What building my own speakers has taught me...
Hi Everyone,
After 8 years or so I have finally finished my "reference" speaker system. I say eight years because what started as a small, high end 2-way has morphed into a 3-way active system. Really happy with the results for myself... but I wanted to step back a little and reflect on the audio industry right now.
First, I’m not here to convince you to DIY your next pair unless you NEED to build something. And I’m not here to rail against the high price of gear, which does have some merit. Mostly what I think about is how difficult it really is to make a business selling audio gear, and that I’m actually SHOCKED at how many companies attempt to do so, and even more when they thrive.
Pricing out all the components in my speakers I come to a total parts cost. Lets say it’s $1,000. It could be $10, the actual amount doesn’t matter, but pretend it’s $1k. If I try to imagine "How would I take this product to market?" I simply can’t get to a selling price under 15 to 20 times manufacturing cost.
At the same time, the cost of the average "reference" speaker over the last 20 years has really skyrocketed, while the audio enthusiast market has dwindled. Then along came HDMI whose ridiculous licensing and technical requirements seems to at least have been partially responsible for Meridian and Theta Digital dwindling from the market.
I can’t imagine how hard it is for anyone besides say Sony or Harman or Samsung to be in the market for audio gear. Increased costs, high competition, dwindling consumers..... are we in a bubble or does every generation think "this is it, this is the end of high end audio?"
By the way, @phusis - If you are thinking of the RAAL ribbons, I highly recommend them. Never heard them but interacted with the designer via DIYaudio. Super knowledgeable, very friendly and helped me learn a great deal. I was lucky to get to learn from him. I was particularly impressed by his command of his manufacturing. He makes custom transformers for buyers at scale which allowing a variety of impedance and low frequency options. |
@samssa - Having fun and learning is the exact right reason to get into the hobby! :) No matter how big or small. The wrong reason to get into the hobby is to save money, I think. |
@joeycastillo - Thank you for the kind words, I wouldn’t be at this point without continuous analysis of the drivers and speakers as a whole. Those crossover points and EQ settings aren’t going to make themselves! I use the not so popular OmniMic. It's not free but so simple to use along with VituixCAD to simulate the DSP settings. |
Interestingly, for my build, I also went three-way active. I did not try to do the cabinets myself. Woodworking is not already my hobby and I could not do a good enough (solid and robust and visually accurate) job myself without first putting in years of effort. It was still not cheap, as the Purifi drivers cost a pretty amount. In some ways I got the active crossovers for free. But first I had to pay for BACCH4Mac software, that happens to have an active crossover module built in. It is only fourth-order. But I have drivers that have pretty wide frequency overlaps. So it is fine. The 10-inch cross to the 6.5-inch around 200Hz. The 6.5-inch to the tweeters around 2500Hz. So the 6.5-inchers really cover the imaging. I considered using broadbands with no tweeters. But when playing very loud in tests, I found broadbands to get stressed. That said, there are some pieces that sound simply phenomenal with a broadband surrounded with a horn. With what I “saved”, maybe I can afford another system with horns for when they are better. |
