Lets try something different. I hope Classicalfan means you like classical music. What do you think of Spendor speakers in the context of classical music? I bought a pair of SP 1/2E with custom stands for $400. I never heard anything better for chamber, opera , light classical and even a more serious orchestral pieces when paired with four subwoofers containing 8 Scan speak 10" drivers in closed boxes. Which kit in a range of $2k would be a significant step up in quality without loosing the coherence and lovely quality of those Spendors?
Oh simple, you have your own visions, own references and design your own stuff from the bottom up to suit your own objectives. You don't clone , copy or follow. It's all YOU and you DO IT YOURSELF.
Of course it's possible for a DIYer to build something as good, or better than stuff you buy in the shops. But how many could build something to compete with a flagship JBL, Tannoy or Kef etc? (For sound quality, not build quality)
For those who think it would be easy, you may want to see where you are on the Dunning Kruger scale.
For those who think it would be easy, you may want to see where you are on the Dunning Kruger scale.
Oh, Fatmarley , you should be sleeping already but since you here and the thread went of the rails I have a question for you . Royd Sintra , Royd Sorcerer and Sorcerer SE. Are you familiar with those boxes ? Anything from Ruark worth pursuing for small room and close to the wall positioning on DNM electronics? They were the legendary brands of my youth I could only read about behind an iron curtain. I had Linn Kan (LP12 , Exposure ) and didn't "get it" but Isobarik with Krell KSA100 was actually a lot of fun.
I also didn't like it at the show but it's hard to say anything unless you have the boxes in your room. I hated GIYa speakers as well and thought it was a failed Chinese B&W knock off before I read they are SOTA . Magico flagship was presented by the butchers or used car dealers level of salesmen and was a disaster. Mcintosh folks belong to redneck riviera with their deafening demos and you can go on and on and on but nothing beats fat, badly dressed and sweating with emotion crowd of audiophiles wanting to make a deal on "THE SHOW"
I woke up for a wee and can't get back to sleep 🙂
I've only owned Royd Sorcerer SE and Royd Minstrels. I didn't like the Sorcerer at all, finding it very dull. This was well before I was interested in DIY, and I now wonder if the ferrofluid had dried up or something.
Minstrels are great fun and throw out a surprisingly large sound for their small size. The treble could sound a touch thin on occasion though.
I had MK2 Linn Kan. The bass rolls off so early that most music sounds terrible. Add a good subwoofer.and they are great. I used a Rel strata 5 with mine.
Mission 760i are often recommended when someone asks for a good budget speaker. I owned the Mission 731i and thought they were very nice for a small speaker.
I've owned a lot of classic speakers in the past, but they were all flawed in one way or another, so there's nothing I could recommend fully.
My least favourite speakers were Dynaudio contour 1.3 and Naim SBL.
The best place to ask about classic speakers is probably pinkishmedia.
Well I had Rell Strata but didn't want to spoil the purity of experience 😀 also Neat Mootive, Sonus faber Concertino and Totem model 1 at the same time but none could hold the candle to old prickly Rogers LS 3/5a 15 Ohm which I promptly sold to the highest Asian bidder thinking I can't afford to keep them eh ..Recommend me a true British kit for that purpose. You know tonal balance and PRAT , non of that American Bulldozer stuff ...🙂)
Ps Preferably something exhibiting 1:10 price /performance ratio to factory built speakers 😉
Last edited:
Wrong. DIY has nothing to do with designing a speaker. It refers to building speakers yourself rather than buying commercially manufactured products.
Who designs the speaker is irrelevant. It could be the builder, but it could just as easily be someone else.
If you build it yourself, then it's DIY. Where you get the plans makes no difference.
Last edited:
For some people maybe, but the closest I've come to building someone else's design was some of the Ariels maybe 20y back (gave the drivers to a friend and he built them). I design and build my own and have for about 35y for home, PA and my BG rigs.
I get ideas for possible designs from here and other fora and learn a lot from the technical know how and experience of others, for which I am grateful.
I really don't understand the attitude of "this" equals DIY and "that" does not. Is it really so important? Climbing a mountain or a hill is still climbing is it not?
