I’ve build several diy speakers, mostly with Scan Speak units and good quality crossover components. I ended up with my Kef’s LS50 Meta’s. Conclusion, it’s extremely hard to build a diy speaker set that has the overall balanced sound quality of a good speaker system of one of the big brands, like Dynaudio, B&W, Kef, Klipsch, etc. A diy kit can have a better cabinet, maybe higher quality units and crossover components, but all together it’s not the soundstage and depth you’ve expected. The best diy kit I ever made was the exact replica of the Rogers/Kef LS3/5A. That was a very successful project, but is was in fact an official design from Kef.
"A diy kit can have a better cabinet, maybe higher quality units and crossover components, but all together it’s not the soundstage and depth you’ve expected." And what's the reason now exactly, why it has to lack soundstage and depth?
My advice is to go for it. Building speakers is fun and educational, and the results are amazing. My advice is also to limit upgrades to those being offered. I have spent obscene amounts of money on esoteric parts thinking that while I am building these speakers I should get special caps, special inductors, etc. and the budget got out of hand very quickly. Keep it simple and upgrade only after you have lived with the speakers for a while.
You made great points. I have been building DYI speakers since 1973. I love you honesty and seems you make a great product. You are a great speaker too, yourself and a great promoter.
I'm personally onboard and planning to spend the next couple of weeks further researching this project. I loved this video, even if at times it was over my head with regards to technical detail. But I love the fact that there is a genuine transparency to their products and offerings. Yes, they still do have to make a profit in order to continue the business, but there's no sin in that so long as it's not "gouging" us end-user customers. I was SO very close to buying a few different systems in the past 2 months - Klipsch, Tekton, Arendal, SVS, etc. - and am grateful that I stumbled upon this channel. To be continued......
@@Assimilator702 Most of the video was straight forward, I agree. When I hear terms like "spectral decay, poly caps, etc." that's what I'm referring to.
Thank you sir for a GREAT video. I’ve learned so much from watching your videos. I only wish I had known about your products before I recently purchased name brand speakers. I’m seriously considering gifting them to my son. I look forward to ordering from your company in the very near future.
I think that for a lot of hardcore DIYers, the financial benefits come second to the pride of knowing that they have built something from scratch that can compete with hi - end commercial products (doesn't matter if it's Hi-Fi, carpentry, electronics or what).
@4:30 the big manufacturers get their drivers for a small fraction (maybe 10%) of the cost DIYers buy from companies like Madisound. So the drivers and crossover they are paying $28 for we pay over $200 as retail DIYers.
Enjoyed your explanation about the DIY option. Would love to hear and see samples of your offerings at a show like AXPONA. That would go a long way towards convincing myself and others to purchase your products.
Wow, super impressed. Been looking a buying a surround sound in my living room. Looked at SVS, Elac, Jamo and Emotiva but am not 100% sure. Now after watching this WOW mind blown. I'm intrigued by the thought of building a 5.2.4. I am doing my homework and might be calling you guys soon. Would like to ask some questions.
Looks like a nicely thought-out kit. Some day I'll try one. Agree on the retail profits of off-the-shelf speakers. The manufacturer would have to sell high volumes to keep the cost of quality materials and drivers down. If they don't, they may not be using the highest quality components. I've built my own speakers. Some sounded good. Others I put to the curb. So it looks like GR does the engineering and measurements, so you should get something that sounds good and has good parts. Seems like a good experience.
I've built quite a few speakers and the cabinets alone would make buying commercially built versions a very expensive proposition. My HT center channel weighs about 75lbs. I have also built a set of MBOW1 speakers that use your M130 woofers. Those are now close to 15yrs old and I'm still impressed when I hear them. I used upgraded xover components for most everything. I am not very gifted when it comes finishing cabinets with veneer. The old yellow glue and iron trick works OK but mine are definitely amateur work.
You don't have any video where you explain how to use REW software and how to measure dynamic impedance and some important functions to analyze speakers ?
It's really about the satisfaction of DIY. I used to build radios from kits I'd buy at the real Radio Shack in the early 70's. I never had any pie in sky ideas that they would match my mother's RCA console stereo, or my Dad's Philco radio. I did it because it was interesting to do.
Hello again Danny. in this Video what that woofer size ? And what would dimension of this speaker. What a great time to start a speaker build. Also don’t most speakers come from China but build quality you say is much better then a name brand.
Really enjoyed that. I have to say though that I have owned the Paradigm Studio 60s. They were pretty decent, kind of middle of the road in price / performance at retail pricing. I soon upgraded however. I thought a lot about DIY but was short on tools and space to build. I would also have wanted to do a good veneer and that would have been another level of difficulty. That CNC cut kit looks the bee's knees. I wish I had known about that then. Liked and subbed.
Hi Danny, great stuff as usual! So how much is a flat pack from you or from Peter or how much would be the whole kit with flat pack with or w/o upgraded crossover. Or should I send you an email? Thanks, Marius
Commercial products: material price is about 10-20% of the retail price. And if you build a DIY-speaker for example you can save a lot of money. But this depends on what you build. It also might go wrong but if you do the right thing, the resoul5 would be amazing 😁
I'm just such a klutz and so stupid at doing stuff, I'd need a step by step video to show me where step 1 is, then onward. I can barely put a cat's scratching post together. Took me 2 months to finally add the little ball they slap at. I can't imagine GR sending their top speakers to me assembled.
If you have the time and resources DIY is definitely worth it. I like the business model at GR Research. Designed by an expert and put together by us the user, cutting out all the middle men. This way we can get a $750 bookshelf speaker for $250 at the cost of a little time and effort. Love this channel, I've learned a lot here.
great vid I learned a lot, will be saving up some money to buy a speaker kit and sub kit. I'm a woodworker by trade so building some nice cabinets will be easy for me.
If that's the case you can just by your components. You'll easily find plans to do your own cabs from scratch. I built myself an awesome pair of transmission lines myself over fifteen years ago. Someone elses main deign altered very slightly. You can go to town on the components as Danny says. The big major problem and cost is in building the cabinets and shipping them around. You would be shocked at the piss poor, thin, resonant and cheaply tossed together boxes that comprise even some really not very inexpensive speakers. I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't likely to chop their arm off with a Stanley knife. BTW. I was also VERY lucky, in that purely by chance I happened across a bloke who had four gorgeous pieces of fantastic Birds Eye Maple he had got to do a large Conference Room table, and the customer let him down. All corresponding and following each other from the same flitch. Two of them was adequate, just. They were approx 27 inch by 76 inch each. I managed to get the two for 90 quid. They were quite the fucking challenge. As I'm not a wood chap by any means. I'm an Engineer, Mechanical/Electrical. Bloody good job I wasn't charging by the hour.
Best speaker that can be made? 1. Purchase a home with brick or concrete walls. 2. Hire a hole saw and drill 12" holes in the walls. 3. Mount speakers to wall with raw bolts and apply a few tons of clamping force to the wall. Simple and cheap as that. 1. Why spend thousands trying to minimise the disruption caused by air behind the speaker like conventional cabinets do when you can remove it from the room all together by having the air behind the speaker free to escape? 2. Why spend thousands trying to create a rigid structure with exotic materials when nothing is more rigid than a brick or stone wall with several tones of weight pushing down on it?
What is your take on using Teflon insulated silver plated multi stranded mil spec wire for the internal wiring. Teflon has less dielectric effects than other insulating materials. This alone should improve the capacitive effects from the insulation or lack thereof depending on the insulation material. What’s your say on this?
Teflon is a bitch to strip. But there's a trick to doing it with a pair of sharp scissors that if you know how to do it works good. My hearing isn't the best so I am not going to be able to tell the difference between an audio signal through PVC or Teflon. Quite frankly I'm not sure if there is a difference. If you suck at soldering Teflon can really take the heat. So it has that going for it. I used to bench solder mil spec coms gear though so I know which end of a soldering iron to hold. I even got my old Weller station still.
Paul Frederick, it’s all right Mr Paul. I spent 6+ years in the Air National Guard in Avionics. Doesn’t make me a know it all, far from it. There are certain characteristics of materials that fall to questions as to their truth. The fact is certain insulation is more prone to holding a charge for a time and Teflon is less prone to this. Everything isn’t marketing hype. It is very prevalent in higher frequency gear where little things matter more than people think. As far as soldering is concerned, Teflon can be an enormous pain to strip, but resistance tweezers made that a non issue even back in the mid eighties when I was in. Great gear we had in the Guard, Pace, Hexacon and Weller and we even had DOD STD 2000-1 as a soldering standard. Still relevant today and I think it’s better than the new J STD. Opinions vary, but facts are still facts. Not believing when they’ve been proven is just not worth an argument. It is okay to not agree and I respect that. We have more pressing issues in this world now.
