Deaf Row!

[walpurgis]

You reckon your DIY speakers sound (at least) as good as commercial speakers costing £500?

S.

£500 probably doesn't buy anything special in the way of speakers these days Shane. I'm thinking the sound quality I'm getting might cost more.

Omni-directional speaker are a rarity. I can only think of MBL and Duevel as current makers, but no doubt there may be others. I have built some before and they were well liked by listeners.

[southall-1998_mk2]

£500 probably doesn't buy anything special in the way of speakers these days Shane. I'm thinking the sound quality I'm getting might cost more.

Omni-directional speaker are a rarity. I can only think of MBL and Duevel as current makers, but no doubt there may be others. I have built some before and they were well liked by listeners.

Most modern speakers today are total rip-off. I can sort of understand why some people turn to DIY.

S.

[Macca]

Most modern speakers today are total rip-off. I can sort of understand why some people turn to DIY.

S.

Not according to Darko:

https://darko.audio/2026/09/no-diy-s...lue-for-money/

Of course his job is industry promotion so he has to say that but his argument is that if DIYers costed their time then it's not economical. What he misses is that people DIY in their leisure time - time in which they would not be earning money anyway.

So if you DIY your speakers and save a grand over equivalent commercial product you were going to buy instead, you effectively made a grand in your leisure time where usually you'd make no money at all in that time. Win, win.

[Barry]

£500 probably doesn't buy anything special in the way of speakers these days Shane. I'm thinking the sound quality I'm getting might cost more.

Omni-directional speaker are a rarity. I can only think of MBL and Duevel as current makers, but no doubt there may be others. I have built some before and they were well liked by listeners.

In my limited experience, omni-directional speakers are highly dependent on their surrounding environment. My only experience was with a Sonab design. I heard them sounding great at an audio and record dealer's premises, where they were located in a fairly small vaulted basement underneath the shop. Obviously the dealer had taken care both in choosing them and setting them up, but they worked really well.

The second time was when a friend of a friend bought (or was given) a pair of Sonab speakers. Try as we might, we could not get them to sound right in the owner's fairly large living room. I wouldn't say they sounded awful but I wouldn't have been content.

I should add that the Sonab designs used several tweeters, whereas Geoff's design uses one drive unit: that could well make a difference.

[Pigmy Pony]

I remember those Sonab speakers. I never heard any, and had no desire to. They would have to sound pretty special to justify those looks. They just looked weird.