Because it always ends up costing more than expected. Thats life ! A power supply goes up in flames while testing, a driver isnt giving the expected power rating or distortion level, amps are noisier, especially hissing tweeters can be a PITA. All such things can happen.
But thats how diy works. You learn from things going wrong. DIY is not about saving money, its about learning by doing.
But thats how diy works. You learn from things going wrong. DIY is not about saving money, its about learning by doing.
Power Supply going up in flames. Lol how cheap of material are you considering me to use. Nah man. Anyhow. Distortion Level on amps and drivers. I read that QC is good with named brands and their components. I may be absolutely wrong in this case.
Yes I do get your point. But sadly my main problem was that I wanted to save money.
What about a smaller pair of Revel speakers and two subwoofers? You could build the subwoofers yourself and use EQ to make them blend nicely with mains, and then also get some room-EQ into play 👍
Edit: If you would like to build actives. You could choose a small well known kit, use a 3 way plate amp and then pull the wires from the mains to the subwoofers. It could be a really clean setup.
But what is your budget... if that has not come up yet?? And what equipment do you already have, that could be reused?
Edit: If you would like to build actives. You could choose a small well known kit, use a 3 way plate amp and then pull the wires from the mains to the subwoofers. It could be a really clean setup.
But what is your budget... if that has not come up yet?? And what equipment do you already have, that could be reused?
Anyhow I was planning to build SUB myself. I mean come-on. But what Revel Speakers gonna sound even close to Paradigm Premier series while costing less. None. And they are 2-Way or 2.5-Way. I am going for 3-Way. 3-Ways speaker is a must. So am looking for best solution possible.
Gotcha, thx. I've certainly heard identical looking transfers sound different, too.
Dear Vineet,
Saving money involves a lot of planning and strong application of knowledge. If you buy retail items hoping to put them together, you would end up paying more or less the same as the whole and also end up with a lot of packaging to get rid of. Besides, picking processing equipment and amplifiers to go with your speakers is not exactly DIY is it ?
DIY can save money only if you have a proper strategy for doing so. For example, buying a product in bulk can actually reduce costs, but active vs. passive is just something else. I was just trying to show you some of the ways in which you could make mistakes, both technical and financial. It is often the lack of knowledge of the market that leads to unnecessary spending.
Saving money involves a lot of planning and strong application of knowledge. If you buy retail items hoping to put them together, you would end up paying more or less the same as the whole and also end up with a lot of packaging to get rid of. Besides, picking processing equipment and amplifiers to go with your speakers is not exactly DIY is it ?
DIY can save money only if you have a proper strategy for doing so. For example, buying a product in bulk can actually reduce costs, but active vs. passive is just something else. I was just trying to show you some of the ways in which you could make mistakes, both technical and financial. It is often the lack of knowledge of the market that leads to unnecessary spending.
I build DIY passive speakers. The out of pocket costs I have to deal with are materials for cabinets, the drivers and the crossover components. I have been doing this for a while so I own all the tools in need for making the cabinets such as a table saw and router as an example.
My hidden costs are the various simulation programs I own, a pair of measurements systems and the time it takes design the cabinets cut the lumber, measure the drivers in the cabinets and then plug the measurements and impedance sweeps into the crossover simulator.
Build the crossovers and remeasure the now completed system and make any changes of crossover updates based on the measurements. Listen to the system for a month or two to make sure I am happy and then its take apart and finish the cabinets and reinstall the driver and remeasure.
It's a long process even using DSP you are going to go through something similar less building the crossovers. I don't think anyone is trying to deliberately discourage you just trying to give you a heads up how much work you will be doing as opposed to just purchasing a pair of speakers.
We all have to start somewhere. When I started I had a general idea and then after going through it I realized it was more intensive than I had originally thought. It was fun and I was hooked been doing this 20 years now. It may be the same for you so just think it through.