@@markphilpot4981 audio is not higher frequency gear. Speaker drivers are not sensitive to small charges either. I'd be more worried about that sort of thing early in the amplification stages.
Paul Frederick, I know audio is not high frequency gear, but radios, nav and radar are. What works with them can also be used in audio with great success. Rewiring gear with better wire works wonders and especially with tube gear which has lots of mediocre wire. It’s a price point thing, but it can be corrected. I’m sure that all gear can use an upgrade. I’m certain I don’t know it all, but you’re not convinced you don’t either.
@@markphilpot4981 I do not think that Teflon wire is going to improve the signal integrity of vacuum tube gear any. I know, it is second order harmonic distortion and it sounds better. Believe it, or not, in the 73 years that transistors have been around we have improved on them somewhat. Tubes, not so much. They still suck about as bad as they did 50 years ago today.
have always been a DIY guy...before I found you, I built a set of Anthologies by another company...good but not exotic drivers...good but not exotic crossover parts and do they sound good for 1K...I really enjoy your channel
I see that you have done upgrade videos for a lot of common speakers. How about doing one on upgrading the Sony CS5 bookshelf speakers? I personally would be very interested in seeing that one!
Not sure if it's on your end or mine, but I hear a pulsing high frequency ~15khz sound when your video is playing. Perhaps an autofocus motor getting picked up via the mic.
I've just discovered your channel. I'm not a DYI guy at all. But I figure anything I can learn about audio I might be able to use in some way. So, here's the easiest question I can come up with. You mentioned binding posts and derisively "That chunk of metal". So, I was thinking of attaching Banana Plugs to my speaker wire. But from what I can gather, is the bare wire attached directly to the binding posts going to be better than adding another "chunk of metal" in the form of Banana Plugs?
Excellent question Claude and it was one I was contemplating myself from this video. Do we want less or more? I can understand the thinking to some degree. We don't want to alter the resistance of the wire, but at the same time we don't want to reduce it's capacity to carry current. Speakers work by pushing voltage down a wire, most of us know this... But if the connector is too thin, then we could liken this to a fuse in a fuse box, it could become the weak link in the chain. We spend lots of money buying heavy speaker cables, to my thinking the less we change materials the less chance we have of altering the resistance of a wire. I personally prefer to connect the wire directly to a binding post (not always possible) over connecting the wire to a banana plug and then connecting it to a binding post. As you probably know most cheap banana plugs are useless with very little contact area and even less quality. As I see it the tube connectors are just a thin round hole for the banana plugs to go in. If we look at the contact area of the banana plug and the contact area of the tube connector, they are both far less area than the solid wire either side of them. I find it hard to believe that tube connects can be better than a good binding post. Is it better than the 20 cent terminal post shown as the default option? more than likely, those are a terrible way to get a signal into the box, but they are cheap (very cheap and nasty), but what about a quality biding post like the one on the back of the speaker? That doesn't look like it would suffer from connection issues. I would really like to see a back to back test done on this one to sort fact from fiction.
This is only true is you have great cabinet making skills, the ability to design a proper crossover, and understand individual drivers that work together.
Much like high end stereo microphone pairs 'd like to see the speakers and components of both crossovers tolerance matched. Alot of measure work, but should improve imaging?
When Sonicaps are ordered with our kits we send them out in matched pairs. The inductors are pretty dead on every time. Once upon a time I thought I would measure and match all of the drivers, but that proved futile. They just weren't that far off. Consistency on these are excellent.
On the DIY side your also paying the same markups on raw parts. A driver cost 15 to make its shipped and the retailer sells is with his mark up so it cost you 50 to 75 for the driver. What you save on is labor and you can pick better parts. But your not buying 100k drivers at a time like the manufacturer is or making them from scratch.
The manufacturer saved a lot of money on raw materials you didn't figure into your speech at the start I'd say if you bought the parts and wood your still at 300 bucks compared to a 500 dollar speaker They spent 100k to develop . Thats not saying i would not do it I'm just being honest if its your first rodeo you might buy a prefab kit Box or no box.
Some of the folks in this web forum do this. He mentioned one of theirs name. Consider joining the web forum called audiocircle.com, under the gr research section. The folks there, (including Danny occasionally), do a very nice job of answering questions
If your price breakdown holds true then why are your kits and speakers so expensive? If you apply your formula then they should be at least half what you're charging.
I don't follow the logic as to why you suggest 1/2. It's a play on cutting out the retailer, and cutting out the labour cost. You are not accounting for the time value of ones time, because you enjoy the building process. There would also be some savings on shipping, as less shipping in total and only parts (or flat packs) and no marketing. A small company like this can take a higher profit margin (would want/need to) and still be multiples cheaper due to the above. They may even get up to similar sales volumes to many traditional speaker companies. The same is basically true to an extent of any DIY project, be it a deck, a fancy bike, a log cabin. There is some commonality to IKEA's business model. I would imagine if many or most of us customers factored in our time value in a more traditional sense DIY then becomes no cheaper or even quite a bit more expensive. It comes down to, is DIY interesting and thus how does one value it.
At least your dome tweeter has 94 dB sensitivity. Companies here who do like you use chassis between 86 and 91 dB. Do You offer something using a Fostex chassis?
You can purchase the materials for the cabinets, pre-cut from Peter Rawlings. I'm planning on purchase the X-LS kit from GR Research and the cabinets from Peter. Here's a link to Peter showing the cabinet. ua-cam.com/video/-qyLOjH3s5s/v-deo.html
On the box instead of 3/4" MDF Why not 1" true pan. Lol he is looking to see WTF is true pan. Ill tell ya its a light weight MDF its just as rigid as MDF has the same Density but it weighs less. One inch thick changes the box internal volume the box size would need to change. His kit looks pretty good you should stock them plus his shipping is really good. He gets A++ for packing.
I worked at Best Buy for and their margins are NOT 50%. I also doubt Amazon is making this kind of margin. High end boutique audio stores more than likely it is around that,
Brian Simmons you’re right it’s more in some cases lol. For example the employee price for the Klipsch 820f is $180.pair. Retail is $500. The entire reference and rp lines are the same margins. Other brands are similar. Cost is even less.
@@cigarobsession i know best buy buys they product from vendors for cheap, but do the employees really get that much of a discount on those items? i mean a 820 f you can easily get them for 250-275 maybeless at klipsch dealers.
My brother in law works at Best Buy and he only gets a 20% discount on certain items. Most of the higher end items are less than 20%. Maybe the 70-80% you are referring to is executive pricing.
We've done that too. They then get a LOT more expensive. And we just don't have the time for assembly work. We also have guys that run side businesses assembling our kits for people.
I think yes, GR Research, Google should find it easily. Consider joining the web forum called audiocircle.com, under the gr research section. The folks there, (including Danny occasionally), do a very nice job of answering questions
I've been thinking of DIY a pair of bookshelves using focal flax components meant for car audio that has a crossover included. Thoughts? Much appreciated.
***Thank you so much for this and all your great videos! For me It's always been DIY and always will be if I can manage doing it. There is such a sense of accomplishment and pride that comes along with building your own speakers (and if your really lucky) building your own amps! Man...I wish I would have taken electronics classes in high school and college so I could have done that as well. My suggestion to anyone wanting to start building their own speakers or amps would be to join some good DIY forums and/or start a group of like minded people and go from there. I have found that if you are part of a group (one thats active anyways) seems to keep each other motivated more. Not only that, you might find some industry people that would come and give presentations and answer questions. GR-Research I think is an awesome place to start!
I m very confused by your question ,I don't understand, there's a whole section where he explains that 90% of what your paying isn't the stuff making the music. It was only alluded to however the power of buying things in scale that allows a manufacturers $26 in parts for a speaker go way way farther then my 26 dollars . So its not like your being completely ripped off in the stores, there is still a lot of value there,it just doesnt look the way you think it does.
@@johngaines8791 Not only that, I would like to see the spectrum analyzer he is using to see just what is really being added to the response then judge if it's worth the $50.
if you could DIY it right the FIRST TRY you might break even and get results the same of the same cost for the DIY build. i could have a real nice pair if i just invested in some good speakers. but the way i think about it, i could spend time becoming a DJ or i could by CDs.
