How to Build Speakers; understand Loud Speaker Design Fundamentals:

Want better speakers without the inflated retail prices?

If you were to build speakers yourself there are a few things you should know.

First, the speaker itself, the box, drivers, etc. is the easy part.

The more complex part of this project is when you combine all the speaker design fundamentals and understanding why and how they work together.

Don't want to build a speaker system? How about a finished small surround sound speakers system? - Go!

Using a Computer to save time and money:

I will show you how to build speakers with an all digital front end including the active crossover. This can be as simple or as complex as you would like it to be.

The PC can be used to measure the speakers frequency response and room response. This will make the design process much easier and more accurate.

Loud speaker construction is a fun and rewarding project to build. Here are some of the benefits to

Benefits of Building a Speaker Yourself:

* You decide how big and loud your speaker system will be able to play.

* You decide how accurate and musical the speakers will be.

* You decide on the speakers appearance.

* You will get a speaker system far greater than your investment would indicate.

If the woodworking intimidates you try this small and easy computer speakers project first. There are speaker design plans available on this site or you can design your own.

See our Free Speaker Plans! Go to our Digital Audio Speakers and Speaker Plans page.

This Speaker Design concept is for the Hardcore Music Enthusiast and Home Theater Connoisseur!

They have probably put a lot of time and a ton of money into building its performance and are usually quite proud of it.

This explains why only a few of the major electronics companies are offering a solution that resembles what this web-site is dedicated to. Meridian digital loud speakers and Goldmund digital are both successful companies that embrace the technology that this site was built around.

Take your time to look around this site. There are over 100 articles here. Home theater and home speaker systems are a huge topic. You can learn all you need to know, but it won't happen in one day.

Take your time and wade through the pages. If you have a question post a response on the Contact Us page.

The Speaker Crossover and Speaker Controllers:

The speaker crossover is part of all but the most basic home audio systems. Most mid-priced full-range loudspeaker cabinets have a passive crossover built into them.

Most manufacturers use passive networks because quite honestly they are simple compared to active crossovers.

But that is only until you understand how the crossover works.

I think you will soon realize that the digital crossover approach is vastly superior.

For directions on how to build speakers and the speaker crossovers and speaker components click here. Crossovers come in two basic types: Active and Passive.

Passive crossovers are usually built into speaker cabinets (typically in the form of a printed circuit board with one or more capacitors and/or resistors and/or inductors mounted on it).

Active crossovers and digital crossovers often come in the form of a rack-mounted box with knobs or buttons and some sort of menu display on the front. Some - usually with system-specific EQ settings, delay and limiting functions - are described as controllers.

A crossover divides the signal into two or more frequency bands for each speaker cabinet. They are generally described according to the number of frequency bands available (two-way, three-way and four-way).

Most active crossovers allow adjustment of the crossover points, as well as independent control of the output level of each frequency band.

The Best Speaker Cabinet, Speaker components, and Speaker Parts to use:

Cabinets should be built as inert as possible for the budget in consideration. Speaker cabinet design and speaker cabinet hardware should be optimized for the highest performance. Don't underestimate the importance of a well built speaker cabinet if your goal is to build speakers of the highest quality.

If you have a resonant cabinet the speaker drivers simply do not have a robust platform in order to launch accurately.

The speaker must be able to 'launch' the musical notes off of the driver with the most speed and accuracy as mechanically possible.

Speaker components and speaker drivers should be chosen with a holistic approach with one part not being of a vastly superior quality to the other speaker parts. Keep the speaker components all of similar values and quality.

Spending more on one component will only cause a bottleneck somewhere else in the playback chain. Build speakers by using proper planning and a well thought out plan. I use Parts Express to buy most of my speaker components and drivers. Go to Speaker Building - Build your perfect speaker with our parts and supplies from crossover components to full kits.

Speaker Weight and speaker construction Quality:

Shipping costs money, the more a speaker system weighs the more it costs to get it there. This is pretty good incentive for a company to build speakers as lightweight as possible.

Light weight for high quality audio is not a friend of high quality speaker cabinet design.

Light materials usually mean thin materials which translates into resonant materials. This produces distortion and coloration, as some like to call it. Any change other than what was recorded is a distortion of the truth to the original signal.

If the speaker enclosures are flapping at a given frequency it can cancel out other frequencies and also make some musical notes too loud, flatten out imaging and other bad stuff.

A good set of speaker drivers should be designed to reproduce the electrical signal with the lowest distortion possible.

A resonant speaker enclosure will deter the driver from doing its job well. Well braced cabinets are labor intensive to build and they are VERY heavy. But a well braced and well built design will yield a non-resonant speaker enclosure.

There just isn't any way around the superiority of mass when dealing with speaker cabinets.

Light weights are for flying objects, like airplanes, or vehicles with a high MPG rating, or headphones even.

You don't want lightweight speakers if the goal is high sound quality home or pro audio.

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