As for costs of one compared to another, I regard that as a rather circular argument, when one buys a product, be it new or second hand it's finished, all it requires is shipping and installing. This is never the case with DIY, even if the design is pre existing (though some would then define it as "not" DIY) this has to be arrived at, equipment possessed or sought, time to define and source materials. This is never taken account of in the "it's so much cheaper" definition and can add up to hundreds of hours. For many, that time has a value or loosing it has a consequence. So where are we? To me it's a hobby, a learning process (be it productive or not). Whether it be philately, painting, TV watching, knitting or audio making. To those that say, that only "poor quality or bad audio" is available second hand, I say, look for yourself, audio is for some a journey, one of selecting, owning, reselecting, selling and so on. For that and many other reasons great equipment is available at "knock down" prices. Contrary to others here I think that second hand home made audio has a small secondary market only, often not even recovering component costs, compared to professionally made equipment that does maintain an intrinsic value. Will all that stop me from designing/building/DIYing audio? No, because I enjoy doing so, "to travel in expectation". The camaraderie seen here from both expert and novice alike is a revelation and refreshment in such a troubled world.
As for costs of one compared to another, I regard that as a rather circular argument, when one buys a product, be it new or second hand it's finished, all it requires is shipping and installing. This is never the case with DIY, even if the design is pre existing (though some would then define it as "not" DIY) this has to be arrived at, equipment possessed or sought, time to define and source materials. This is never taken account of in the "it's so much cheaper" definition and can add up to hundreds of hours. For many, that time has a value or loosing it has a consequence. So where are we? To me it's a hobby, a learning process (be it productive or not). Whether it be philately, painting, TV watching, knitting or audio making. To those that say, that only "poor quality or bad audio" is available second hand, I say, look for yourself, audio is for some a journey, one of selecting, owning, reselecting, selling and so on. For that and many other reasons great equipment is available at "knock down" prices. Contrary to others here I think that second hand home made audio has a small secondary market only, often not even recovering component costs, compared to professionally made equipment that does maintain an intrinsic value. Will all that stop me from designing/building/DIYing audio? No, because I enjoy doing so, "to travel in expectation". The camaraderie seen here from both expert and novice alike is a revelation and refreshment in such a troubled world.
Last edited:
Yes, it is important. Very important and gets to the Raison d'être for those of us who don't actually design speakers ourselves.
According to some posters if we build speakers to someone else's design then it's not DIY. Essentially that means this forum is not for us, and we don't really belong here.
I refuse to accept that as a legitimate interpretation of DIY. As I have posted above with the example of building flyable airplanes, other hobbies do not attempt to deny their DIY character.
This seems to be something unique to speaker building and I will continue to criticize it because I think it does a disservice and is in fact an insult to the rest of us.
What hogwash. Don't let them annoy you classicalfan... they are full of sh!t... Designing a speaker is mostly sitting at a computer, doing some electrical measurements, doing some microphone measurements... Building a speaker is drilling, sawing, routing, sawdust, glue, solder, varnish, paint... Both phases of the process are just as legitimately DIY as the other...
Nobody is trying to annoy really. When you buy already designed DIY project you by into someone else "aesthetics" and sound priorities. Classicafan has admitted that he visited the shows and most of the speakers he heard sounded artificial to him . Yet first more or less accidental speaker kit he purchased fulfilled all his needs. Does it mean that the designers of those commercial speakers didn't know what they were doing? They didn't spend their time at the computer and risked going bankrupt releasing a botched design while a DIY designer who designs many kit's and every one of them with different combination of drivers and technologies is getting it right every single time? And people who visit several audio dealers with their amplifiers to get the speaker they really want are all idiots because they could order one of those kits based on the look of the woofers and how cute and well reviewed tweeter is and let a carpenter build some boxes ending up with superior sound? At the end It doesn't matter if the cat is white or black as long as it get the mouse so whatever works for an individual is correct. What does it matter if its a true DIY or assembly DIY? If you need a participation trophy give me your address and I will send it to you to make you feel better. I appreciate the vast knowledge on the subject presented on the site and won't hesitate to use it or ask for help. I don't think of myself as a true DIY so I will happily assemble something that works for me. Also, I got few of those botched DIY projects made with wonderful and very expensive parts for close to nothing because some overestimated their abilities and after collecting those turds for a few years thinking they may figure it out they let them go for close nothing because life's too short.
This has turned into a strange conversation. If you build a kit it is still DIY. Kit is not all the different from building a clone. If you do soup to nuts which is measure. design. crossover assembly and cabinet making it's DIY just a much more involved and time consuming route. Not everyone has the skill set to do that but it certainly doesn't make a kit builder less enthusiastic of less knowledgeable.
There is room for everybody and there is no reason to break it down. What are you going to do set-up a separate forum for kit builders???
Seems short sighted to me.
Rob 🙂
There is room for everybody and there is no reason to break it down. What are you going to do set-up a separate forum for kit builders???
Seems short sighted to me.
Rob 🙂