Paul Frederick well. It’s not only the box but also maybe the electronics that come with the kit. Sorry for asking. Maybe I won’t spend money on them now. Thanks for the tip.
@@crossocean5663 you would need a schematic to assemble the crossover. These speakers do not seem to come with a printed circuit board that I can see. I've thought about making crossovers. Then I just ordered the last pair I used. It is surprising how many speakers lack a decent crossover. Many just have a capacitor on the tweeter and that's it.
I’ve watched more than a few videos of guys building incredible 500 dollar Subwoofers…..using the 5000 dollar Computerized woodwork machine and another 2 grand in other tools 😂.
Not saying that DIY isn't good. I think it can be. But I think your calculations are wrong. You also need to calculate the hours of the person building the DIY speaker. If you want to get the same piano gloss finish as the speaker you showed you have to send the cabinet to a pro. That isn't cheap.
I can get gloss finish. Heck I've painted enough cars. Although quite frankly I don't give a damn what speakers look like. I've never painted a one that I've ever built. The appearance of raw MDF doesn't bother me. I'm listening to a speaker I made right now and it's doing it for me.
Not disputing the figures you are quoting, BUT are you really saving or getting better quality by going DIY? Those same drivers, inductors etc etc all still come from a manufacturer, they want their cut, then they have to be posted to you, and you want your cut, then they need to be sent to me... So really who are we cutting out of the price loop here? Don't get me wrong I will never buy another store bought speaker in my life, but is there really any savings to be had? OK so you say you save on the cabinets, but do you really? I have to go to Bunnings (our local hardware chain) and I buy some sheets of MDF, they charge me through the nose because they have all the same mark ups that the cabinet maker has. But now I need to build and finish the box, so I am going to need some tools (my CNC alone cost me $7000 to date to build and I've yet to build anything of value with it). OK so I decide I would rather go to the local (about 30 klms away) DIY shop and use their tools to slice and dice my sheets of MDF. Well they are charging me a premium to use their equipment per hour and their extra markup on the MDF if I buy through them (often better to because I have transport costs of whole MDF sheets to their shop). So now I have saved no money, probably if anything it has cost me more than if I just went to the store and bought them and I still need to do all the hard work putting them together, buy glue etc etc for a one off use. I think saving money on DIY speakers is just an urban myth, (especially if you put any value on your own time, or not) unless you want something that is literally thrown together in 5 minutes where you bashed the nails in with a rock to save on a hammer. To me where the REAL value is in DIY is not in the dollars, but in the care I take versus the care the speaker manufacturer takes. They don't care that they are using 6mm MDF to build the box, they are building to a price. As a DIYer I have the option to say I can spend another (insert arbitrary number here) and I can build my boxes out of 20mm or 50mm MDF. I want some extra bracing because I want to cut down resonance in the side walls, let me just throw in a few more braces. Time is money to the speaker box manufacturer who builds a big empty cube. My custom braces are just my time and effort. My speakers will never be as pretty as the store bought ones, but theirs won't need a mate to help you move them. Now lets presume for a moment I actually knew something about speaker construction... I see ABC speaker company is just throwing the drivers in anywhere because they don't have the money to spend on R&D for their low buck speakers, but with a bit of knowledge I could potentially improve on their generic speaker placement (I could just as easily get it all wrong too, we presumed I knew something about speaker building it wasn't a fact). Having that ability to up-spec the cabinet and the crossover components is where I see the real value in DIY over buying what you are given. It never ceases to amaze me how many people can't look past the glossy veneer to see all they are buying is a polished turd. I listen to music with my ears not my eyes.
Thinking on this a little bit more... I am going to slightly contradict myself by adding a proviso... If you can buy a box kit that fits your exact box needs (not close but what you would build yourself), and that box kit can be shipped to you at a price that makes it still viable (other side of the world shipping is very dear), and the seller is willing to send it to your destination, then there is a chance DIY could be cheaper, BUT and here's the big BUT, what value do you give to the finish? You can't compare a MDF finished cabinet with visible seam lines to something finished immaculately in piano black with a factory grill, because your not comparing apples with apple, so there needs to be a dollar value attached to that finish that your plain box doesn't have. That value is obviously going to differ depending on who is doing the buying. For the consumer that buys speakers based on looks alone or brand bunnies, they will attach a much higher value to finish than someone like me who has open baffle speakers mounted in a piece of raw MDF (granted I did roll the edge to make it look pretty). How can you really compare the two and come up with an honest comparison?
I opened my Focal Chorus 605 or 606 or something , the cheapest speaker Focal makes, and the woofer and tweeter seemed pretty decent similar to what I think you'd find in the XLS, tho I don't have any measurements to compare just basing it on visual build quality. Initially when I saw the sparkling parts on the crossover were branded Focal and I was like wooo fancy but also kind of disappointed there wasn't a bigger potential upgrade actually. Thankfully thanks to danny I now know they were just fancy looking cheap componenets, and worthwhile upgrades in addition I can add No Rezz and Tube connectors.The little tweeker person inside me that needs fiddle with things to 'make them better' is satisfied. You should find out what the crossover in your speaker looks like.
If you can't make crossover filters then you can forget to make good homemade speaker. The crossover filter needs to be customized to the speaker and you can almost never use just one coil to capacitor on the midrange and capacitor coil and resistor on the treble. It becomes too simple filter and the sound offte is not correct!
@@Coneman3 Don't think you know how crossover in a speaker works! If you use active crossover then you must use Equalizer! A passift crossover in a speaker also adjusts down frequencies there is too much of! it's like an analog EQ. Active crossover divides only at one frequency.
Yes: You can achieve world class sound for a fraction of boutique prices. It's satisfying to build. No: If you ever re-sell it, you'll get pennies on the dollar. It's no name, and has no backing by a gushing audio reviewer.
Agree - when It's time to build a better system the DiY portions are hand me down items. Not worth selling. One other thing - wth is wrong with recycled copper?
Re-sell - I guess its down to components on how much you get on the used market. Peerless, Morel, Scan, Seas, Audio Technology, Acoustic Elegance ... and many other brands ...are all much sort after brands, even on the used market. And let's be honest, unless you're going nuts on the enclosure, you can get great results for a few hours of your free time ua-cam.com/video/-U3XW6TV9zI/v-deo.html
@@cgirl111 Its like racing on a new road vs an old potholed road...newly forged copper transmits electric signals more 'cleanly' . Reforging it lessons its efficiency
@@7munkee I don't think anyone can provide me actual facts that recycled copper is any different than "new" copper. Show me a peer reviewed study link and I'll rethink my opinion.
That got my attention also, I have a hunch that ferrofluid would slow down the Tweeter response, or perhaps it allows the tweeter, the ability to go lower and frequency. Consider joining the web forum called audiocircle.com, under the gr research section, folks, including Danny do a very nice job of answering questions
@@AverageNiceGuy For $50 I would save it and invest it, for $200 budget components, amps, wires all need to be included in price. With the price of this kit being what it is for quality, is there anything acceptable for much less or still worth saving up for?
I looked at parts express and no way I can get good quality crossovers, mids, and tweeters, for even 100.00. Not to mention all the assembly materials( ports, dampening material, wiring, connectors etc...) There is a mark up on their parts as well. Then if you figure in the cabinet you could easily spend a few hundred on them unless you’re fortunate enough to be a craftsman and already have the proper tools and the ability to finish them correctly. I love the idea of DIY speakers but unless I’m building a lot of them the entrance fee is to high to justify not just going to Best Buy and purchasing a pair of Martin Logans, B & W’s, or even Definitive Technology.
Making speakers is fun. It does not take a lot of tools to make cabinets either. A table saw or even a circular saw with a straight edge, a router to cut the holes and a drill. Then clamps to hold the box together. You can screw it together too. The last speaker I made I screwed the front on because the speakers were too small to hook stuff up in the box. It is just a little center channel speaker for my PC. Better than my old sound bar that I was using though. The trick is to go slow and be careful. Make sure everything is square.
most high end speakers are a scam A friend of mine bought $12K speakers and my mate copied the design The drivers were were only $450 each he made boxes as he is a carpenter we were shocked at how cheap all parts inside the so called 12K speakers were what a rip off
But that's true of everything really. Often it comes down to how much you value your free time and what you like doing. I could pay someone to build me a deck or i could figure out how to built it myself. The quote the build the deck is always going to seem crazy. The parts of the deck are so cheap. But then i have to pay the guy for his time, for the use of his tools, to get to and from. To pay taxes on top of his profits, to take on risk. You can build your own house build your own car, hell build your own light aircraft.... if you want to. Most will just decide to buy things though cause we have finite time, energy and interests.
