DIY Floorstanders

MarkLP

MarkLP

MarkLP

Soldato
Joined
28 Sep 2004
Posts
3,128
Location
Devon, UK
Making some floorstanders has quite caught my eye, I've had a bit of a search and found some truly amazing designs and research to go with them but It's all abit too far for what I want.

Ideally I'd like to make something similar to your normal size/shape, I don't mind something slightly different but not keen on making some of these architectural masterpieces.

Has anyone here made any before? Or could give me some information on good speaker combinations. I don't intend to get mega technical working out graphs etc for crossovers.

Ideally I'd like to make some that I can then add to later on for my home cinema, build centre/rears/sub.
 
Best speaker Stands i have had were...

Pavement Kerb Stones, Drilled 8 holes and put some spikes in Fantastic :)

Cheap as chips, the look is a acquired taste though.
 
:p maybe stands aswell at some point. But for now just the floor standers!

I've looked around to try and find a kit that isn't crazy money or a project based on a normal style floor stander. There are so many different designs out there that go into so much detail I'm a little overwelmed by it.
 
Depends what your objective is.... if it's to achieve something very low cost you might struggle as most design are more aimed at getting excellent quality more affordable. Low cost you may as well buy something made in China from one of the branded companies.

Also look up Falcon and IPL acoustics for pre designed kits which is where your best chances are. If your handy with MDF wood working you'll only need the drive unit and crossover kit.

What's your budget?
 
MarkLP said:
:p maybe stands aswell at some point. But for now just the floor standers!

I've looked around to try and find a kit that isn't crazy money or a project based on a normal style floor stander. There are so many different designs out there that go into so much detail I'm a little overwelmed by it.
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With respect, I think you're searching for something that doesn't really exist.

If I've read your posts correctly based on your response to the Wilmslow kits then what you're after is a kind of easy self-assembly kit that's cheaper than budget floorstanders. What you're finding though is that the maths doesn't add up. That's because mass production yields far bigger savings on materials, labour and shipping than can be had from DIY cabinet work. The result is that budget speakers are cheaper to buy in-store than to make at home.

If you're still keen on the idea then you might want to consider a different approach, and it might just suit your needs better. Instead of starting from scratch with a kit why not look at reworking an existing successful design? It's a sort of "pimp my speaker" approach.

The thing that holds back the performance of most entry level (<£300) floorstanders is the cabinet. To be more specific, it's what can be achieved with materials and the design without making the product too costly. Whereas more expensive designs will use High Density Fibreboard and plywoods to produce rigid cabinets, budget speakers use cheaper and lighter materials. Chipboard has been common in the past. The other issue is internal bracing, or more accurately the lack of it.

Have a look on Ebay, Gumtree and the classifieds here and on AVForums for what's around that meets your budget requirements. Do a little research to sort the wheat from the chaff. Mission might be a good brand to look for since there's plenty of choice in centres and surround speakers to match. The brand is also prolific. You'll find lots of Mission speakers for sale. I'd look at M73/M73i as a starting point.

Reworking an existing design to improve the materials quality and rigidity means you won't have to worry about calculating cabinet volumes or designing the crossover points. All you're doing is reverse engineering the cabinet and using it as a template.

I have to say right now that whatever improvements you make to the speaker will be purely for your own benefit. It's highly unlikely that if you come to sell the speakers that you'll recoup the investment in materials. So think carefully whether it's worth doing this before you spend any cash.
 
I made the Wimslow Audio Allegro speakers. WA were excellent to the point of redoing the drawings to factor in I wanted to use 25mm birch ply instead of 18mm MDF.

As said trying to do it cheap isn't really possible (although IPL are a bit cheaper). However once you get about the initial budget range of speakers where products tend to have high margins. This is where you can start getting the savings you're after as you can start buying very good quality drive units and building excellent quality cabinets for cheaper than the comparable shop bought speakers.

However the best bang for buck route is usually the used market. There are some great very high end stuff floating around for less that £1k per component which would cost a hell of a lot more new!
 
Thanks for the in depth replies. I was looking around £300, give or take a bit.