Rob 🙂
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You dint realize but thanks to your advise I was able to bring down the Total of the Component list by INR15,000. That is a decent amount.
Yes got you. But to be honest it actually may be much much much easier for me than it was for you 20Yrs back for obvious reasons. But yes I do get your point that it does have learning curve. Both Active as well as Passive.
Should I start or not is the big question.
Well, they can't explain it, because those people are wrong.
The cost for building a DIY speaker is anywhere between 10% to 20% of buying a commercial product of comparable performance.
That assumes, of course, that you already have the woodworking tools and skills necessary to build the cabinet. If you don't and instead have to pay someone to build the cabinet for you, then obviously the cost is higher.
Still though, the performance of DIY speakers by some of the top designers often surpasses commercial product costing considerably more.
If you are really set on a 3-way, then look at this kit designed by Dennis Murphy, one of the top designers in the field, from Meniscus Audio. This might be your best answer, yet.
https://meniscusaudio.com/product/philharmonic-audio-bmr-speaker-kit/
See the Price for Paradigm Premier 800F Pair is INRINR2,32,000($2,990) while my List of Components is Totaling around INR1,20,000($1,550). Which is almost Half the Price. But I guess they are weighing in Time and learning associated with it and not just the Physical cost. Hence they are saying it is expensive. Because if not I don't see it being expensive in any way.
A small amount such as INR 15000 is peanuts in the world of audio, both consumer and professional. Talk about doing things for less than a quarter of the retail price, that's real savings.
In my opinion, there's only one way to save significant money doing active multi-way and that is to DIY the whole B-chain that is, processors, amplifiers and all, along with the speakers themselves.
That Peanuts my friend was actually more than 10% of the Total cost. So that was a decent save.
What do you mean by DIY the whole B-Chain. Please can you elaborate.
I think you are perhaps misinterpreting what people are saying.
If you already have the skills & tools to construct speakers of sufficient build and aesthetic quality to satisfy you, and you place no opportunity cost on your time, you can save money with DIY; a good deal of money in fact. However, this assumes you build a design that is of high quality. The quality of the design depends more on the crossover than it does on assembling a list of high-value parts with good specs.
You seem to be assuming that you can design a good crossover on your first try, presumably because you think active crossover makes this much easier. Active crossovers make iterating faster, but you still need to do the same measurement, modeling, and iteration as you would in a passive. Your posts give little attention to how you will model, build, measure, and iterate on your design. This is the hard part, where the majority of the work and learning needs to be done. This is what makes or breaks the design, not a list of just the right components. It is very possible to hamstring a nice set of parts with a suboptimal crossover, and end up underperforming a speaker with cheaper parts that is well optimized.
As has been said; if you want to save money and guarantee high performance by building DIY, build a design or kit by a proven designer; preferably one that is well quantified and has done the rounds at DIY shows, so you can understand its strengths and weaknesses, and match to your needs & circumstances.
Designing your own speaker from scratch is fun and very rewarding, but your specific question was about beating the commercial design. Your first attempt at design is unlikely to do that, and frankly, it's somewhat hubristic to assume it would.
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You don't still get the point.
OK, I take it that you've been to a movie theatre since you talk of building a home theatre system. Below is an example of a 3-way speaker (from a reputed manufacturer) sitting behind a real cinema screen. Look at the price of this very professional speaker and ask yourself if it is indeed worth spending Rs. 2,32,000/- for a much smaller speaker for your living room ?
https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/jbl-3730-3-way-cinema-speaker-17279672212.html
In other words, even at INR 1,20,000/-, you're already ready to pay a lot more money than you should be paying, my friend. Now that's my point. You could make out the value of things by keeping clear of the consumer (HiFi) segment while paying more attention to pro-audio gear.