@Richard Zedman, which speakers were these? Usually with such expensive speakers I find that we DIYers can at best build them for about half the cost. That is because at the high end the OEMs get the drivers for about 1/3 the retail cost, as we go down to the mid-if market OEMs pay as little as 10% of retail (because volumes are huge).
What's wrong with sandcast resistors? What's wrong with using recycled copper in inductors? Shouldn't the use of thinner wire inductors be Ok if the increased resistance is taken into consideration in the crossover design? I do agree that air-core inductors are better than iron-core, but I'm wondering how many people would notice if the speaker is used at a power level below that which caused the iron core to saturate and cause noticeable distortion. Biggest issue for me with DIY is making the cabinets. While I've been involved in Audio DIY for longer than I remember (my site: www.diysubwoofers.org) I'm a lousy carpenter, and my creations are better heard, not seen :-)
if you're using them from reputable companies, nothing. not all sand cast resistors are equal, much like any other type of well.. anything. that said, ideally you should be using non-inductive resistors, which sand cast are very much not. anyone telling you they are doesn't understand what they're talking about. there's some math involved if you're using thinner wire inductors. if you're not going to fine tune, stick to larger gauge examples. or if you're going to be getting up in wattage. again, math involved. probably nobody, but you should still use the better option if you can. you're trying to eliminate all variables that you can realistically manage to. diy cnc routers are cheaper than ever these days.
Thanks Kenabi. I've got a DATS v2 that I use for measuring impedance. I also have a whole bunch of sandcast resistors on hand (a consequence of being a DIY audio tinkerer since the 80's), ranging from 2% tolerance "Hi Fi" type to bog-standard ones pulled from old speakers. I ran impedance tests on a few of them, including one I pulled from a cheap speaker that I bought for 100 pounds 29 years ago, and they all measure dead-flat from 5 Hz to 20 kHz, no sign of any impact of inductance. I did see some minor inductive impact on one other resistor that I tried - one of those small color-coded ones that are more likely to be used in amplifier circuits rather than in speakers. If the impedance measures dead-flat on DATS up to 20 kHz, then that means that any inductance, if present in the resistor, is too small to be of any significance. The resistor's variation from its published value (% tolerance) is likely to have much more impact. Concerning using thinner wire inductors, I use XSim for x-over design, so I don't have to "do the math". I measure both the inductor's impedance and resistance and use that in XSim when designing a x-over. I can see where having a thinner wire inductor can actually come in handy to eliminate an otherwise-needed series resistor if there's a need to pad down the input to a mid or tweeter, for example. Lastly, cutting the wood is only one component of building a cab. Getting the finish done right is a whole other story. Speaker-building is both an art and a science, and unfortunately I'm not that much of an artist :-).
True DIY is 50 percent dependent on your cabinet making skills. If you don't have that ability than your end result will never be equal to a comercially available product.
@justame smith The cabinet more than "just a box" it has to be designed to work with the Thiel/Small parameters of the driver's plus the crossover has to seamlessly blend the drivers. Designing and building a good loudspeaker is not that simple.
I know it doesn't matter in speakers. It looks like particle board to me which has no beauty, just glue and shouldn't take anything but paint. When I make stuff I have always preferred the look of real wood weather anybody sees it or not. To me the kit is overpriced junk, except for maybe the speakers. And yes I do my own stuff.
That's the point though, they sell just the kits blase level then all sorts of upgrades for those that wish to pay more and get more. Surely like everything diminishing returns but we all value a buck differently. For those with the skills and equipment and especially interest making their own boxes is half the fun/interest. But they also recognize many don't have the skills, tools or interest/time and for those they have the option to buy a flat pack of the boxes and some models even built boxes now. It's sort of to each their own. Its still DIY as compared to ordering from best buy. Many of us don't have a guy like you next door to help us out. I wish i did!
X-LS Encore kit with all the upgrades-$484. CNC flatpack-$150. So yeah, if you built the standard kit (which does have high quality parts)you're under $500!
great but sometimes misleading information in your videos. A 30cm wire from Xo board to driver won't affect the sound quality and actually is not detectable. The voice coil of the driver is made from very long tiny cross section wire and is around 4ohm in resistance, so some miliohms just make very minor effects even at 20kHz considering skin effect. And also connectors can not do anything for sound quality. Even inductor's wire gauge is not usually detectable by our ears unless for very poor "non air cored" inductors. That is why the companies pay mostly on the cabinet and drivers and finish and not on inetrnal wires because in this market they mostly rely on costomer's eyes and not brain and science so they can sell their stupid stuffs like >1000$ speaker cable or multi 1000$ CD players or tube amps etc.
I do not give out misleading information. In fact I very much understate the importance of that stuff. Connecting wire, types of connections, point to point versus circuit boards, the quality of the inductors all have a dramatic effect on how a speaker sounds.
he replaces one pair of terminals on bi-wireable speakers with tube connectors and wires the other pair of terminals in parallel so you cam judge for yourself
The last speaker I made cost me exactly nothing. I had a pair of drivers I pulled out of something. Heck I even made the binding posts for it. The wood I used was a piece of scrap. Was part of a department store display pedestal. Things only cost what you let them cost.
I’ve build several diy speakers, mostly with Scan Speak units and good quality crossover components. I ended up with my Kef’s LS50 Meta’s. Conclusion, it’s extremely hard to build a diy speaker set that has the overall balanced sound quality of a good speaker system of one of the big brands, like Dynaudio, B&W, Kef, Klipsch, etc. A diy kit can have a better cabinet, maybe higher quality units and crossover components, but all together it’s not the soundstage and depth you’ve expected. The best diy kit I ever made was the exact replica of the Rogers/Kef LS3/5A. That was a very successful project, but is was in fact an official design from Kef.
Look for Scan speak B1371. 3500€ a pair.
"A diy kit can have a better cabinet, maybe higher quality units and crossover components, but all together it’s not the soundstage and depth you’ve expected." And what's the reason now exactly, why it has to lack soundstage and depth?
My advice is to go for it. Building speakers is fun and educational, and the results are amazing. My advice is also to limit upgrades to those being offered. I have spent obscene amounts of money on esoteric parts thinking that while I am building these speakers I should get special caps, special inductors, etc. and the budget got out of hand very quickly. Keep it simple and upgrade only after you have lived with the speakers for a while.
good advice, thank you
You made great points. I have been building DYI speakers since 1973. I love you honesty and seems you make a great product. You are a great speaker too, yourself and a great promoter.
I'm personally onboard and planning to spend the next couple of weeks further researching this project. I loved this video, even if at times it was over my head with regards to technical detail. But I love the fact that there is a genuine transparency to their products and offerings. Yes, they still do have to make a profit in order to continue the business, but there's no sin in that so long as it's not "gouging" us end-user customers. I was SO very close to buying a few different systems in the past 2 months - Klipsch, Tekton, Arendal, SVS, etc. - and am grateful that I stumbled upon this channel. To be continued......
What didn’t you understand? There was nothing technical in this video at all. It was a basic crash course in speaker pricing and a run down of parts.
@@Assimilator702 Most of the video was straight forward, I agree. When I hear terms like "spectral decay, poly caps, etc." that's what I'm referring to.
@@utjoseywales Just brush up on the basics of speaker measurements and crossover parts. Its really very easy stuff to comprehend.
@@Assimilator702 Thanks Joe Rico. I'd really love to further educate myself on such things. Do you have any suggested sites to help me in this regard?
Thank you sir for a GREAT video. I’ve learned so much from watching your videos. I only wish I had known about your products before I recently purchased name brand speakers. I’m seriously considering gifting them to my son. I look forward to ordering from your company in the very near future.
I dont think I have ever seen any manufacturer who educates their customers like how gr-research does. Money well worth spending IMO.
Buy used, plenty available?
WOW!!! EXCELLENT video Danny... You addressed the most important topic about DIY.. VALUE for money.... thank you
I think that for a lot of hardcore DIYers, the financial benefits come second to the pride of knowing that they have built something from scratch that can compete with hi - end commercial products (doesn't matter if it's Hi-Fi, carpentry, electronics or what).
@4:30 the big manufacturers get their drivers for a small fraction (maybe 10%) of the cost DIYers buy from companies like Madisound. So the drivers and crossover they are paying $28 for we pay over $200 as retail DIYers.
