Need recipes for DIY loudspeakers. GRM speaker thread

I'm a bit of an audiophile.  I think it goes hand-in-hand with the fact that I'm a musician and a theater tech director.

A while back, I scored a bunch of cheap MDF with the plan to make some real audiophile cabinets.  You know, call up parts express for the drivers and crossover components and make beautiful things.  I've already done a few of their c-note kits.

I have some 3/4" MDF 2'x4' panels, some 3/8" that could maybe be some baffling or cross supports, and then I have twelve awesome 1-1/8" x 48" x 11" stair treads that Home Depot was clearancing out.  It was a forgotten pallet that went on clearance in the computer but not displayed.  After several months it got down to 12 cents each.  I bought about 30.  Used some for some actual steps, used some for sub boxes for a car, and I have 12 left.

Anyone have links to sites that have DIY schematics for building some?  I might want some floor towers and maybe some studio monitors.  Maybe some sub/satellite things.  I don't think I'll get much money for them, but its worth tinkering during the isolation.

This should get you started, and there are also excellent links inside some of the sites

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/loudspeakers/?s=b15ab287416494826604db172ae3b382

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/

http://projectgallery.parts-express.com/

https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy

http://www.frugal-phile.com/

https://t-linespeakers.org/

Someday I want to build some Tarkus's: https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/tarkus

And also some Sunflowers: https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy-sunflowers

The guy who designed both of these also designed the Overnight Sensations, Amiga, and a few others on Parts Express. 

BTW... Jeff Bagby, who was huge in the DIY speaker world, just passed away from Covid this week. 

In reply to mtn :

Jeff would've been an awesome fit on here. He taught me how to build crossovers. I knew he was an engineer, but didn't even know he worked in the automotive world until this past year. 

Curtis, if you're looking to build them to potentially sell, get in touch with the guys at Just Audio on Harford Rd in Parkville, I think Ron is the man to speak with and sell what he'd recommend building in terms of size. A block from them is a shop, poptronics, where you'll be able to check out drivers and materials first hand as well. 

It's been a while since I've posted, but this is one place I feel qualified...

You may not even get back the price of parts back if you try to sell.  I scored a Statement Center channel speaker for $250, and the kit to build is $350+.  

That said, if you're building your cabinets, Meniscus Audio has lots of nice speaker kits.  The kits include plans for the cabinets.

I can recommend from personal experience:

• Overnight Sensations (I hear the C-Notes obsoleted these though.)
• Quarks
• S2000s
• Statement Monitors/Statement Center
• Tritrix

I got in on a group buy for curved cabinets for Jeff Bagby's Continuums, but I need to pony up the money for the drivers and crossover materials.  Those are probably going to be long-term keepers in my office.

The note about most of the Curt Campbell/Jim Holtz designs (Statements, Finalists, Bordeaux, Anthology) is that they tend to have open-back midranges, which requires about 18" of clearance to the back wall.  But I'd certainly recommend them if you can place them correctly.  The Statement Monitors are one of the older designs and "only" has a 7" woofer, but it still has pretty darn good bass extension into the low 30s.  The bigger designs have double 8" bass drivers and dip into the mid 20s.

By reputation, anything by Jeff Bagby or Paul Carmody is going to sound good.  The Philharmonic BMRs by Dennis Murphy were sold commercially for quite a while and have gotten rave reviews as well.  I built Carmody's S2000 bookshelves for a gift and I wanted to keep them.

Nola Brio trio.

If you've ever built something and just hit on a magic combination, you'll understand.

There are a few builds out there and they're every bit as good as people say they are.

You missed out on a pair of Klipsche KG4s for $150 near Gettysburg since this thread started. Seller was 100% legit as well, I've purchased Carver amps from him in the past

This popped up in York, not sure what Klipsches they are, could be heresys for $100 I'd roll the dice

I have been wanting to do one of the Frugal-horn full range speaker designs. Their website apears to be down but I bet you can find their free plans available still.