OK, I take it that you've been to a movie theatre since you talk of building a home theatre system. Below is an example of a 3-way speaker (from a reputed manufacturer) sitting behind a real cinema screen. Look at the price of this very professional speaker and ask yourself if it is indeed worth spending Rs. 2,32,000/- for a much smaller speaker for your living room ?
https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/jbl-3730-3-way-cinema-speaker-17279672212.html
In other words, even at INR 1,20,000/-, you're already ready to pay a lot more money than you should be paying, my friend. Now that's my point. You could make out the value of things by keeping clear of the consumer (HiFi) segment while paying more attention to pro-audio gear.
That's because even though this is supposed to be a DIY forum, there are some people who post here that are not DIYers at all. I've seen some post on other threads in the past where people claim absurdly that it cost more to build a DIY speaker than a comparable commercial one.
But to be clear, you have to eliminate any monetary value for your time. You have to consider it a hobby that you enjoy. And it your weren't spending your time building speakers you would be doing something else with it instead that also has no monetary value. People who try to assign a monetary value to your time don't really understand DIY.
If we take it easy on the finish - because that is always one of the tricky and expensive ones to do well - then for the price of a set of Paradigm F800... I would say that you should be able to build two active 3 way speakers with room EQ and two subwoofers, to properly make good bass performance, that also compliments the upper frequencies - especially if you consider the price of an amplifier that is needed for the F800. I mean... a mere moderately nice integrated amp, would easily set you back around 1000$.
But... you have got to do it well though 😉 This is why almost everyone is trying to point you to a finished DIY kit.
Have you heard the F800's? I mean properly... not just 5 minutes in a store. Because one of the nice things about building yourself... is learning how you can easily confuse yourself by maybe making an improvement, that might not sound good in longer listening sessions - but impressed on the short run.
My advice would clearly be to build because it's fun and a great experience... not to save money as such. You can of course always say that your DIY speakers plays like more expensive commercial ones... and then feel like you've saved more money. To some extent, I believe my DIY speakers are excellent.... but I'm also super biased, from all that fiddling with them 🤣 And you see... that's the whole point... it's a hobby... where you have to believe what you are doing, or else it will be real difficult to do it to begin with 😉
I have good experience with Paradigm Premier Series, SVS Ultra series, JBL Studio series, Klipsch Reference Premier series and many more. I liked none of those besides Paradigm and SVS unless I was going even higher in Budet. They have very wide dispersion and were clear and detailed and crisp without being harsh. So yeah I know what to expect and what I need. But how to achieve it is the big question.
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Yes but in your example that 3-way speaker needs a lot more addition in components easily doubling its cost to make it work properly to get good results. So is the case with my setup. I never said it isn't. But you will have to check the component cost and see how much processing is going into it. Not like my entire list consist of drivers only.
Okay I will take you on that but you have to get me pro audio-gear and processing system that goes with it within INR1,25,000(okay make it INR1,50,00) for Pair. The Speakers should be 3-way.
I run nothing but active speakers & pro. I think you could actually build a 3way for 4-5k that can compete with 10k passive or much more... I also think at 5k you could do a pair that competes with pro actives at double that price also. I don't know if it can be done for alot less unless you are very skilled about all aspects of speaker building. One thing going for you is that the flattest speaker on earth will not be in your listening environment, so your room either needs treatment or EQ or both . I say this because speakers in general are a crap shoot no matter what there are, but this is why I run pro-active & balanced gear. I EQ to my exact taste & be damned what anybody says about that. You could build a 3-way based off Purifi etc...& beat speakers at much higher cost IMO. I run active speakers for a reason & its not to save money. There is some things they do that no passive I've ever had do & I enjoy these sonic pleasures.
Just listen to a pair of get ya by's while you build & experiment on an active 3way pair. These hard core hobbiest on here know how to get every last drop of performance out of a cheaper driver, & I wouldn't try to do the same as I know better.
Just listen to a pair of get ya by's while you build & experiment on an active 3way pair. These hard core hobbiest on here know how to get every last drop of performance out of a cheaper driver, & I wouldn't try to do the same as I know better.