2-way Loud Speakers
This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive guide to making your own speakers, but it will tell you a bit about how I built mine, and what steps to take, and things to look out for when building your own. I’m sure if you take more care than I did your speakers will be just great!
First you need to decide where you want the speakers to go; weather they go on a shelf, if they’re floor standing, etc. You also need to decide what you are going to use them for, this helps you to decide upon the spec of the components.
My first pair of speakers are big enough to sit on the floor, and indeed designed for it, but I haven’t enough floor space in my room, hence them being on my desk in the picture. It was quite handy as you can see, because I could use them as monitors for the decks. I’ve since moved them next to each other facing the bed — which is head-to-foot to them — with the TV in between them. I was running them alongside a pair of Aiwa speakers from my Hi-Fi, but the amp I was using for the home-builds broke, so was forced to choose between those and the Aiwa. I chose the home-builds!
I wanted them to be big enough to power a small hall (which I later did) — Disco/PA speakers. Ideally I would have made a pair of thin floor standers, with a sub sideways, two mid-range drivers on the front, with a tweeter on top, but because of money and time scale, that idea would have to wait till another time!
So, I decided to make some floor standing loud speakers, with just a large driver supplying the mid and lows and a tweeter, which I later decided to be a horn tweeter. Check out the components below:
- 10″ Mid/Sub woofer 200W RMS — £40
- 3 x 7.5″ Horn Tweeter 300W RMS — £10
- 5Khz 2-Way Crossover — £6
- 3.5″ Bass Reflex Tube — £2
- Terminals — £5
It doesn’t matter too much if your woofer and tweeter power ratings don’t match up. But it is important that the crossover can handle all frequencies.
The components I selected make for a very loud speaker! Easily loud enough for my room (the furniture in my room and the neighbouring room’s radiator have a tendency to vibrate), and was very respectable in a small hall. The bass-reflex are a good idea for improved sound quality, I bought them from a catalogue, but I’ve heard of people using cut down drain pipes. You should get some quality cable for the wiring; don’t think it doesn’t matter… you maybe won’t be able to notice a difference, but for longevity’s sake, it’s worth the extra money.
My original drivers were only cheap (“cheap” compared to well known brand names), but they were still good speakers, and looked good too. I probably should have spent more in the first place as through the school I was able to buy them VAT free!
About a year later a friend decided to make his own speakers for his GCSE project, and around the same time he was offered an empty sub box (fitting 2x 10″ subs), which gave me the idea of selling him the drivers from mine and splashing out on getting some better ones for myself. They didn’t cost that much more than the first pair — only £20 — and they have the same power rating, but the spec was rather better.
You’ll probably need to find yourself a lot of wood as well. The cheapest option is MDF; it’s also easy to cut. The school had masses of MDF, so I settled for their 12mm deep supplies. I would ideally have had more like 18mm, but I was getting it so cheap… I wasn’t going to complain.
Pine frames, or batons, need to be stuck preferably with dowel pegs, along each edge and corner of the enclosure, ensuring boosted resonance. To stick the wood I just used PVA glue, which is very tough, but some prefer to use glue guns.
I was lucky enough to make my speakers in a purpose built, well-tooled workshop (I made mine at school as part of my Design and Technology GCSE). Without access to a workshop you will probably find it hard — you may have to think about investing in some new tools or hiring some. The sort of things you will need are: jigsaw, band saw, different size drills, clamps (big and small) and plenty more.
As much as I would liked to have built a really fancy speaker, I had to keep the design to a simple one to keep to the time scale designated, and the fact it was my first time building speakers, I thought much could go wrong! Thick lines can be used to mark out the wood to cut, as any excess is only going to be sanded down anyway, just be sure not to cut anything too small — that will notice! When cutting the holes for the components (woofer, tweeter, etc.) I recommend making the lines small as possible — use a sharp pencil — this should help keep everything accurate, as you want everything to have a snug fit. Take your time cutting the wood, remember a small mistake could mean starting over.
You’ll need to have plenty of large clamps ready for when you glue everything together. Overnight should be long enough, but do check carefully when you go back to it. Once it’s totally dry and you’ve removed the clamps, it’s the exciting job of sanding it down. Before you start though, it’s a good idea to use some wood or poly filler to fill any large gaps. Sanding by hand is the best way, and you should avoid using an electric sander as it doesn’t give a consistent finish, unless you’re very careful and steady handed. For the tops and bottom, to make sure they are totally flat across the whole frame, staple a big sheet of sanding paper over a board, this means you can apply the same pressure over the whole frame, hopefully meaning a level sand.
If you decide to carpet it, you don’t need to worry about the surfaces being totally smooth, as it won’t notice either way. If spraying/painting, it’s essential you do, else the differences will be noticeable. If you’re painting it you’ll need to get some primer on it first, but not before wiping of the dust with a damp cloth (this applies to carpeting it also). A hoover is useful for the inside — you don’t want dust getting into your connections.
Again after waiting for the speakers to dry, you can prime the wood. To avoid incompatibility between primer and spray/paint, try to get them from the same manufacturer. When you’ve primed it all, wipe it over with a damp piece of sand paper, and then you’re ready to spray/paint… the fun part! If you’ve decided to spray it, put it on a stand, do several coats and do it in a well ventilated room, leaving it to dry completely. The same painting techniques are applied to this as any other project.
Once the paint is dry you should then be able to start connecting your components up, recommended to use the soldering iron rather than simply tying the wires together as I’ve done (see picture to right). You can also crimp them onto the connectors. With the loose wires you could tack them onto the side of the speakers using a U-pin, to save them flapping about.
As seen in the nearby photo, I screwed my crossovers to two cut down pine batons, what I used for the structural support earlier. This saved drilling into the side of the speaker, and brought them out from the side for better accessibility (which I needed with my small access panel). You want them as close to the terminals, and as far away from the driver as possible for the least interference. Use a circuit checker when wiring up the crossover to make sure everything is as you thought it was — pos/neg. Wrapping a piece of sellotape round the positive ends is a good idea so you don’t forget.
Put the wadding or foam inside, either lining the edges of the enclosure, or screwing it up inside. As you can see in a photo up the page, I only used one sheet of wadding per speaker, which isn’t really enough, but it’s better than nothing. I choose the bottom for my access panel, so it’s not at all noticeable. This does compromise the accessibility of the components, but opening the speakers up is not something you’ll be doing often!
With that you should have a nice pair of loud speakers that will easily compete with and probably out perform most high street brand speakers. Don’t be tempted to pump the tunes out just yet! Speakers are like the engine out a brand new car; they need running in — for about 12 hours at a low volume.
3-way Loud Speakers
To the right are my friend Pag’s speakers. The centre box wasn’t made by him but by another friend, Chris Constable. It’s got two 10″ subs in there providing low and mid range frequencies. It’s linked up to a Kenwood amp via no crossovers. Either side of the sub box/centre speaker, there are floor standing 3-way speakers. These are what Pag made for GCSE and look and sound very good. The left one isn’t finished yet — it still needs painting, but for an idea of what it’ll look like look at the one on the right. They’re sprayed a dark blue not black as it may appear from the photo. He’s used the same drivers as I did for mine for the low end, and there’s a 6.5″ midrange there and a tweeter, which is pretty sharp. As they’re quite big speakers, he has added handles to each side and covers to the corners.