This instructable is a basic guide for building a pair of high quality stereo speakers. The process is not difficult but will require lots of time, patience and effort.
Here is an introduction to the few main parts of a speaker:
Speaker Drivers
This includes the woofer and tweeter. The woofer vibrates at a low frequency to create bass while the tweeter vibrates at high frequencies to create treble. more on how speakers work
Crossover Unit
This is a specially designed piece of circuitry that separates incoming audio signals into high and low frequency pass. All the low frequencies are sent to the woofer and the high frequencies are sent to the tweeter.
Enclosure
This is the box that holds the woofer, tweeter and crossover unit. It will take up the majority of the instructable.
This is my first instructable! Please leave comments. I am not an expert on this topic but I'll try my best to answer questions.
To get started, we need to decide which speaker drivers and crossover unit to use.
Here is an introduction to the few main parts of a speaker:
Speaker Drivers
This includes the woofer and tweeter. The woofer vibrates at a low frequency to create bass while the tweeter vibrates at high frequencies to create treble. more on how speakers work
Crossover Unit
This is a specially designed piece of circuitry that separates incoming audio signals into high and low frequency pass. All the low frequencies are sent to the woofer and the high frequencies are sent to the tweeter.
Enclosure
This is the box that holds the woofer, tweeter and crossover unit. It will take up the majority of the instructable.
This is my first instructable! Please leave comments. I am not an expert on this topic but I'll try my best to answer questions.
To get started, we need to decide which speaker drivers and crossover unit to use.
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Signing UpStep 1: Choosing the Drivers
Firstly, we need to chose which drivers to use. Some things to think about when choosing your drivers are:
- where you intend to use the speakers
- what you intend to power the speakers with
- how much space you have or how big you want them to be
- how much money you have to spend
In my case, i will be using them in a relatively small college student room and power them with a 100 watt per channel receiver that i found in someones driveway (they were throwing it out and yes i did ask if i could have it). I have about 200 dollars to spend on the whole project.
I need something not too big but will produce a good amount of sound and came up with the following drivers:
WOOFER: Dayton DC250-8 10" Classic Woofer $26.20 x2 (one for each speaker) more
This woofer can handle 70 watts RMS and 105 watts max which is good enough for my needs. Its Frequency Response is: 25-2,500 Hz and with an Xmax of 4mm and SPL of 89 decibels should produce a good about of bass. Remember, the larger the woofer, the larger the enclosure will need to be.
TWEETER: Goldwood GT-525 1" Soft Dome Tweeter $9.50 x2 (one for each speaker) more
This tweeter can handle 50 watts RMS and 100 watts max which matches the woofer. Its frequency response is: 2,000 - 20,000 Hz and has an SPL of 92 decibels.
CROSSOVER: Dayton XO2W-2.5K 2-Way 2,500 Hz $23.07 x2 (one for each speaker) more
This 2-way crossover unit separates incoming frequencies at the 2500 Hz mark. So any sound with frequency less than 2500 Hz will be sent to the woofer and vice versa for the tweeter. This means you need to chose a woofer and tweeter with overlapping frequency responses so no frequencies will be lost while in operation. It is also possible to make your own crossover but i will not go into that.
The total cost of the woofers, tweeters and crossovers came to be $137.06 which is relatively cheap considering how expensive they get. I bought my drivers and crossover from partsexpress. They are very reliable as i've used them numerous times in the past.
Hopefully this step will help you chose the best driver for your needs. The next step will describe how to design your speaker enclosure (the box).
- where you intend to use the speakers
- what you intend to power the speakers with
- how much space you have or how big you want them to be
- how much money you have to spend
In my case, i will be using them in a relatively small college student room and power them with a 100 watt per channel receiver that i found in someones driveway (they were throwing it out and yes i did ask if i could have it). I have about 200 dollars to spend on the whole project.
I need something not too big but will produce a good amount of sound and came up with the following drivers:
WOOFER: Dayton DC250-8 10" Classic Woofer $26.20 x2 (one for each speaker) more
This woofer can handle 70 watts RMS and 105 watts max which is good enough for my needs. Its Frequency Response is: 25-2,500 Hz and with an Xmax of 4mm and SPL of 89 decibels should produce a good about of bass. Remember, the larger the woofer, the larger the enclosure will need to be.
TWEETER: Goldwood GT-525 1" Soft Dome Tweeter $9.50 x2 (one for each speaker) more
This tweeter can handle 50 watts RMS and 100 watts max which matches the woofer. Its frequency response is: 2,000 - 20,000 Hz and has an SPL of 92 decibels.
CROSSOVER: Dayton XO2W-2.5K 2-Way 2,500 Hz $23.07 x2 (one for each speaker) more
This 2-way crossover unit separates incoming frequencies at the 2500 Hz mark. So any sound with frequency less than 2500 Hz will be sent to the woofer and vice versa for the tweeter. This means you need to chose a woofer and tweeter with overlapping frequency responses so no frequencies will be lost while in operation. It is also possible to make your own crossover but i will not go into that.
The total cost of the woofers, tweeters and crossovers came to be $137.06 which is relatively cheap considering how expensive they get. I bought my drivers and crossover from partsexpress. They are very reliable as i've used them numerous times in the past.
Hopefully this step will help you chose the best driver for your needs. The next step will describe how to design your speaker enclosure (the box).
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They're loud, and effective.
A sub makes them a lot better imho,
But anyway, here they are
(also, just my own 2 cents, but if you made those boxes a little bigger, it would have been far easier
Those look fantastic! I'm honored you used my instructable as a guide for your own speakers. Yes, I agree a larger box probably would have given better sound and also easier to build. Now that I think about it, my method was a bit brute force/primitive =P though, I am still enjoying great sound from these. I also bought a 12" sub to go with my pair and it does make it sound a lot better. I think one of the first albums played on these was In Between Dreams by Jack Johnson. By the way, any other suggestions/comments/critisizm that might make the instructable better? Again, thanks! and happy holidays!
Thanks for using instructables!
http://www.instructables.com/community/I-Made-It-Challenge-Is-Back-Win-A-Pro-Membership/
http://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/FAQ/Build/
:)
Maybe i'l try to build an active variable x-over..
thanks =)
online mastering
Did you mean 100uf,,i think microfarad is the unit of measurement for capacitance?
(sorry for my bad english, im just a student)
Hope this helps.
nice one =D
Deliberately running speakers out of phase is used to stop standing waves in audio installations (high and low points in the room from speakers interfering with each other).
Hope that helps?
If i can find the time i am definitely making myself a set of these!