To Buy or to DIY, here is my question

If you build the speakers yourself, you had better like them because you will find them difficult to sell. Unless you have a trade account, you will be paying a multiple of what the manufacturer pays for the components. There is also the opportunity cost of your time. The chances of getting better sound than a speaker from an experienced designer (sadly now deceased in the case of Pro Ac) who has spent decades refining his designs are slim.

fatdaddy2,

Exactly. Hiring US workers with US taxes, US healthcare, US utilities etc. these ever increasing costs need to be recouped in every widget a company produces. 

As a manufacturer if you don't know your true cost of doing business you better brace yourself for impact. 

If I buy the speakers that appear closest to what I desire

they are $11k new and $8k used.

@chorus 

What is it that you desire?
can you intimate it with words?

I heard some Devore O/96 the other day that threw a wider stage than i expected.
And some coffins Moab things should be relatively easy to make a large box for.

The main problem is making them sound good.

BTW, I do encourage you to check out Troel's website, a builder after my own heart, but he has a lot of pictures about construction and assembly that can really help the new builder see what's involved.

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Diy_Loudspeaker_Projects.htm

I work at a high end retailer.  I can buy name brand speakers for 50% off or less.  Nevertheless, I built my own.  2 reasons...none of our brands make what I wanted my speakers to be in terms of size, form factor, etc.  AND, even at half price I was not willing to pay for what we sell...all too expensive.  I am not a big one for luxury goods.

My concept was a 7" woofer in a 1.5 cubic foot vented box, with a 2" dome MR and ribbon tweeter.  So I ordered a set of drivers and prefab cabinets from Parts express and paid a cabinet shop in town to rout the front baffles for them.  I bought prefab crossovers from PE, and used in-line L pads to match driver efficiency to get the best blend.  Version 1 did not satisfy me.  Next I swapped out the Aluminum dome MR for Soft dome.  Still not what I wanted.  Then I recreated the crossovers with higher quality components and somewhat different points.  Still not good enough.

At this point I scrapped my original design for one using a completely different MR-TW concept.  I sent the driver selection to Tony G. at humblehomemadehifi.com in Holland, and had Madisound fabricate my crossovers using premium parts, bought another pair of front baffles from PE, and eliminated the L-pads.  These are what I have now.  I wound up spending something like $2.7K on all the parts, labor, design fee for Tony, etc. including all iterations.  My speakers aren't perfect, but for well made symphonic recordings, they are quite satisfyingly true sounding.  Their low end surpasses that of the 6.5" 2-ways that go for around $10K at the shop, and without a robust low end, symphonic material just sounds unbalanced.

So I am firmly in favor of DIY unless....if you are a perfectionist and cannot stop fiddling until you get it just right, you may never get there.  OR, if you can easily afford the speaker of your dreams, then do so and you can always tinker in your spare time for fun!