Enjoyed your explanation about the DIY option. Would love to hear and see samples of your offerings at a show like AXPONA. That would go a long way towards convincing myself and others to purchase your products.
I sure like to assemble that Encore speaker box and get to up grade crossover parts in the kit
Wow, super impressed. Been looking a buying a surround sound in my living room. Looked at SVS, Elac, Jamo and Emotiva but am not 100% sure. Now after watching this WOW mind blown. I'm intrigued by the thought of building a 5.2.4. I am doing my homework and might be calling you guys soon. Would like to ask some questions.
What is a 5.2.4?
@@darylkauffman6595 5 ear level speakers 2 subwoofers and 4 height speakers
Looks like a nicely thought-out kit. Some day I'll try one. Agree on the retail profits of off-the-shelf speakers. The manufacturer would have to sell high volumes to keep the cost of quality materials and drivers down. If they don't, they may not be using the highest quality components.
I've built my own speakers. Some sounded good. Others I put to the curb. So it looks like GR does the engineering and measurements, so you should get something that sounds good and has good parts. Seems like a good experience.
I've built quite a few speakers and the cabinets alone would make buying commercially built versions a very expensive proposition. My HT center channel weighs about 75lbs. I have also built a set of MBOW1 speakers that use your M130 woofers. Those are now close to 15yrs old and I'm still impressed when I hear them. I used upgraded xover components for most everything. I am not very gifted when it comes finishing cabinets with veneer. The old yellow glue and iron trick works OK but mine are definitely amateur work.
You don't have any video where you explain how to use REW software and how to measure dynamic impedance and some important functions to analyze speakers ?
It's really about the satisfaction of DIY. I used to build radios from kits I'd buy at the real Radio Shack in the early 70's. I never had any pie in sky ideas that they would match my mother's RCA console stereo, or my Dad's Philco radio. I did it because it was interesting to do.
It's all about the fun in the process of doing it and the satisfaction when completed.
Hello again Danny. in this Video what that woofer size ? And what would dimension of this speaker. What a great time to start a speaker build. Also don’t most speakers come from China but build quality you say is much better then a name brand.
Really enjoyed that. I have to say though that I have owned the Paradigm Studio 60s. They were pretty decent, kind of middle of the road in price / performance at retail pricing. I soon upgraded however. I thought a lot about DIY but was short on tools and space to build. I would also have wanted to do a good veneer and that would have been another level of difficulty. That CNC cut kit looks the bee's knees. I wish I had known about that then. Liked and subbed.
I have those now, and looking to upgrade. What did you end up getting? How did you end up selling the 60’s?
@@commane21 Triangle Magellan - similar presentation, but just better. Later I got non-ported speakers - they need more power but are more accurate.
As soon as you guys get more inductors, I'm ordering the X-LS Encore kit!
When you assemble and listen to them I hope you post your impressions
Hi Danny, great stuff as usual! So how much is a flat pack from you or from Peter or how much would be the whole kit with flat pack with or w/o upgraded crossover. Or should I send you an email? Thanks, Marius
thanks Danny, i am looking into your kits now..
Im assuming you can get some great cabinets at garage sales and pawn stores...just rebuild with the speaker kits
That's what i did, got 4 bookshelf speakers for 10 bucks!
Commercial products: material price is about 10-20% of the retail price. And if you build a DIY-speaker for example you can save a lot of money. But this depends on what you build. It also might go wrong but if you do the right thing, the resoul5 would be amazing 😁
I'm just such a klutz and so stupid at doing stuff, I'd need a step by step video to show me where step 1 is, then onward. I can barely put a cat's scratching post together. Took me 2 months to finally add the little ball they slap at.
I can't imagine GR sending their top speakers to me assembled.
If you have the time and resources DIY is definitely worth it. I like the business model at GR Research. Designed by an expert and put together by us the user, cutting out all the middle men. This way we can get a $750 bookshelf speaker for $250 at the cost of a little time and effort. Love this channel, I've learned a lot here.
amen.
great vid I learned a lot, will be saving up some money to buy a speaker kit and sub kit. I'm a woodworker by trade so building some nice cabinets will be easy for me.
If that's the case you can just by your components. You'll easily find plans to do your own cabs from scratch.
I built myself an awesome pair of transmission lines myself over fifteen years ago. Someone elses main deign altered very slightly.
You can go to town on the components as Danny says. The big major problem and cost is in building the cabinets and shipping them around. You would be shocked at the piss poor, thin, resonant and cheaply tossed together boxes that comprise even some really not very inexpensive speakers.
I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't likely to chop their arm off with a Stanley knife.
BTW. I was also VERY lucky, in that purely by chance I happened across a bloke who had four gorgeous pieces of fantastic Birds Eye Maple he had got to do a large Conference Room table, and the customer let him down. All corresponding and following each other from the same flitch. Two of them was adequate, just. They were approx 27 inch by 76 inch each. I managed to get the two for 90 quid.
They were quite the fucking challenge. As I'm not a wood chap by any means. I'm an Engineer, Mechanical/Electrical.
Bloody good job I wasn't charging by the hour.
Best speaker that can be made?
1. Purchase a home with brick or concrete walls.
2. Hire a hole saw and drill 12" holes in the walls.
3. Mount speakers to wall with raw bolts and apply a few tons of clamping force to the wall.
Simple and cheap as that.
1. Why spend thousands trying to minimise the disruption caused by air behind the speaker like conventional cabinets do when you can remove it from the room all together by having the air behind the speaker free to escape?
2. Why spend thousands trying to create a rigid structure with exotic materials when nothing is more rigid than a brick or stone wall with several tones of weight pushing down on it?
Does a banna plug fit into the tube connector?
What type of wood is used in the build kit? Thanks
What is your take on using Teflon insulated silver plated multi stranded mil spec wire for the internal wiring. Teflon has less dielectric effects than other insulating materials. This alone should improve the capacitive effects from the insulation or lack thereof depending on the insulation material. What’s your say on this?
Teflon is a bitch to strip. But there's a trick to doing it with a pair of sharp scissors that if you know how to do it works good. My hearing isn't the best so I am not going to be able to tell the difference between an audio signal through PVC or Teflon. Quite frankly I'm not sure if there is a difference. If you suck at soldering Teflon can really take the heat. So it has that going for it. I used to bench solder mil spec coms gear though so I know which end of a soldering iron to hold. I even got my old Weller station still.
Paul Frederick, it’s all right Mr Paul. I spent 6+ years in the Air National Guard in Avionics. Doesn’t make me a know it all, far from it. There are certain characteristics of materials that fall to questions as to their truth. The fact is certain insulation is more prone to holding a charge for a time and Teflon is less prone to this. Everything isn’t marketing hype. It is very prevalent in higher frequency gear where little things matter more than people think. As far as soldering is concerned, Teflon can be an enormous pain to strip, but resistance tweezers made that a non issue even back in the mid eighties when I was in. Great gear we had in the Guard, Pace, Hexacon and Weller and we even had DOD STD 2000-1 as a soldering standard. Still relevant today and I think it’s better than the new J STD. Opinions vary, but facts are still facts. Not believing when they’ve been proven is just not worth an argument. It is okay to not agree and I respect that. We have more pressing issues in this world now.
@@markphilpot4981 audio is not higher frequency gear. Speaker drivers are not sensitive to small charges either. I'd be more worried about that sort of thing early in the amplification stages.
Paul Frederick, I know audio is not high frequency gear, but radios, nav and radar are. What works with them can also be used in audio with great success. Rewiring gear with better wire works wonders and especially with tube gear which has lots of mediocre wire. It’s a price point thing, but it can be corrected. I’m sure that all gear can use an upgrade. I’m certain I don’t know it all, but you’re not convinced you don’t either.
@@markphilpot4981 I do not think that Teflon wire is going to improve the signal integrity of vacuum tube gear any. I know, it is second order harmonic distortion and it sounds better. Believe it, or not, in the 73 years that transistors have been around we have improved on them somewhat. Tubes, not so much. They still suck about as bad as they did 50 years ago today.
have always been a DIY guy...before I found you, I built a set of Anthologies by another company...good but not exotic drivers...good but not exotic crossover parts and do they sound good for 1K...I really enjoy your channel
What brand do you sell your speakers at? Can you share website. Regards dr Dighe
The wiggly wire in the background at 19:00 cracks me up 😆
I see that you have done upgrade videos for a lot of common speakers. How about doing one on upgrading the Sony CS5 bookshelf speakers? I personally would be very interested in seeing that one!
