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#Outdoor speaker enclosure design free#
Depending on how you value your time, you'll have thousands of dollars of free labor (your own) invested in the speakers. If you're about to build your own custom speakers, you'll likely be spending at least 40 hours on the project if you've got experience with woodworking, electronics, finishing techniques, or have built your own speakers before, and even longer if it's your first pair.Spend more money then you thought you were going to If you want to blow $200 a foot on oxygen free speaker wire made from precious metals, great, go for it, just make sure you've already invested a lot of time and energy in making the best possible speakers your finances and skill level allow. Listening to music on a great set of speakers is the single biggest change you can make to your stereo to get better sound quality. Sound quality has been steadily declining as heavily compressed digital audio, iPod docks, and bottom dollar stereos have proliferated around the world over the last 10-15 years.Yes, they do sound better, and no you don't have to be an audiophile to hear the difference Over the years I've generated a few simple theories about speaker building that I think are relevant.
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I've been making them for friends, clients, and now for Instructables as a prize for our Art of Sound Contest ever since. I built my first set of speakers as a high school student over 10 years ago. That, my fellow Instructables users, is why I think everyone should build their own speakers. I would never claim that they are an exact copy of the Grande Utopias, but they do sound absolutely amazing, and at less than 1/10th the cost, it's hard to argue. My father and I purchased an extremely similar set of drivers, from the same product lines that JM Labs uses, including "W" cone woofers and audiom inverted metal dome tweeters, and built our own "DIY Grande Utopias" for only $3,000.
#Outdoor speaker enclosure design drivers#
Now here's where it gets interesting.the same line of drivers used in the JM Labs loudspeakers, can also be purchased from Zalytron. JM Labs uses affiliate company Focal brand drivers. The only catch is that back in those days, the speaker sold for $40,000, and now the updated model, equipped with a Beryllium tweeter, costs even more. Since then, it's been widely agreed that the Grande Utopia are among the best sounding home audio speakers in the world. At the end of the day, after the votes were in, we both selected the JM Labs Grande Utopia's as our favorite model, hands down. I recognized all of the drivers from the DIY catalogs, wondering which one would reign supreme. We listened to just about every manufacturers flagship model. We had the intent to build the best speakers that we possibly could. The images below show just a few of the speakers that I've built over the last 10 years.īack in 1997 I attended the Home Entertainment Show with my father. This Instructable will cover the entire process, from sourcing components, to tips and tricks, to exotic and inspiring finishing options. So, if you've got access to a table saw, a jig saw, a drill, some wood glue, clamps, and a place to make some sawdust, then you've got the opportunity to build your own custom speakers. Regardless of how much you choose to spend on your speakers, you'll likely be building something that will sound as good as commercial product that off the shelf would cost as much as 10 times more. Budget speaker kits start around $100, while top-of-the-line kits and components can add up to several thousands of dollars. Some speaker projects can be complete in a weekend, while others can go on for years. I'm absolutely shocked that it hasn't had a larger presence on Instructables and in the community.well, until now of course. Building your own custom speakers has got to be one of the most rewarding, straightforward and cost-effective DIY activities I've come across.
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