Stuck at home? Make a kit!!


Hey all,

If you’ve been in audio for any length of time you might have talked shop about speakers, or amps, or tubes quite a bit. Maybe cables. If you are going to be quarantined, or socially isolating or just really don’t like other people (something I respect) maybe now is time to try a kit.

Lots of Pass fans here, so why not try a First Watt amp kit? Maybe build your own passive line stage?

How about pure silver interconnects? A speaker with a Be tweeter? How about a small coaxial speaker for the surrounds, or just to tinker? Desktop full range?

Build your own music streamer for Roon with a Raspberri Pi?

Got kids at home you need project ideas for? Just keep the solder fumes out of their faces, and use lead free. :)

Best,

E
erik_squires

On the other hand.....

We know the price of many hi-fi products is a direct result of the cost of the parts used to make them. They are built to a price point, compromises made to reach a target retail price. Rythmik designer/owner Brian Ding freely admits that he builds his F15HP subwoofer with a 3cu.ft enclosure to keep shipping costs reasonable, though the sub’s plate amp and woofer can have their output increased by installing the kit version into a 4cu.ft. enclosure.

If you buy the kit and make your own box (or have it built by a cabinet maker locally), you can make the enclosure not only 4cu.ft., but also double-walled (two layers of MDF or Baltic Birch, or even better one of each) with constrained layer damping (such as ASC Wall Damp) between them, and braced like Jim Salk does in his Rythmik/Salk subs. An F15HP so built easily outperforms the factory-built F15 (which has a China-sourced average-build quality box), and costs less.

In one of his GR Research Tech Talk Tuesday videos (viewable on You Tube), Danny Richie discusses the subject of the value of his DIY loudspeaker kits, comparing the quality of the parts (drivers, x/o parts, wiring, not to mention the designs themselves) in the kit with those in similarly-priced commercial loudspeakers. If you can be bothered to search for the video, you'll be very glad you did.

I've soldered Dynakit boards together, scratched out SWTP amps from parts and cookbooked speakers from mdf.
Thanx anyway, history. I hope I can fix my Otari.
Shaky.
I have to ask - Why? - when the title of the thread has "Make a Kit" in it, would the first response be...

"Here we go again with the DIY"

Of course it’s DIY - it’s in the title of the thread.

So for DIYers - or those thinking about DIY - can elect to look at it

AND CONVERSLY...

Those NOT interested in DIY can elect NOT to look at it.

Pretty simple really :-)

BTW - I'm with all the other DIY'ers - if it wasn’t apparent :-)

Just sayin...
My local audio club had a virtual meeting a week ago on Zoom with Nelson Pass. He said that without question the happiest audiophiles he knows are DIYers. That was not said to sell kits as he was talking about all types of audio DIY.

I'm game to try. Anyone know of a truly great DIY phono stage kit?