Monitors...

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johnnypraze

johnnypraze

Hip Hop Head
Does/has anyone built there own...?

I do car and home installs but Im really looking into messing with some monitors (cuz I need some) and you save hundreds of dollars when building your own in car and home apps...

I just gotta figure out what kind of speakers Ill need to find that nice flat response you find in monitors...

Any input/suggestions...?
 
You'll have lots of problems making them yourself, I think. Its more than just the speakers themselves, its the whole package: the size and shape of the enclosure and internal baffles, size of the port, aterial the enclusiures are made from , crossovers, etc.

Then you have to be able to measure the response curve and fine tune everything to get it flat. Sounds like a lot of friggin work that may end up junk. If it doesn't have a flat, or very close to flat, response curve its not a monitor, but it might be a cool car speaker.

I'd leave it to the pros who have the experience and the technology to do it right, and even some of them don't. Just my opinion. This might turn into an interesting thread.
 
Enclosures, tuning, porting, all that is natural to me. No problems there.

And I can get Infinity and JBL drivers (not crap either), among others, for decent prices.


Thats what made me wanna really get into it.

Im just not sure what parameters to look for, in both speaker and crossover freq.

I think I can cook up some decent set-ups, for not a whole lot. They dont have to be finished and look pretty to sound decent. Im all about saving the $dough$...
 
johnnypraze said:
I think I can cook up some decent set-ups, for not a whole lot. They dont have to be finished and look pretty to sound decent. Im all about saving the $dough$...
Click to expand...
Sure - you'll have a nice pair of auratone-equivalents to work with... :eek:


Good luck with that....!
 
johnnypraze said:


I just gotta figure out what kind of speakers Ill need to find that nice flat response you find in monitors...

Any input/suggestions...?
Click to expand...


Here's my input/suggestions

If your going to fork out the cash to do that, why not just spend it on a half decent set of monitors ? You'll probably have better results.
 
Let's put it this way:

If you built yourself a true anechoic chamber, purchased the latest Hewlett Packard spectrum analyser with a calibrated microphone, a Wavetek signal generator, and such, you could probably build yourself a nice pair of monitors after about 2 years of tinkering. All of the above equipment (which the monitor folks already own) would probably cost you around $200,000. or more. Add to that the time you would spend (how much is your time worth?) and the many components you'd go through trying to find the right combination, it would probably be a lot cheaper to fork out $2000 for a nice set of Tannoys or Mackies or such.

Get the picture?
 
Though I do build my own, and I don't want to disourage you, I have to sorta agree with the posts above, when it's all said and done if your building your own from scratch, your first ones will most likly sound bad and cost too much for how they sound(unless you happen to get lucky) they are very very different from car speakers. If this is going to be a hobby for you, then by all means, you can get a mic with calibration sheet and measuring equipment for a few hundred bucks, (you can even get some very good measuing software for free, and "make" a mic for around $10).
I'm starting on a new compact 3-way design that will cost a lot less then if I went and bought something but that's with years (around 15) of tinkering with building speakers.
 
Smaart, Decent computer, good earthworks RTA mic, and decent small mixer is all you really need to instead of spending that 200,000 on that other stuff and you could get out maybe under 3-4k.
 
But my Mackie HR624's cost only $900 and they are ruler flat. Why would anyone want to spend $3000 - $4000 for something that should only cost $900? Even if you went with HR824's, which are the current de facto standard (for small to medium size studios), that would only run you about $1400.

Point is, you get what you pay for, and if you want to fool around with cheap speakers, your recording results will reflect your investment.
 
Building your own is a good way to save money, but it works out best when you're in the $750 to $1500 cost range. For that kind of money you can build a pair of speakers equivalent to those retailing for two or three times as much. However, I don't recommend designing your own. You should build something by an experienced designer. There are some great kits available. Do a search here for "Zalytron" and you'll find some that I've recommended.

Thomas

--------------------------
Thomas Barefoot
Barefoot Sound LLC.
Recording Monitors
 
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