Www.frugal-horn.com

pdf of the plans

I hit peak Audiophile in 1984. Had a sub to Stereo Review and everything!  [Just looked - holy E36 M3, they have all the issues online!]

I eventually went full-nerd and ordered all kinds of plans, cross-overs, speakers and terminals. 12" woofers, 6 1/2" midrange, and (2) 2" tweeters! I only remember the midrange speakers came from France, which I thought was far out!

I built the cabs out of 3/4" plywood and stuffed them full of Owens-Corning insulation batts. Only the best! Each completed speaker weighed 82 lbs. Years later I got around to building a grill out of 1/4" plywood and speaker cloth.

Sigh.  They didn't sound as good as I thought they would, but at 5 feet tall I was the champion of the neighborhood! 

Then I turned into a headphone nut. AKG K240's for the win!

Now I'm happy with $9 earbuds. What happened to me? 

I started in the 70's and was a regular reader of Speaker builder magazine. Speaker building was practically my only interest at one time.

Now I only build full range stuff and use a blue tooth speaker at work and it's enough.

Your French speakers were probably Audax, my favourites for years.

In reply to Peabody here :

Ya know, that rings a bell. I have no way of checking, but I bet that's it. Thanks!

I have nothing to add except that Shure Vocal Master columns are the best home audio speakers I've ever heard.

Like..... stupendously good, like people are stunned by how good

Good rabbit holes, folks.  Thanks.

I was always an audiophile if for no other reason than I'm a musician and my ear is really good.  Now that I've spent the last decade or more being a sound engineer by default (day job is a theater tech director), I'm really in the swing.

Another one I want to try is one of those XPS panels.  I have some cheap marine speakers and I want to fab up some panels for waterproof outside speakers that I can hang on the outside wall and they kinda disappear.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Good rabbit holes, folks.  Thanks.

I was always an audiophile if for no other reason than I'm a musician and my ear is really good.  Now that I've spent the last decade or more being a sound engineer by default (day job is a theater tech director), I'm really in the swing.

Another one I want to try is one of those XPS panels.  I have some cheap marine speakers and I want to fab up some panels for waterproof outside speakers that I can hang on the outside wall and they kinda disappear.

I have heard one pair of those, no clue how it was fabbed up other than "quickly" by a bored friend of mine. They sounded horrible if they were within a foot of the wall. Way worse than my $10 KLH indoor/outdoor speakers that I have mounted on my deck. Move them to the center of the room, and they sounded pretty damn good (nothing to compare them to except themselves). So if you were to do this, I would recommend being readdy to install them on a swing arm to get them away from the wall when in use. 

YMMV obviously, and it bears repeating that I think that all the preparation that went into the ones that I heard was "Hey look, we have some spare drivers and leftover insulation!" so if you actually did it for real, you may get different results. EDIT: http://projectgallery.parts-express.com/speaker-projects/dml-flat-pannel/

Madisound has been supporting the speaker DIY community for decades.  Their website has a lot of good resources if you dig a bit.

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/links

Madisound carries the Linkwitz LxMini and LX521 kits, both of which I am damned impressed with.  Sigfried Linkwitz, who sadly passed in 2018, was an industry giant who gave his considerable expertise to the DIY community.   http://www.linkwitzlab.com/  (lots of heavy technical info there if you're into that sort of thing)  The LxMinis are a strange looking 6" two way speaker but punch way above their weight in accuracy and imaging.  I've got a pair of the 521s which require a sizable commitment in time and money and tinkering to build, a fairly large space to run them in, and 10 channels of amp to run a stereo pair.  They do sound pretty amazing and are worth pursuing if you're really serious about audio.

I think I just put together the best budget system I've ever heard

Nola Brio trio with the correct TC9 drivers, a Chevy Cobalt dual VC subwoofer I bought for $15 on Kijiji, and an old SA70 sub amp I had lying around.  I only had to add a 6db crossover to the subwoofer because i didn't like how it ran off the amp's internal crossover, but the pair together works very well. Because of the sub's original application I was able to bolt it to the wall for better effect.

Looks pretty scabby, sounds really good