Newbie needs advice on where to start! (plans)

[dcourtney]

Hi Guys

First off Hi and Merry Xmas to you all.

I'm brand new to this DIY loudspeaker thing and to be honest I really don't know where to start.

I have dabbled in headphones before (sennheiser hd580 and amp) and car audio, but I think now is the time to step up to a decent home system.

The system will be used predominantly for home theatre usage i.e tv/dvd/xbox and also some music listening (probably more your accoustic and rock style)

I'm thinking of picking up this amp which does have a generic name but the specs seem to be ok to me and the price is brilliant

http://www.zensonic.com.au/z1080.php

For my needs as far as I can tell a 5.1 setup would be sufficient but to be honest I really don't know where to start so I will provide an approximate budget and hopefully you guys can point me in the right direction. I have done some searching and reading through the forums here but I really don't know what I'm looking for.

I do want to do this properly though, One thing I found with car audio is if you skimp you will always be upgrading and spending more in the end anyway.

I've had a look at the kits from www.theloudspeakerkit.com predominantly there high end gear but from what I've been reading here it may be possible to build a higher quality set for a better price.

I'm located in Sydney/Australia so locally sourced goods would be great, I also have never designed any speakers before so at this stage I'm after something with predesigned plans which basically tells you what parts you need, how you need the mdf cut and how you put it together. I have very limited carpentry skills but if it's as easy as gluing panels together and screwing the drivers in I should be fine.

Budget wise the LSK kit comes to around the $3300 australian for the 6.1 deluxe setup so I don't really want to go over that. My father has a set of accusound signature 700's which sound ok but I would love to build something better

So in summary what I'm asking is for you much more knowledgable guys to point me in the right direction for a setup that should compete or better what I'm looking at that will be relatively simple for me to source parts for and build.

If you need any more info from me please feel free to ask and thankyou in advance.

regards Dave

 

[busterno1]

this a good place to buy drivers & x/o parts http://www.wescomponents.com

they carry vifa peerless & scan speak drivers they also have kits

 

[dcourtney]

Thanks for that mate yeah have read about them and I have an abn so should be all good for prices cant seem to find the pricelist on there website though.

The thing is I still have no idea where to start speaker design wise, I know theres no simple answer but I'm kind of hoping someone can say the general concensus is this "X" kit is the best set of front loud speakers to try to build the "y" kit can be used for surrounds and this "z" is the sub you will want to build.

Now I have been doing some reading and the shiva sub seems to pop up every now and then so that could be a start

I also found paul spencers site with speakers that look awfully similar to the LSK speakers I was looking at http://www.geocities.com/etude317/TL.html

However once again I dont know if these are considered a good speaker to build or whether there are better alternatives out there.

 

[merlinx76]

I am going to be building this design: John Krutke's XG18/27TDFC MTM

A quote from John's page"Compared the the venerable old Vifa P17/D25 combo, the midrange has quite a bit more detail and clarity. The Seas tweeter is leaps and bounds above the D25."

The cost is close to the same as what you are considering. The only disadvantage is that they won't play as low as the transmission line P17/D25 but since you are using a sub this might not be a problem. (it also makes box construction MUCH simpler.)

Just something for you to consider.

 

[dcourtney]

ahh fantastic another plan to check out thats exactly what I'm after at this stage. Thankyou very much I'll do some reading up on it now, if anyone else has any plans to add or opinions on the two kits against each other please let me know.

One thing I have noticed is there seems to be plans for the main loudspeakers and subs but not much mention of the centre channel and surround speakers at all are they out there?

there's obviously an art to them as well just taking the lsk kit for example again I wasn't aware that people had rear speakers that fired in both directions. http://www.theloudspeakerkit.com/index.php?page=baseline&kitid=D4