Speaker build thread

This is how April and May are gonna go.

This is a living room internet radio setup for music, mostly. Fills in the background when I'm working, which isn't often.

It's a semi-active setup with one amplifier for the "Woofer" and the other to drive the other two. There is a proper crossover between the midrange and tweeter, and the Mid and the woofer are handled with an active crossover.

The little storage cabinet below is quite badly built, so I designed the speaker with a purposely weak woofer and a very overbuilt cabinet (relatively) so no vibration transfers to the cabinet. It sounds nice, but there's some setup to be finalised hence all screws haven't been inserted.

This is the first of my 4 builds for this year, will update thread with more pics of the other speakers later. They all share the same veneer so they look similar at least from that perspective. I've been gradually getting more into building these since 2014-15, and this will probably be my second or third last run before I hang up my boots.

Those are tiny They're only 100VA each and the smallest of amplifier transformers (I might have a 60VA lying around somewhere). Someday I'll share some shots of the 2KvA monster I used in a Class A Amplifier build. That thing weighed 9 kg all by itself.It was like moving a shotput.

They're made by Torotrans in Pune, one of the nicest folks to work with among the vendors I deal with in India.

Thanks to the mods for moving the thread
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I started when I was 13.

That was 40 years ago. I didn't have books or YT. Just magazines and a very, very patient and generous father. My cousin was building a kit amplifier (which never worked and he gave up) but I was hooked for life. I did have the internet after the 90s and joined some sites that kept my interest fed. We started with basic kit level stuff, the type you buy on amazon nowadays. Those days brands in India were decent - not by today's standards, but enough to keep young guys like me hooked. You do need money though. Quite a lot of it, relatively speaking. I never gave the hobby up and kept building stuff on a smaller scale all the way through my professional career. I quit in 2012 and moved back home, and after a few years of recovery, started building stuff for other folks. We had an intention of going commercial but it's been a bit rough with our personal lives, so it never really took off in a big way and now I'm too old to start a large scale business. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you have a dream, chase it for all you're worth. Never settle.
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Audio stuff on Youtube, DIY? Not that I know of, not proper builders. There used to be basic kit level hackers doing videos but those aren't going to teach you anything meaningful. To be very honest I'm not on YT at all except for watching races and keeping up with PC hardware creators. I only know of Electroboom, but he's more a general electronics guy and does a lot of unsafe stuff as well, not recommended for beginners.

The best place to learn from scratch is DIYAudio, you will find a lot of stickied threads with tutorials and guides, some basic projects that can get you started on the hobby. That's how my really serious journeys started. There are outbound links to all sorts of resources to learn. Folks can be snippy sometimes to newbies but that's just how life is. You need to be good at math (like do long division in your head good) and know basics of Physics, the rest you can learn as you go. It is not very totally safe, lots of burn hazards, potential electric shocks (I got two in the morning) and many sharp and heavy tools and objects. It's also not recommended for minors to do this sort of hobby without an adult present. Learning - learning is by doing.

If you want to read something, and already have a good physics background, the best books are Bob Cordell's book and amps and Vance Dickinsons' books on speakers. You can probably find abridged versions somewhere. The "Dummies" series is usually good but I don't think they're specific to audio.



Another great place to learn is Rod Eliot's pages:

https://www.sound-au.com/ (start with the "Articles" section).

Be warned, this is not about brands. We're going to the roots with these resources.

Here's a good one:

Some pics of a pair I built in 2020, but now redone with a coat of PU. Drivers are of an older vintage - it's a full range driver (the yellow one) with a ribbon pod tweeter and a side mounted 8" woofer. The woofer has got a bit cruddy with age and looks a bit worse for the wear, but it does work like new. These are placed in a different house, but I do listen to them every day.

Here are some older builds I've done. Presented for your enjoyment while I get on with completing the last two in this batch.

The large 3-way floorstanders are still my main speakers as of this writing. Only one pair of all shown here are commercial, rest are DIY builds. Only one of all of these pairs remains with me.

Lots of files, hope they attach correctly...

Welp, looks like the order is all messed up. If you download all the images to a folder, they should reorder themselves numerically.

ibose said:

Fantastic. What is that Red one ?

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There are two red one?

The red + black one is a design from Zaph audio. You can see it again in pic 6 alongside the larger floorstander when I finally managed to get the finish to an acceptable level. The initial woodwork was very badly messed up by the carpenter, forcing me to use the two-tone Pied Piper felt.

The original design is here: http://www.zaphaudio.com/audio-speaker17.html

The tall pure red baffle is a design I did for myself, and then handed it off to a friend's son. He recently scrapped it due to lack of space and no takers (which is why I had handed it off to begin with). It is a line array on an irregular baffle, with two 12" woofers in the box below. I was using it as an example of what could be done with locally sourced drivers at the time. I think it 2014 or so when I did that.

I wonder how many in India have this hobby. I am sure it is rare.

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There are enough people that a supplier ecosystem exists around the hobby, so I'm guessing it is enough to keep enough people busy.

I suppose you do your own woodwork and measurements.

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Woodwork is outsourced to local carpenters with me guiding along the way. The wood is usually sent to me from Mumbai after CNC and cutting, easier and faster than getting it done in Kolkata. The tough part is finding a carpenter nowadays as everyone is working on construction contracts. I try to minimise the amount of work by making it as pre-finished as possible, but this round of 3 speakers, for example, has been moving from hand to hand for 3 years now because I had to change carpenters 3 times (they disappear after some time). I got the panels in 2022 and only now has the woodwork been completed.

I was doing a lot of measurements in the beginning but found them less reliable than manufacturer measurements after factoring in the baffle and cabinet. So I've switched to using the provided measurement and working out the baffle compensation and cabinet effects manually. It's a more hit-and-miss approach, but things have been OK so far.

Do you build for others ?

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I have only {Edit: one} pair remaining of all the projects I've ever built. That tells you what you need to know about building for others - but I don't do that. I build for myself primarily, and then eventually they get sold through. Nothing is usually spoken for at the time of building, except some commercial/prospective projects commissioned by clients (which I'm not showing here).

Here's the inner bracing pattern for my recent project alongside the enclosure (there's been some progress but I don't have the photos). Those should get finished sometime in May.