New to DIY speaker building (new or used?)

[OverRide]

Hello,

I have been a DIY'er for many years with other hobbies but am a complete noob to the DIY audio world. I have been slowly researching options and here is what I have been considering.

I recently acquired seeburg SCD-1 juke box for free. Turned out to be a POS and was going to take up to much space and be to much work to restore. I did end up keeping the speakers given the great sound reviews on this particular Juke. The speakers consits of 2X12" woofers, 2X9" horns and 2Xtweeters. Unfortionatly none of the speakers have anything marked on them except a model number and serial number which returns nothing from google. I have struggled to track down any real specs on the juke, leaving me with speakers I know nothing about.

I was planning to to build two cabinets with a 3-way crossover utilizing the speakers from the juke. This was in theory easy until I started to read up on proper cabinet building based on the specs of the speakers being installed, room size, etc. It also crossed my mind that I could in the future swap out new better sounding speakers if the sound quality was too poor. But if the cabinets built do not work right for speakers I buy in the future I would be back to square one.

I will post some pics of the components in question if it might help.

What I am wondering is if I am wasting my time all together and should I do a proper scratch build instead of trying to build around unknown components? I was hoping to save some money by utilizing what I already have.

Thanks!

[wirewiggler]

It would be next to impossible without specs on the speakers, or testing equipment to determine them. As a first time project it might be better to use a known working design and reverse engineer it to understand how it works. Madisound and Parts Express have some great starter kits. Or if you want to jump right in and design and build it from scratch the info is available in this forum, just be prepared to do a little research before asking.

Bill

[planet10]

What kind of enclosure were they in in the Juke?

And pics would help.

dave

[dangus]

I would leave them in the jukebox. Don't attempt to restore it to factory condition; accept the "patina" as a result of its history, and as a license to modify it without regret. Likewise, accept the less than hifi sound as being authentic to how people heard music in restaurants and bars and bowling alleys. Just make it accept a line input and use an iPod or media player or embedded PC as a source. Load it up with period music, and enjoy it in the man-cave, rec-room, or garage.

If you want to build, go with a proven design, and ideally a complete set of plans and parts from someplace like Zalytron or Madisound. Paradoxically, the more you spend on the drivers, the better value you'll get. DIY can't compete with the economies of scale of low-end hifi speakers, but you can build the equivalent of $3000 speakers for maybe $600 in parts.