happy to build copies of mine for $2500
My take on this whole cost thing...
I make speakers cos I enjoy the design and construction process. the struggle to come up with something different...
I have actually sold 15 or so pair of the tapered pipes in 4 years, at about 2.5 times the material cost, .....(ignoring the development and manufacture time), and a few other speakers as well, both HiFi and PA, but as a whole I am still behind because of the stuff I haven't sold and is in storage, and stuff that hasn't worked, tools, unused drivers and components etc etc and the fact that i sort of branched out into doing PA hire and mixing work for bands, which of course keeps money flowing in and out !!!
If I had to put a value on MY TIME, I would be well and truly behind !!!!!!
To actually make a profit/saving (are they the same??) I would need to be selling a significant number of speakers at the above price, which would mean making a lot of them the same...and frankly I'm not interested in going that way !!
One thing I can say is that I KNOW FOR CERTAIN that there is not another pair of "Windswept" in the whole world (be they good, bad or indifferent), and I designed and made them !!!!
I make speakers cos I enjoy the design and construction process. the struggle to come up with something different...
I have actually sold 15 or so pair of the tapered pipes in 4 years, at about 2.5 times the material cost, .....(ignoring the development and manufacture time), and a few other speakers as well, both HiFi and PA, but as a whole I am still behind because of the stuff I haven't sold and is in storage, and stuff that hasn't worked, tools, unused drivers and components etc etc and the fact that i sort of branched out into doing PA hire and mixing work for bands, which of course keeps money flowing in and out !!!
If I had to put a value on MY TIME, I would be well and truly behind !!!!!!
To actually make a profit/saving (are they the same??) I would need to be selling a significant number of speakers at the above price, which would mean making a lot of them the same...and frankly I'm not interested in going that way !!
One thing I can say is that I KNOW FOR CERTAIN that there is not another pair of "Windswept" in the whole world (be they good, bad or indifferent), and I designed and made them !!!!
tom1356 said:
I finally solved that problem after 10 or so projects by building a pair of cabinets for each speaker. A rough cabinet so I can hear and tweak my "best system yet" built in parallel with a finished cabinet into which I drop the completed design.
Tom, you have much more patience than I had for my first several projects. Nice work.
My current project will be of similar quality, the first time in 30+ years at this hobby. Of course, only the latest couple were good enough to warrant the effort of making nice cabinets. 
I started DIY because I found that I could get better performance performance for less money at the cost of appearance. Apppearance is now running a close second to performance on my priority list. If I added the value of my time, I am sure that my speakers would cost more than equivalent production speakers. (although unlike Andy, I think that my pile of excess bits helps to keep development costs down) I enjoy the creative process enough that I get cranky if I am kept away from it too long. Not to mention the satisfaction of watching my son and his friends feeling compelled to touch that piano gloss finish that I just rubbed out.
I don't know how I stumbled on the line array thing...the physics of the driver arrangement appealed to my desire for high SPL.
Well that was one benefit. The clarity of the sound is beyond explanation. A dozen people have told me they have never heard ANYTHING like these arrays. The version 2 design with the ribbon tweeters really underscores the crystal clear sound. In the interim, I am now "confused" by any speaker in a box. Why would you put a speaker in a box?
So anyway, I am running the system now with a powered sub (in a box) and the system sounds very good indeed. I thought about woofers during the design phase and knew I had the powered sub (stolen from my son in the Navy). Secondly, I am driving them with a 60W/side NIGC and the woofer section would be a burden. I have the V1 design in the living room and perhaps that would be suitable for this modification. As for dipole, what would you suggest? Do you mean back & front dipole? I'm still learning.
For the woofer section a squared W shape saves room. A narrow cavity 2-3" open in the front and closed in the back with the drivers firing into it from the sides as shown here http://www.linkwitzlab.com/woofer.htm
except it doesn't have to be so big. This gives you a wider effective baffle so the bass goes lower before rolling off. You've taken the high end load off of the 4"ers with the tweeters and taking some of the low end load off will improve their sound even more. In addition, the W setup offers cancellation of the woofers' mechanical forces which reduces vibration and improves sound. The push-pull (front to back, wired out of phase in this case) setup reduces distortion. Plus dipole bass is more natural and more detailed than the sub you are using.
I'm guessing that version 1 is 4"ers only. You could replace one in the middle with one of those titanium bullet tweeters used for car audio. They are cheap ($10-$20/pr) and highly efficient (usually 105db or more). Out of the box they are very very harsh but all it takes is small pieces of soft foam rubber, each about the size of an eraser on a pencil, stuffed uniformly around the cone down between cone and sides of the horn wall. Tune to taste, I use 6. It really tames the harshness and brings out the detail without losing much sensitivity. One in each array should be more than enough to easily and cheaply get it up to par with version 2. You'll need an Lpad to adjust its volume to balance it with the other drivers.
except it doesn't have to be so big. This gives you a wider effective baffle so the bass goes lower before rolling off. You've taken the high end load off of the 4"ers with the tweeters and taking some of the low end load off will improve their sound even more. In addition, the W setup offers cancellation of the woofers' mechanical forces which reduces vibration and improves sound. The push-pull (front to back, wired out of phase in this case) setup reduces distortion. Plus dipole bass is more natural and more detailed than the sub you are using.
I'm guessing that version 1 is 4"ers only. You could replace one in the middle with one of those titanium bullet tweeters used for car audio. They are cheap ($10-$20/pr) and highly efficient (usually 105db or more). Out of the box they are very very harsh but all it takes is small pieces of soft foam rubber, each about the size of an eraser on a pencil, stuffed uniformly around the cone down between cone and sides of the horn wall. Tune to taste, I use 6. It really tames the harshness and brings out the detail without losing much sensitivity. One in each array should be more than enough to easily and cheaply get it up to par with version 2. You'll need an Lpad to adjust its volume to balance it with the other drivers.
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