Well, first off I am being humble and you are just being discouraging.
There is a difference between DIY and a Hobby. Audio for me is a mix between both.
DIY in general is absolutely about saving money and not about just building something just to build. For me it is about build quality, building something better, building something that I can enjoy. If I can't fulfill those 3 than its probably not worth my time, unless it is educational. Now if you narrow it down to DIY audio than its less about the money and it becomes a mix of DIY and a Hobby. If I am presented with a choice of buying $600 pair of Magnepan MMGs or a $500 DIY kit with same performance.... I am going for the kit 100%, because I can say to myself this is better and I made it, look at how cool it is!
I know for a fact that the speakers I built from a proven design sound to me way better than the Magnepan MMGs, or my friends $500 pair of Polks, Energy Concessur, Martin Logan Motion 12, the sub $1k B&Ws, anything from Well Rounded Audio. And when you reach Totem floor standing speakers, the design is hitting twice above it's weight class.
Others have different ideas and goals about DIY and that's ok. I am just trying to wrap my head around how a $400 pair compares to a $7k pair of speakers. I haven't heard either of them but I am very curious about these Behringers and might purchase myself a pair for my Desktop computer and to compare to the ZX Spectrums, and see what my build goals should be.
In the end it is all about what sounds good to you 🙂
If I had money and space, Linkwitz LX521s, please. DIY and they should sound very, very good.
First off, sorry for being discouraging.
When I refer to DIY on the diyAudio forum I'm speaking only of diy audio, which is my hobbie. I do carpentry and car repair to save money, but they are not hobbies.
You now sound very enthusiastic about DIY audio, where before you were concerned your build would not be as good as the Behringers and embarrass you amongst your friends.
I encourage you, if so inclined to go forward with DIY audio, but I don't think you can expect most of your friends to think your DIY speakers blow away their Polks. But you can sit back and relax with your favorite music and be the only and ultimate judge.🙂
The Behringers are budget speakers. They are good value but you can make a DIY spesker that will sound the way you want them to. You need to debunk the Behringer hype and listen to them directly. You willl need to try the Behringers.
Should we praise Bose instead ?! The IMP, which won the contest beating both Behringer and Orion, is almost direct copy of Bose.
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I like my Behringer monitors, but running around making unsubstantiated claims like that gets me. Lets see some graphs or something...
Chris
On the topic of Behringer monitors, I wonder , why in subsequent models, did they go away from constant directivity
If you click on the graph here Behringer B1031A Test - Seite 2::Bonedo
one can see the on axis and 45 deg off axis response for both newer 1031A and their 2031A (along with distortion measurements)
The 1031A is not constant directivity even though its has a flatter on axis FR than 2031A
I think if they improve upon 2031A and come up with a new speaker with say baffle like 1031A, rear ports etc and flatter response of 1031A (even at slightly higher price) it would be very good....
If you click on the graph here Behringer B1031A Test - Seite 2::Bonedo
one can see the on axis and 45 deg off axis response for both newer 1031A and their 2031A (along with distortion measurements)
The 1031A is not constant directivity even though its has a flatter on axis FR than 2031A
I think if they improve upon 2031A and come up with a new speaker with say baffle like 1031A, rear ports etc and flatter response of 1031A (even at slightly higher price) it would be very good....
I thought the Behringer B2031P was the better speaker and one compared with the Linkwitz. I never could live with the sound after ELS57 no contest
Sure, I'll praise Bose and behringer and many commercial designs.
But saying that we can't do better at the same price is simply false.
And frankly is offensive to all of our hard work.
Anyway the examples given are only 1 aspect of good speaker design.... (horizontal off axis polar plots)
I already did.
Look a few pages back.
I like my behringers as well.
Remember, the original price for the actives were 300 each, not 200.
This is a serious error that I see being repeated here over and over again. There was no real winner or loser in this test. The test protocol failed to resolve any significant difference between the three. No speaker came out statistically better than any other.
Does this mean that they all sound the same? No! It means that the test did not have enough resolution to detect any differences.
So please don't state that such and such won or lost, it is not supported by the data. To me the Orion lost only because at its price point and reputation it should have blown away the other two speakers in any type of test. But then again, maybe it would have in some other test.
It is precisely for this reason - the complete lack of anything statistically significant in the subjective tests - that I point to the measured data over and over. The measured data is absolutely significant - it is completely objective, no statistics are necessary.
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IMO.....
Gary won.
Something that is goes against the rules and comes out sounding as good or better than the "diy guru's" speaker and a proven studio monitor design that's been done for a long while.
Gary is going against convention and succeeding.
That's what I try to do and it's people like him that inspire me.
Gary won.
Something that is goes against the rules and comes out sounding as good or better than the "diy guru's" speaker and a proven studio monitor design that's been done for a long while.
Gary is going against convention and succeeding.
That's what I try to do and it's people like him that inspire me.
So clearly your "Gary won," position is not an unbiased assessment of the results. Because they say that there was no "winner", but maybe a "loser".
This is a surreal thread! 🙂
Nobody won or lost, but the "Linkwitz Orion was beaten by Behringer." Bose 901's are better than Behringer B2031P which are better than IMP's which are better than Linkwitz Orion. Almost nobody contributing to this thread was even there. 🙂 Hilarious. 🙂
Why did I re-subsribe to this? I need to re-unsubscribe. 🙂
Wait, I need to re-un-unscribe because reading this thread is usually my best laugh of the day. 🙂
Dave.
Nobody won or lost, but the "Linkwitz Orion was beaten by Behringer." Bose 901's are better than Behringer B2031P which are better than IMP's which are better than Linkwitz Orion. Almost nobody contributing to this thread was even there. 🙂 Hilarious. 🙂
Why did I re-subsribe to this? I need to re-unsubscribe. 🙂
Wait, I need to re-un-unscribe because reading this thread is usually my best laugh of the day. 🙂
Dave.
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I've always been fascinated by the Bose stuff, because they're able to create a sound that's palatable, yet the ingredients are insanely cheap.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
For instance here's a set of speakers from Cambridge Sound Works which was clearly inspired by Bose. These speakers are so cheap, I tried to give them away on Craigslist and even for free, I couldn't get rid of them.
I'm willing to bet that if you took one of these junky sets of speakers, put them on some nice stands and got them away from reflective surfaces, and fed them a nice source, they would image better than half of the speakers reviewed in Stereophile.
One afternoon I was measuring some Synergy horns I was working on. Just for the heck of it, I measured one of the Cambridge satellites. Lo and behold, the Cambridge speaker was flatter than the Synergy horn, and it's phase was peerless.
So here we had a project that I poured hours into, and a lowly speaker from Cambridge sound works was measurably flatter and had better phase response.
Now, obviously, the Synergy gets way, way louder.
But that's why I get real defensive when people say that one speaker "blows another speaker out of the water." Because you can get pretty good bandwidth and frequency response out of $2 driver if you don't need to get loud.
To me this is the reality of subjective audio. And yes, it is hilarious, albeit a fact of life.
To-wit a $10 variable reluctance driver for in-ear monitors. Fairly flat response, very low distortion, good bandwidth, 1 watt maximum power into a 2 cc volume.
We do need to find some standardized tests for output capability and dynamics. And no 10% THD won't do it I am afraid.