newbie trial run design recommendation?

[Eternal Newbie]

Throughout the school year I had a teacher that was previously really into diy speakers, talking about it all the time, and this summer I have been looking around at the hobby. I personally don't believe I will ever go as far as designing my own speakers or subs, but I would like to take a crack at building speakers as a way to save money while getting good sound.

Here's the thing: I'm still under my parent's roof and that means I have to get them to believe it's worthwhile. I have access to the vast majority of tools I would probably need (table saw, router, soldering materials, etc.). My dad is an electrical engineer and we're both pretty handy as far as woodworking and soldering electronics would go. I think we can do the actual building fairly easily.

I'm a newbie, but I'm not afraid to put time into learning. Here's what I need (if possible):

The amount of websites is dizzying, I could use some direction. I would like a design recommendation for a speaker that I could build for somewhere in the 0-125 range for a SINGLE speaker. I don't know if that is too cheap or not, but like I said I have to convince my parents that diy won't sound horrid and I can't spend 800 on that dream set of proac clones (yet . ) because 800 is a little expensive for a trial run. Basically just something to hook up to a receiver and run music through to demonstrate that just because it's diy doesn't mean it won't work or that it's crap. Doesn't really matter if it's bookshelf or floorstanding, although bookshelf would probably be ideal. If the first one sounds good I'd probably build a second, and then eventually sell the pair to build a better set. Like I said I'm a newbie so fairly specific plans with dimensions and specific parts to use would be what I'm after, or if anyone here has recommendations on what parts to use in a recommended design that'd be great too.

Also if it's important I primarily listen to bands such as the rolling stones, steve miller band, tom petty, nirvana, coldplay, pearl jam, aerosmith, dave matthews band, and bob dylan. This is basically for music not HT.

Well this is getting long so I'll end it here. Thanks to anyone who reads this and double thanks for replies, I hope that eventually I can become a contributing member of the community.

[pinkmouse]

Hi EN, and welcome to diyAudio

I think your best bet is to just go back in time, and spend some hours going through old threads on the forum. As you have noticed, there are many kit speakers out there, and I suspect most of them have been discussed on these forums at one time or another. Another method would be to pick one you can afford, and then do a search on the forums for it.

You can achieve some great things with a limited budget, ( try a search on frugalphile ), but I would definately recommend building a pair, rather than just the one.

Good luck

[mrfeedback]

Find some old sealed 8" 2 way cabinets and fit reasonable economy drivers - some of these can be pretty good.
Experiment with different crossover arrangements and impedence compensation of the drivers.
Experiment with internal damping and panel damping pads.
Download 'Speaker Workshop' and get a copy of the 'Loudspeaker Cookbook' by Lance Dickason.
Keeping one box standard, and experimenting on the other is useful as a yardstick/reference.

Once you have been down this track you should be much better qualified to roll your own.

Eric.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Rush over to:

http://www.speakerpage.com

and buy one of their kits, without enclosures. They are not expensive a sound very good.

[leadbelly]

Like I said I'm a newbie so fairly specific plans with dimensions and specific parts to use would be what I'm after, or if anyone here has recommendations on what parts to use in a recommended design that'd be great too.

Based on this, I would say to look at Wayne J's stuff at speakerbuilder.net as your best bet.

[Eternal Newbie]

I'm looking at the dayton IIIs right now. I realize that this goes over my budget but if I only have to do one project for a while it'd be nice. Any opinions?

I showed these to my sister, she doesn't know very much about speakers but reading the parts list she noticed paper cone woofers, and said she thought those blew easily. That kind of scared me, because I want something reliable that is going to last me. Am I likely to blow these out, or diy speakers in general?

[Eternal Newbie]

Actually... I was just looking at the elf 1.5s. They look like they're very cheap and seem to have somewhat good repore on these boards. My sister agreed to foot the bill for them as a trial run (on the agreement that she gets to keep them of course ) Any opinions or reasons not to buy these?

[Kanga]

A kit sounds like the way to go for project 1. You will get to a good sounding speaker quickly and impress the parents at how easy it is, and you'll learn a fair bit about building speakers too.

Going for a DIY design in your situation will probably mean your parents get annoyed at you constantly fiddling with things and asking them if it sounded better before or after you changed a capacitor or resistor. And it will probably start off sounding pretty ordinary until all the tweaking is done.

You're spoilt for choice in the US for kits. Have a search for kits and you'll find plenty.

Mick

[leadbelly]

Both the Dayton III's and ELF 1.5 speakers are good choices.

No, you will not blow up the D3's easily. It would take a very hefty amp or a very overdriven home amp to do that; they wouldn't just go "pop" for no reason one day if that is your worry.

[classeA]

Hi !

Good experience for your vacations ! Learn a lot and enjoy yourself with dad and the family !

Why don't you try a fullrange project ? No cross-over. Think about it serioulsy.

Maybe a Fostex Fe-127 (shielded) would be good, and you could use it as a center channel speaker (as I understand, only one speaker is allowed to you). And it is quite cheap, but quite high quality.

Though you will have to face many misconceptions still raging against fullrange speakers.

Give it a try before you decide (get the infos on the Full-Range Driver Forum).

You will learn many skills in fullfilling this project. Don't try to learn it all in one shot. Cross-over could easily be learnt after.
Lucks !