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What prevents DIY speakers to become the ultimate?

I am talking about DIY companies (North Creek, Zalytron, GR research and so on)and possible real DIYers.

We can get the best drivers on the market (Scanspeak, Sears and so on) and Ultimate parts (Hoveland, Alphacore and so on).

Why the sounds of DIY is not the ultimate (or at least very closed to the up scale (say..>10K) speaker?

The total brain power (= total # people with good brain)of the DIY speakers may be less than the comercial speakers, but I don't think they are any less stupid either.

The only thing I can think of is the cabinets. Comercial one may have better access to get a better design (computerized and so on), but can't think of any other things.

I know one reason that DIY speakers are not as popular is probably the low resale value, but not sure if it has anything to do with the quality.

Also I have heard a lot about DIY speaker being good or excellent, but never heard the real comparison (i.e. DIY speaker model A is better than Thiel or Dynaudio (an so on) model B or something or at least price-wise. Is it just that they don't have a direct A/B access or just that they are in fact not really that good?

Love to hear more about this.

Ake
ake
gs5556
1,209 posts
 
Wasn't most every speaker company once a DIY venture? I don't think Jim Thiel, etal, slapped their label on ready-made stuff and proclaimed themselves a "commercial" company.
mhansen
14 posts
 
I have been a DIY speaker builder for 20 plus years. I even worked at a small speaker kit company in college, making all of their cabinets. After college I kept building speakers and buying the best parts I could get my hands on. I am a trained cabinet maker and have tried just about all of the differnet types of cabinets and construction styles. I can build a very good "box" Many of them sounded good but none of them great.
Then a few years ago I build a set of Northcreek Rythem's and the whole DIY thing changed in a HUGE way for me. As it turns out the crossover was the key to way my speakers never sounding great. Granted Northcreek cabinet designs are excellent but their crossovers do set them appart.
I have now built many different Northcreek speakers and they all sound GREAT. I have a friend who owns a set of ProAc 3.8's and my Rythem sig. much better (I hope he doesn't read this) . I have another friend who has also built Northcreek speakers after hearing mine.
Also just to give you a refernce point my system is:
Sony AX777es CD/sacd, Ayre V1 & V3 amps, Arc LS25 pre, EAD Sig, processor and Cardas ref. cables.
rkeman
66 posts
 
DIY speakers can offer superior performance at a reasonable cost. Subwoofers are a great place to start because nearly all commercial designs use less than optimal enclosure volumes and/or poor quality amplification and crossover. Try the Adire Audio Shiva in their suggested 5 cubic foot vented EBS alignment and be astounded by the level of performance achieved for about $200 in total parts cost. Add an amp and the Outlaw ICBM electronic crossover and you have a giant-killer for peanuts. Sealed box subwoofers are even easier to build and usually yield excellent results. Madisound also offers an array of kits with or without cabinets that are competitive with the best designs available commercially at a fraction of the cost. My current stereo system uses the new Thor speaker (based on SEAS Excel components) and it is superb in every respect.I have used their LEAP crossover design service with fine results on a number of "from scratch" designs of my own. Search the web for "DIY audio" and all sorts of other useful sites can be found to help with design and construction. Give it a try!
postmodpm's avatar
postmodpm
29 posts
 
A while back I heard some extremely good DIY speakers. The guy had worked on them for years. He made the comment that had he paid himself minimum wage, he could have bought a fine new car. I believe he had about $1000 in the guts with a few $100 more in the cabinets. He told me he'd tried to get the crossovers right for over a year before giving up and using someone else's design.
ultrakaz
187 posts
 
If and when DIY speakers become the "ultimate", they will in all likelihood become "commercial" speakers. The art and business of commercial design is to manufacture a speaker with the cheapest quality parts, make it sound very good (better than DIY for around the same cost) and sell a ton of them. A $300 retail bookshelf (Triangle, PSB, Sound Dynamics, etc.) probably costs the manufacturer around $70 or less to make. But it will sound and look better than anything that the average DIY can make for $300 in parts and their time (at minimum wage). Of course there are exceptions to this, perhaps a Northcreek kit made by a DIY who is also an experienced woodworker.

Most DIYs don't design their speaker projects, but rather use a proven design (Proac clone/ Lowther horn/pipe) or build a kit. This is the safest approach, but don't expect the "ultimate" sound.
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