From my previous reading up I assumed I'd be able to make/build a better quality speaker then I could picking something off the shelf for around the same price. Maybe my budget is too low for this to work though and that only happens spending £500 and up?

Initially I was looking at the Monitor Audio BX5 or MR4, before I looked into DIY.

I wouldn't mind building my own cabinets from scratch but a design or something to follow would be nice as I like the reverse engineer idea, how cheap could I go with buying a set of 'off the shelf' floor standers and making a new cabinet for them?
 
Something like the used Missions (M73/M73i) can be had used for £40-£70 per pair depending on condition and age. These were a £200/pr speaker at launch, though the last of the stocks we cleared at £99 per pair at the end of the product's life.

As a rough guide I would expect used prices to be around 1/4 - 1/3 of new unless something is highly sought after. Once new prices go north of £450 you'll find pretty decent cabinet quality so it's a bit of a toss up whether you'll be able to add any kind of improvement rebuilding the cabs compared to putting that money towards the next range up as a used buy.
 
Do you mean use the M73/M73i as parts to build a new cabinet from or to use as is. How would they compare with the BX5 or MR4 from monitor audio?

Thinking of the second hand idea, what would you recommend around the £150-£200 mark?
 
For around 300 quid you pick up a pair of Linn Keilidhs.... Look up KEF and Celestion some old classics and under valued items from them as well.

View DIY as building a cost no object design for affordable money. I built a Dynaudio kit some 20 years ago and still use them... Stunning, the kit alone cost 600 quid without cabinets back then.

I'm planning another build, parts will cost a good 2k at least, top end Scanspeak or SEAS drive units,plus the cabinet will be my own design and CNC machined with several unique features. If they were bought commercial I'd expect about 15K .....
 
I can vouch for Kef's, I picked up some Q55's in around 2003 for £150 and they are still going strong today. Prices dropped considerably a few years ago and you could get Q35's for £50 but they have since risen again.

At the very least you could buy some of them and use the components and make your own cabinets to your liking copying the internal design of the Kef's.
 
MarkLP said:
Do you mean use the M73/M73i as parts to build a new cabinet from or to use as is.
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Well it's your thread about building DIY speaker kits, and I mentioned about reverse engineering and then upgrading the cabinets on M73's as an example; so putting all those clues together what do you think I was getting at? :D

MarkLP said:
How would they compare with the BX5 or MR4 from monitor audio?
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The MA's will whup the Missions. That shouldn't come as any surprise though as comparing RRPs you're looking at £200 worth of Mission versus £400-£500 worth of MA. Some of that extra cash pays for heavier and better braced cabinets as well better drivers.

Incidentally, the MR4 is a reworking of part of the old Monitor Audio Bronze (BR) which preceded the current BX range. They may be using different cabinet materials in MR vs BR though, possibly chipboard rather than MDF/HDF (?) but don't quote me on that.

Currently the MR4s sell for around £350/pr. The BX5's were £450-£500/pr bnut they're up for replacement so the remaining stocks are clearing through at £299...... That's less that the model below!!

MarkLP said:
Thinking of the second hand idea, what would you recommend around the £150-£200 mark?
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There are almost too many choices. Much depends though on whether there's a supporting cast of centre and surrounds in the range and how much they fetch in the used market. It's no good getting a great deal on some used fronts if then you'll have to pay through the nose for a partnering centre and surrounds.

KEF would be a good shout. There's plenty of product about. Monitor Audio of course. B&W is a possibility but they tend to attract the badge buyer so prices are a bit elevated for what it is and the B&W Dipole surrounds are obscenely expensive; even the earliest DS surrounds which are frequency limited for Pro-Logic use. Dali might be worth a look. There's always the higher quality Mission speakers. You need to have a look what's turning up regularly on the auction site then read some reviews to get a feel for what's out there.
 
www.troelsgravesen.dk

some nice projects on there. I always fancied building the peerless floorstanders.

for parts, there are a few places in Europe http://www.europe-audio.com/intro.asp for example that sell drive units etc. although, frustratingly its often cheaper to buy European drive units, tweeters etc from the USA suppliers. Parts express for example.

Its not a cheap way of getting nice speakers, but you could get high end speakers, for mid price money.
 