Done: ua-cam.com/video/upVyx7G5T2U/v-deo.html
not only DIY, but also simplicity! less is more
Not sure if it's on your end or mine, but I hear a pulsing high frequency ~15khz sound when your video is playing. Perhaps an autofocus motor getting picked up via the mic.
Best commercial ive seen in a while:)
I've just discovered your channel. I'm not a DYI guy at all. But I figure anything I can learn about audio I might be able to use in some way. So, here's the easiest question I can come up with. You mentioned binding posts and derisively "That chunk of metal". So, I was thinking of attaching Banana Plugs to my speaker wire. But from what I can gather, is the bare wire attached directly to the binding posts going to be better than adding another "chunk of metal" in the form of Banana Plugs?
Excellent question Claude and it was one I was contemplating myself from this video. Do we want less or more? I can understand the thinking to some degree. We don't want to alter the resistance of the wire, but at the same time we don't want to reduce it's capacity to carry current.
Speakers work by pushing voltage down a wire, most of us know this... But if the connector is too thin, then we could liken this to a fuse in a fuse box, it could become the weak link in the chain. We spend lots of money buying heavy speaker cables, to my thinking the less we change materials the less chance we have of altering the resistance of a wire.
I personally prefer to connect the wire directly to a binding post (not always possible) over connecting the wire to a banana plug and then connecting it to a binding post. As you probably know most cheap banana plugs are useless with very little contact area and even less quality. As I see it the tube connectors are just a thin round hole for the banana plugs to go in. If we look at the contact area of the banana plug and the contact area of the tube connector, they are both far less area than the solid wire either side of them.
I find it hard to believe that tube connects can be better than a good binding post. Is it better than the 20 cent terminal post shown as the default option? more than likely, those are a terrible way to get a signal into the box, but they are cheap (very cheap and nasty), but what about a quality biding post like the one on the back of the speaker? That doesn't look like it would suffer from connection issues. I would really like to see a back to back test done on this one to sort fact from fiction.
This is only true is you have great cabinet making skills, the ability to design a proper crossover, and understand individual drivers that work together.
I'm impressed! Very well put together explanation 😎
Much like high end stereo microphone pairs 'd like to see the speakers and components of both crossovers tolerance matched. Alot of measure work, but should improve imaging?
When Sonicaps are ordered with our kits we send them out in matched pairs. The inductors are pretty dead on every time. Once upon a time I thought I would measure and match all of the drivers, but that proved futile. They just weren't that far off. Consistency on these are excellent.
@@dannyrichie9743 Good to know, thanks!
Howdy. As I see it.
If one feels audio is a comprehensive experience DIY is worth it.
Yeah. DIY is worth it.
Regards.
I have built a few DIY speakers and have come to the conclusion building amplifiers is easier. I'm not very good with wood.
Any upgrade parts you’ve done for Triangle speakers old or new?
On the DIY side your also paying the same markups on raw parts.
A driver cost 15 to make its shipped and the retailer sells is with his mark up so it cost you 50 to 75 for the driver.
What you save on is labor and you can pick better parts.
But your not buying 100k drivers at a time like the manufacturer is or making them from scratch.
The manufacturer saved a lot of money on raw materials you didn't figure into your speech at the start
I'd say if you bought the parts and wood your still at 300 bucks compared to a 500 dollar speaker
They spent 100k to develop .
Thats not saying i would not do it
I'm just being honest if its your first rodeo you might buy a prefab kit
Box or no box.
do you sell the CNC already cut DIY DINAS flat pack?
Some of the folks in this web forum do this. He mentioned one of theirs name.
Consider joining the web forum called audiocircle.com, under the gr research section. The folks there, (including Danny occasionally), do a very nice job of answering questions
If your price breakdown holds true then why are your kits and speakers so expensive? If you apply your formula then they should be at least half what you're charging.
I don't follow the logic as to why you suggest 1/2.
It's a play on cutting out the retailer, and cutting out the labour cost. You are not accounting for the time value of ones time, because you enjoy the building process. There would also be some savings on shipping, as less shipping in total and only parts (or flat packs) and no marketing. A small company like this can take a higher profit margin (would want/need to) and still be multiples cheaper due to the above. They may even get up to similar sales volumes to many traditional speaker companies. The same is basically true to an extent of any DIY project, be it a deck, a fancy bike, a log cabin. There is some commonality to IKEA's business model.
I would imagine if many or most of us customers factored in our time value in a more traditional sense DIY then becomes no cheaper or even quite a bit more expensive. It comes down to, is DIY interesting and thus how does one value it.
At least your dome tweeter has 94 dB sensitivity. Companies here who do like you use chassis between 86 and 91 dB. Do You offer something using a Fostex chassis?
I looked on your website and didn’t see any information on how or were to buy cabinets ?
You can purchase the materials for the cabinets, pre-cut from Peter Rawlings.
I'm planning on purchase the X-LS kit from GR Research and the cabinets from Peter.
Here's a link to Peter showing the cabinet.
ua-cam.com/video/-qyLOjH3s5s/v-deo.html
On the box instead of 3/4" MDF
Why not 1" true pan.
Lol he is looking to see WTF is true pan. Ill tell ya its a light weight MDF its just as rigid as MDF has the same Density but it weighs less.
One inch thick changes the box internal volume the box size would need to change.
His kit looks pretty good you should stock them plus his shipping is really good. He gets
A++ for packing.
I worked at Best Buy for and their margins are NOT 50%. I also doubt Amazon is making this kind of margin. High end boutique audio stores more than likely it is around that,
Brian Simmons you’re right it’s more in some cases lol. For example the employee price for the Klipsch 820f is $180.pair. Retail is $500. The entire reference and rp lines are the same margins. Other brands are similar. Cost is even less.
@@cigarobsession Nice name i think. Just getting into cigars, can you give give some youtube channel recomendations?
@@cigarobsession i know best buy buys they product from vendors for cheap, but do the employees really get that much of a discount on those items? i mean a 820 f you can easily get them for 250-275 maybeless at klipsch dealers.
My brother in law works at Best Buy and he only gets a 20% discount on certain items. Most of the higher end items are less than 20%. Maybe the 70-80% you are referring to is executive pricing.
can someone tell me what kind and what size is that wire ? pls
Hi, is it possible for you to make a rechargeable bluetooth speaker ? I wan't a custome one
Love it better bang for your buck ok my question why don’t you or someone put this together and sell finish speaker ?
We've done that too. They then get a LOT more expensive. And we just don't have the time for assembly work.
We also have guys that run side businesses assembling our kits for people.
Great video ,do you ship to the UK thank you
I understand that he can ship anywhere
Okay, there's nothing wrong with multi stranded PVC jacketed wire.
DANNY , DO you have a Better crossover to improve the sound on the KLIPSCH RF-7 III ?
I have not worked on that model yet.
Danny Richie ok thanks.
Is there really no ports included?
What’s the website and do they offer full tower speaker kits?
I think yes, GR Research, Google should find it easily.
Consider joining the web forum called audiocircle.com, under the gr research section. The folks there, (including Danny occasionally), do a very nice job of answering questions
I've been thinking of DIY a pair of bookshelves using focal flax components meant for car audio that has a crossover included. Thoughts? Much appreciated.
Any speaker in any box sounds good. Now some can certainly sound better than others do. But they all sound at least OK.
we need links in your descriptions please
@15:05 serious Mr. Rogers vibes.
***Thank you so much for this and all your great videos! For me It's always been DIY and always will be if I can manage doing it. There is such a sense of accomplishment and pride that comes along with building your own speakers (and if your really lucky) building your own amps! Man...I wish I would have taken electronics classes in high school and college so I could have done that as well.
My suggestion to anyone wanting to start building their own speakers or amps would be to join some good DIY forums and/or start a group of like minded people and go from there. I have found that if you are part of a group (one thats active anyways) seems to keep each other motivated more. Not only that, you might find some industry people that would come and give presentations and answer questions. GR-Research I think is an awesome place to start!
What about the development cost the manufacturer has?
I m very confused by your question ,I don't understand, there's a whole section where he explains that 90% of what your paying isn't the stuff making the music. It was only alluded to however the power of buying things in scale that allows a manufacturers $26 in parts for a speaker go way way farther then my 26 dollars . So its not like your being completely ripped off in the stores, there is still a lot of value there,it just doesnt look the way you think it does.
What about the ports? I have to buy my own ports?
