look up Madisound... they pioneered bringing Dynaudio drivers and build instructions to USA and are still out ther offering good designs for home builts.

Save your time and money man.  Check out the KRK Rokit series monitors.  About $300.00/pr (5") and you can spread your payments over three months on Sweetwater, Musician's Friend, etc...

They should keep you going until you're ready for the Genelecs. 

spindlebox


I'm thinking about building passive monitors and getting a preamp to drive them, because to me it sounds easiest.  So I guess advice on a decent preamp would be included here too.    

Yeah, without being any kind of electronics wiz, I would seem that building passive speakers would be MUCH easier.
 
Sorry if I'm getting hung up on semantics, but you don't use a preamp to drive passive speakers, you use a stereo amplifier like in a HIFI system. As you probably know, they can cost any amount of money (I guess you will want a good one for monitoring use).

So while I'm sure it's possible to build nice DIY speakers for less than preassembled ones, the cost of the amplifier will probably eat up your margin, unless you plan to build that as well.
 
Of course, you haven't mentioned budget, so if you're talking higher-end equipment you might be able to build a much better system for, say, $1000 in parts than you would buying preassembled monitors from brands manufactured in high-cost countries (Finland, Denmark, USA, UK). Providing you build the amplifier yourself, of course, since a nice HIFI stereo amp with the same power rating as the ones built into active speakers will easily cost $1000 alone (because audiophiles generally pay more for less than do musicians and audio engineers).
 
But If you're talking entry-level monitors in the <$500 range, I think you'd be hard pressed to beat the China-made active speakers from Behringer, Samson etc, if only because of the cost of a quality external amp.
 
 
Sven

mike_mccue


To be clear... you can not build DIY speakers for less than you can buy speakers.

But people that do DIY build speakers are of the opinion that you can easily build better sounding speakers than you might be able to buy.

That's basically how Dynaudio became famous and known for exceptional sounding speaker components... and now they are a well known speaker enclosure company.

Take a quick look at Madisound's kits page if you want some idea of what YOU ARE NOT GETTING when you spend a couple thousand on a set of store bought monitors.

best regards,
mike

I don't need to look at anything. I've already been down this route a few times in my life and Mike is right about this. If you're looking at this as a cost-cutting measure you're wasting your time (and probably your money too). You're better off saving your money and buying a nice set of pre-built monitors. There are lots of inexpensive, yet excellent sounding options out there. Or go to eBay and maximize what you have to spend.
 
However, if you are doing this because you want to experiment and tinker, and you think you can produce a nice, excellent sounding set of monitors using the DIY approach, then you're on a better track. The last set of monitors I built was a collaboration with a collegue who bet me he could design a set of monitors using Radio Shack speakers. I laughed out loud and instantly bet him he was wrong, so wrong. I lost the bet. What we ended up with was an amazingly good sounding set of monitor speakers that got raves from everyone who heard them. They were not hi-wattage speakers at all but they got loud enough for the intended purpose. We used a pair of large cardboard tubes that they use for cable reels as the enclosures. Wrapped some black felt material around them. We mounted the speakers to plywood panels that were just a tiny bit wider than the 8" woofer we used. These panels were then glued to the tubes (we cut away a vertical portion of the tube so the wood panel formed what would be the face of the cabinet. The idea was no hard corners. The inside was covered with thick carpet. We built our own crossovers using magnet wire and large caps which were glued to the inside bottom.
 
The secret as I found out was to match the speakers to the enclosure using the Q rating of the speakers. There are programs out there that will basically do the math for you along with the crossover matching. It was a fun experiment. I had those speakers for years before the cheap Radio Shack woofers literally started to fall apart (the rubber around the edge of the cones began to deteriorate). I thought about just "keeping em going" but they ended up in the garage and eventually the trash when I decided for a higher wattage solution for my studio (my current JBL's).
 
 
 
 

spindlebox


OK, let's face it.  Good/great studio monitors are expensive.  I don't have a lot of money, and I'm pretty handy and good with a soldering iron and power tools in general.
 
I'm seriously considering building my own studio monitors.  Anyone done this, and if you have, do you have any ideas to share?  I have a Parts Express catalog that has me seriously drooling over individual compoents' prices, but I need a game plan.
 
I'm thinking about building passive monitors and getting a preamp to drive them, because to me it sounds easiest.  So I guess advice on a decent preamp would be included here too.
 
Thanks in advance!!!
 
 

There is no way I could build a set of monitors like the Behringer B2031a speakers I'm using for anything near that price.   I have built speakers and they turned out to be good for listening but not mixing.

bitflipper

you can not build DIY speakers for less than you can buy speakers

I think this is true primarily for the low-end of the price spectrum. The higher up you go, the more attractive the price:performance ratio of DIY speakers becomes.

It probably isn't possible to build your own Rokits for less than 3 bills. But I think it's entirely possible to build your own speakers for around $1000 that would be comparable to $3000 store-bought speakers. However, your version would probably be passive, so some of the money you saved would have to go into a good amplifier.  But in the end you'd have a quality system, you'd know where to get spare parts if something broke, and you'd have a very good idea of exactly how they perform.

P.S. I've been thinking about doing this myself for quite a while. Most likely not nearfields, but full range speakers for mastering. Commercial offerings start around $10k and go up to $40k and beyond. Even over $100k if you have unlimited funds. But I probably won't want to spend more than $1-2k.
 
 
 
 
Few people have actually heard proper high-end "hifi". I was so fortunate when I was divorced to have a buddy that was a basketcase audiophile. He had a pretty nice set-up, but we checked out a few dream systems like a $100K Levison/proAc set-up. We auditioned that system with a group singing CD, and I swear you could feel the singer's presence in the room...it was actually scary how good it sounded. I got the chance to check out a hifi audio trade show when there was one in Chicago here, and trust me...you'll never see anything near what they had there at any local shop or big box.
 
I think a proper hifi could be cobbled together on the cheap...but it depends on your idea of cheap!

your paying for a companies R&D and well mass made, so cheaper..

the acoustics is interesting.. my friends used to be WELL into it for car audio.. making band-pass / ported etc sub boxes etc.

they have controlled environments to make sure the speakers sounds as good as they can.

but there are a number of programs to help with the maths.. well for sub boxes for sure.. but this is going back years..  a friend had the JBL one if memory serves.
    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeuRN1B5T5w

now thats speakers