Troels site is where I look, so it's from there I will build from
Some serious designs on there, just look to some the examples people have made, impressive cabinet work on some.
 
Just download WinISD and design them yourself. It's dead easy - I was doing it at 12. Speaker manufacturers will tel you it's complicated because they want to sell expensive speakers. But it's really really easy especially when you know how! If you would like to go down this route just post and I would be happy to go through the numbers that you would be looking for.

FYI passive crossovers are the hard bit. They are awful l and are the absolute weakest link in the audio chain. This is why they are hard to get right. Just for a comparison you can do the 'crossing over' before the amplifiers which yields approximately 100 to 10,000 times less distortion!
 
champ222 said:
www.troelsgravesen.dk

some nice projects on there. I always fancied building the peerless floorstanders.

for parts, there are a few places in Europe http://www.europe-audio.com/intro.asp for example that sell drive units etc. although, frustratingly its often cheaper to buy European drive units, tweeters etc from the USA suppliers. Parts express for example.

Its not a cheap way of getting nice speakers, but you could get high end speakers, for mid price money.
Click to expand...

I have browsed through that site and some of the designs and work gone into them are pretty awesome, but I think most if not all will go over my budget considerably.

lucid said:
Well it's your thread about building DIY speaker kits, and I mentioned about reverse engineering and then upgrading the cabinets on M73's as an example; so putting all those clues together what do you think I was getting at? :D

The MA's will whup the Missions. That shouldn't come as any surprise though as comparing RRPs you're looking at £200 worth of Mission versus £400-£500 worth of MA. Some of that extra cash pays for heavier and better braced cabinets as well better drivers.

Incidentally, the MR4 is a reworking of part of the old Monitor Audio Bronze (BR) which preceded the current BX range. They may be using different cabinet materials in MR vs BR though, possibly chipboard rather than MDF/HDF (?) but don't quote me on that.

Currently the MR4s sell for around £350/pr. The BX5's were £450-£500/pr bnut they're up for replacement so the remaining stocks are clearing through at £299...... That's less that the model below!!

There are almost too many choices. Much depends though on whether there's a supporting cast of centre and surrounds in the range and how much they fetch in the used market. It's no good getting a great deal on some used fronts if then you'll have to pay through the nose for a partnering centre and surrounds.

KEF would be a good shout. There's plenty of product about. Monitor Audio of course. B&W is a possibility but they tend to attract the badge buyer so prices are a bit elevated for what it is and the B&W Dipole surrounds are obscenely expensive; even the earliest DS surrounds which are frequency limited for Pro-Logic use. Dali might be worth a look. There's always the higher quality Mission speakers. You need to have a look what's turning up regularly on the auction site then read some reviews to get a feel for what's out there.
Click to expand...

Again thanks for the informative post, much appreciated. I'm going to keep in mind the MR4/BX5 if I don't end up going down the DIY route. Also with regards to the second hand units I completely agree I could buy a really rare set which are great but then be stuck not being able to find other speakers to match which will be a right pain! Out of interest I could only find the BX5 at £349, are you able to link to the place you know of that's £299?

GSWAudio said:
Just download WinISD and design them yourself. It's dead easy - I was doing it at 12. Speaker manufacturers will tel you it's complicated because they want to sell expensive speakers. But it's really really easy especially when you know how! If you would like to go down this route just post and I would be happy to go through the numbers that you would be looking for.

FYI passive crossovers are the hard bit. They are awful l and are the absolute weakest link in the audio chain. This is why they are hard to get right. Just for a comparison you can do the 'crossing over' before the amplifiers which yields approximately 100 to 10,000 times less distortion!
Click to expand...

Thanks just downloaded this and had a quick look, would be very interested in knowing some more if you are happy to give me a quick run through? I remember my Dad used to use (I think) a Behringer Crossover for his PA equipment and he always said the difference between active and passive was huge. My only problem is at the moment the speakers will be connected to my AV receiver so not 100% sure where I could add the crossover in.
 
If you are wanting simple but fun then try mark audio alpair 7 drivers with either frugel horn mk3 or pensil 7. Both are fun to build and come with excellent results.
 
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