Yes, or you can make slot ports out of MDF or whatever wood you use
Just a question, if I bought one of the DIY kit on your website, will it come with finished and veneered wood panel ?
No, that is part of the DIY effort. You can make them look however you'd like.
Was that a "nerdgasm" at 14:21??
What does a "tube connector" do, besides add $50?
Basically it's a mechanical butt splice, mechanically splicing the two wires inside and outside of the box together.
@@funfreq9282 $50
@@johngaines8791 yeah a little pricy for sure!
@@funfreq9282 Perhaps the fellow selling them can explain clearly what these do and how they aren't snake oil
@@johngaines8791 Not only that, I would like to see the spectrum analyzer he is using to see just what is really being added to the response then judge if it's worth the $50.
if you could DIY it right the FIRST TRY you might break even and get results the same of the same cost for the DIY build. i could have a real nice pair if i just invested in some good speakers.
but the way i think about it, i could spend time becoming a DJ or i could by CDs.
Is there a manual in assembly? I don’t see anything on your website.
If you need a manual to put a box together then maybe putting boxes together isn't for you.
Paul Frederick well. It’s not only the box but also maybe the electronics that come with the kit. Sorry for asking. Maybe I won’t spend money on them now. Thanks for the tip.
@@crossocean5663 you would need a schematic to assemble the crossover. These speakers do not seem to come with a printed circuit board that I can see. I've thought about making crossovers. Then I just ordered the last pair I used. It is surprising how many speakers lack a decent crossover. Many just have a capacitor on the tweeter and that's it.
I’ve watched more than a few videos of guys building incredible 500 dollar Subwoofers…..using the 5000 dollar Computerized woodwork machine and another 2 grand in other tools 😂.
Not saying that DIY isn't good. I think it can be. But I think your calculations are wrong. You also need to calculate the hours of the person building the DIY speaker. If you want to get the same piano gloss finish as the speaker you showed you have to send the cabinet to a pro. That isn't cheap.
I can get gloss finish. Heck I've painted enough cars. Although quite frankly I don't give a damn what speakers look like. I've never painted a one that I've ever built. The appearance of raw MDF doesn't bother me. I'm listening to a speaker I made right now and it's doing it for me.
@@1pcfred My speakers are part of the living room. A relative big part. So they need to look nice.
@@mordante01 meh after a period of time everything blends in. Just how the mind works.
Not disputing the figures you are quoting, BUT are you really saving or getting better quality by going DIY? Those same drivers, inductors etc etc all still come from a manufacturer, they want their cut, then they have to be posted to you, and you want your cut, then they need to be sent to me... So really who are we cutting out of the price loop here? Don't get me wrong I will never buy another store bought speaker in my life, but is there really any savings to be had?
OK so you say you save on the cabinets, but do you really? I have to go to Bunnings (our local hardware chain) and I buy some sheets of MDF, they charge me through the nose because they have all the same mark ups that the cabinet maker has. But now I need to build and finish the box, so I am going to need some tools (my CNC alone cost me $7000 to date to build and I've yet to build anything of value with it). OK so I decide I would rather go to the local (about 30 klms away) DIY shop and use their tools to slice and dice my sheets of MDF. Well they are charging me a premium to use their equipment per hour and their extra markup on the MDF if I buy through them (often better to because I have transport costs of whole MDF sheets to their shop).
So now I have saved no money, probably if anything it has cost me more than if I just went to the store and bought them and I still need to do all the hard work putting them together, buy glue etc etc for a one off use. I think saving money on DIY speakers is just an urban myth, (especially if you put any value on your own time, or not) unless you want something that is literally thrown together in 5 minutes where you bashed the nails in with a rock to save on a hammer.
To me where the REAL value is in DIY is not in the dollars, but in the care I take versus the care the speaker manufacturer takes. They don't care that they are using 6mm MDF to build the box, they are building to a price. As a DIYer I have the option to say I can spend another (insert arbitrary number here) and I can build my boxes out of 20mm or 50mm MDF. I want some extra bracing because I want to cut down resonance in the side walls, let me just throw in a few more braces. Time is money to the speaker box manufacturer who builds a big empty cube. My custom braces are just my time and effort.
My speakers will never be as pretty as the store bought ones, but theirs won't need a mate to help you move them. Now lets presume for a moment I actually knew something about speaker construction... I see ABC speaker company is just throwing the drivers in anywhere because they don't have the money to spend on R&D for their low buck speakers, but with a bit of knowledge I could potentially improve on their generic speaker placement (I could just as easily get it all wrong too, we presumed I knew something about speaker building it wasn't a fact).
Having that ability to up-spec the cabinet and the crossover components is where I see the real value in DIY over buying what you are given. It never ceases to amaze me how many people can't look past the glossy veneer to see all they are buying is a polished turd. I listen to music with my ears not my eyes.
Thinking on this a little bit more... I am going to slightly contradict myself by adding a proviso... If you can buy a box kit that fits your exact box needs (not close but what you would build yourself), and that box kit can be shipped to you at a price that makes it still viable (other side of the world shipping is very dear), and the seller is willing to send it to your destination, then there is a chance DIY could be cheaper, BUT and here's the big BUT, what value do you give to the finish? You can't compare a MDF finished cabinet with visible seam lines to something finished immaculately in piano black with a factory grill, because your not comparing apples with apple, so there needs to be a dollar value attached to that finish that your plain box doesn't have. That value is obviously going to differ depending on who is doing the buying.
For the consumer that buys speakers based on looks alone or brand bunnies, they will attach a much higher value to finish than someone like me who has open baffle speakers mounted in a piece of raw MDF (granted I did roll the edge to make it look pretty). How can you really compare the two and come up with an honest comparison?
Now you have me wondering what the crossover in our Monitor Audio RX8 speakers looks like 🤔
Like shit! Manufactures don't care about the quality or build.. It's all $$ for the CEO to make and nothing more any more. !
Same as tweeter
I opened my Focal Chorus 605 or 606 or something , the cheapest speaker Focal makes, and the woofer and tweeter seemed pretty decent similar to what I think you'd find in the XLS, tho I don't have any measurements to compare just basing it on visual build quality. Initially when I saw the sparkling parts on the crossover were branded Focal and I was like wooo fancy but also kind of disappointed there wasn't a bigger potential upgrade actually. Thankfully thanks to danny I now know they were just fancy looking cheap componenets, and worthwhile upgrades in addition I can add No Rezz and Tube connectors.The little tweeker person inside me that needs fiddle with things to 'make them better' is satisfied. You should find out what the crossover in your speaker looks like.
If you can't make crossover filters then you can forget to make good homemade speaker. The crossover filter needs to be customized to the speaker and you can almost never use just one coil to capacitor on the midrange and capacitor coil and resistor on the treble. It becomes too simple filter and the sound offte is not correct!
Or go active and use a digital crossover.
@@Coneman3 Don't think you know how crossover in a speaker works!
If you use active crossover then you must use Equalizer!
A passift crossover in a speaker also adjusts down frequencies there is too much of! it's like an analog EQ.
Active crossover divides only at one frequency.
do you ship to australia?
chris198004 Im in WA Australia & i would like to know the same answer as you Chris 👍🏾
I understand gr research will ship anywhere
Yes: You can achieve world class sound for a fraction of boutique prices. It's satisfying to build.
No: If you ever re-sell it, you'll get pennies on the dollar. It's no name, and has no backing by a gushing audio reviewer.
Agree - when It's time to build a better system the DiY portions are hand me down items. Not worth selling. One other thing - wth is wrong with recycled copper?
Re-sell - I guess its down to components on how much you get on the used market. Peerless, Morel, Scan, Seas, Audio Technology, Acoustic Elegance ... and many other brands ...are all much sort after brands, even on the used market. And let's be honest, unless you're going nuts on the enclosure, you can get great results for a few hours of your free time ua-cam.com/video/-U3XW6TV9zI/v-deo.html
there are exceptions, for example if the drivers have strong marketing-fu
@@cgirl111 Its like racing on a new road vs an old potholed road...newly forged copper transmits electric signals more 'cleanly' . Reforging it lessons its efficiency
@@7munkee I don't think anyone can provide me actual facts that recycled copper is any different than "new" copper. Show me a peer reviewed study link and I'll rethink my opinion.
if i can have the plan and speakers to DIY the John Devore orangoutan 096 am ready for the project :)
Website for ordering?
www.gr-research.com
"uses no ferrofluid". Could you clarify?
That got my attention also, I have a hunch that ferrofluid would slow down the Tweeter response, or perhaps it allows the tweeter, the ability to go lower and frequency.
Consider joining the web forum called audiocircle.com, under the gr research section, folks, including Danny do a very nice job of answering questions
Yes, its worth it.
if an option for 1/3 the cost was available Id buy it, sure audio quality is not there but that is my budget
You are looking for 1/3 the cost of GR research's least expensive kit?
@@AverageNiceGuy For $50 I would save it and invest it, for $200 budget components, amps, wires all need to be included in price. With the price of this kit being what it is for quality, is there anything acceptable for much less or still worth saving up for?
@@ChrisLoew,
You are interested in a total audio system for less than $200?
Very true
I looked at parts express and no way I can get good quality crossovers, mids, and tweeters, for even 100.00. Not to mention all the assembly materials( ports, dampening material, wiring, connectors etc...) There is a mark up on their parts as well. Then if you figure in the cabinet you could easily spend a few hundred on them unless you’re fortunate enough to be a craftsman and already have the proper tools and the ability to finish them correctly. I love the idea of DIY speakers but unless I’m building a lot of them the entrance fee is to high to justify not just going to Best Buy and purchasing a pair of Martin Logans, B & W’s, or even Definitive Technology.
Making speakers is fun. It does not take a lot of tools to make cabinets either. A table saw or even a circular saw with a straight edge, a router to cut the holes and a drill. Then clamps to hold the box together. You can screw it together too. The last speaker I made I screwed the front on because the speakers were too small to hook stuff up in the box. It is just a little center channel speaker for my PC. Better than my old sound bar that I was using though. The trick is to go slow and be careful. Make sure everything is square.
Then this one is for you: ua-cam.com/video/EneeArMHC5E/v-deo.html
Nice looking box kit, wouldn't mid have a listen to the whole combo.
most high end speakers are a scam A friend of mine bought $12K speakers and my mate copied the design The drivers were were only $450 each he made boxes as he is a carpenter we were shocked at how cheap all parts inside the so called 12K speakers were what a rip off
Nearly all speaker manufacturers cheat on crossover parts. Customer won't open up the cabinet. No one will know what's inside.
But that's true of everything really. Often it comes down to how much you value your free time and what you like doing. I could pay someone to build me a deck or i could figure out how to built it myself. The quote the build the deck is always going to seem crazy. The parts of the deck are so cheap. But then i have to pay the guy for his time, for the use of his tools, to get to and from. To pay taxes on top of his profits, to take on risk. You can build your own house build your own car, hell build your own light aircraft.... if you want to. Most will just decide to buy things though cause we have finite time, energy and interests.
@Richard Zedman, which speakers were these? Usually with such expensive speakers I find that we DIYers can at best build them for about half the cost. That is because at the high end the OEMs get the drivers for about 1/3 the retail cost, as we go down to the mid-if market OEMs pay as little as 10% of retail (because volumes are huge).
What's wrong with sandcast resistors?
What's wrong with using recycled copper in inductors?
Shouldn't the use of thinner wire inductors be Ok if the increased resistance is taken into consideration in the crossover design?
I do agree that air-core inductors are better than iron-core, but I'm wondering how many people would notice if the speaker is used at a power level below that which caused the iron core to saturate and cause noticeable distortion.
Biggest issue for me with DIY is making the cabinets. While I've been involved in Audio DIY for longer than I remember (my site: www.diysubwoofers.org) I'm a lousy carpenter, and my creations are better heard, not seen :-)
if you're using them from reputable companies, nothing. not all sand cast resistors are equal, much like any other type of well.. anything. that said, ideally you should be using non-inductive resistors, which sand cast are very much not. anyone telling you they are doesn't understand what they're talking about.
there's some math involved if you're using thinner wire inductors. if you're not going to fine tune, stick to larger gauge examples. or if you're going to be getting up in wattage. again, math involved.
probably nobody, but you should still use the better option if you can. you're trying to eliminate all variables that you can realistically manage to.
diy cnc routers are cheaper than ever these days.
Thanks Kenabi. I've got a DATS v2 that I use for measuring impedance. I also have a whole bunch of sandcast resistors on hand (a consequence of being a DIY audio tinkerer since the 80's), ranging from 2% tolerance "Hi Fi" type to bog-standard ones pulled from old speakers. I ran impedance tests on a few of them, including one I pulled from a cheap speaker that I bought for 100 pounds 29 years ago, and they all measure dead-flat from 5 Hz to 20 kHz, no sign of any impact of inductance. I did see some minor inductive impact on one other resistor that I tried - one of those small color-coded ones that are more likely to be used in amplifier circuits rather than in speakers. If the impedance measures dead-flat on DATS up to 20 kHz, then that means that any inductance, if present in the resistor, is too small to be of any significance. The resistor's variation from its published value (% tolerance) is likely to have much more impact.
Concerning using thinner wire inductors, I use XSim for x-over design, so I don't have to "do the math". I measure both the inductor's impedance and resistance and use that in XSim when designing a x-over. I can see where having a thinner wire inductor can actually come in handy to eliminate an otherwise-needed series resistor if there's a need to pad down the input to a mid or tweeter, for example.
Lastly, cutting the wood is only one component of building a cab. Getting the finish done right is a whole other story. Speaker-building is both an art and a science, and unfortunately I'm not that much of an artist :-).
@@kenabi its the ear that counts not the sandcast resistor
True DIY is 50 percent dependent on your cabinet making skills. If you don't have that ability than your end result will never be equal to a comercially available product.
Just 50%? I guess someone could really screw the electrics up too. Some folks can't solder worth a damn. They don't know the three rules.
@justame smith The cabinet more than "just a box" it has to be designed to work with the Thiel/Small parameters of the driver's plus the crossover has to seamlessly blend the drivers. Designing and building a good loudspeaker is not that simple.
@justame smith No Problem.
I know it doesn't matter in speakers. It looks like particle board to me which has no beauty, just glue and shouldn't take anything but paint. When I make stuff I have always preferred the look of real wood weather anybody sees it or not. To me the kit is overpriced junk, except for maybe the speakers. And yes I do my own stuff.
Some people can't, so be nice. Then go and "do your own stuff".
That's the point though, they sell just the kits blase level then all sorts of upgrades for those that wish to pay more and get more. Surely like everything diminishing returns but we all value a buck differently. For those with the skills and equipment and especially interest making their own boxes is half the fun/interest. But they also recognize many don't have the skills, tools or interest/time and for those they have the option to buy a flat pack of the boxes and some models even built boxes now. It's sort of to each their own. Its still DIY as compared to ordering from best buy. Many of us don't have a guy like you next door to help us out. I wish i did!
Diy is king
A 100 dollar DIY sells for 700 to 900 retails….same parts.
Looks to me like we're talking about $1,000 not 550
X-LS Encore kit with all the upgrades-$484. CNC flatpack-$150. So yeah, if you built the standard kit (which does have high quality parts)you're under $500!
great but sometimes misleading information in your videos. A 30cm wire from Xo board to driver won't affect the sound quality and actually is not detectable. The voice coil of the driver is made from very long tiny cross section wire and is around 4ohm in resistance, so some miliohms just make very minor effects even at 20kHz considering skin effect. And also connectors can not do anything for sound quality. Even inductor's wire gauge is not usually detectable by our ears unless for very poor "non air cored" inductors. That is why the companies pay mostly on the cabinet and drivers and finish and not on inetrnal wires because in this market they mostly rely on costomer's eyes and not brain and science so they can sell their stupid stuffs like >1000$ speaker cable or multi 1000$ CD players or tube amps etc.
I do not give out misleading information. In fact I very much understate the importance of that stuff. Connecting wire, types of connections, point to point versus circuit boards, the quality of the inductors all have a dramatic effect on how a speaker sounds.
Its a hobby to a lot of guys.
FuK Yeah DANNY. Cross this over...
Tshirt
Hmm sounds like every speaker he spoke bad about
I smell marketing BS - tube connectors - $50 - LOL
he replaces one pair of terminals on bi-wireable speakers with tube connectors and wires the other pair of terminals in parallel so you cam judge for yourself
NO. It's a hobby and a bloody good one but my god it consumes money.
The last speaker I made cost me exactly nothing. I had a pair of drivers I pulled out of something. Heck I even made the binding posts for it. The wood I used was a piece of scrap. Was part of a department store display pedestal. Things only cost what you let them cost.
How about we teardown some Wilson audio and analize them.
Sure, send one over.
Gross exaggeration