Video není dostupné.
Omlouváme se.
Speakers Buying VS Building VS Upgrading
Vložit
- čas přidán 26. 02. 2024
- Long story short, build if you like doing that and have the facilities.
Buy if all you need are the speakers and don't want to wait or work at it.
Upgrade an old pair if you like to tinker.
But the takeaway is that each of these isn't going to give radically different results. Working within a price range will make all of these options come out pretty much the same.
You can buy really good speakers ready made for very little money, just like you can build a pair that will sound great for around the same cost (minus equipment and your time). And upgrading can be worth it if you keep your expectations within reason and do it properly.
There have been hundreds of thousands of pretty good sounding speakers made in the last 50 years, so buying a used set and leaving them as is certainly isn't a bad choice.
Speakers are important, but they will always sound better in a good listening space. If you are really interested in the best sound quality, you cannot ignore the room.
You can help support the work I do in making these videos:
Project plans for sale: ibuildit.ca/plans/
Join the ibuildit community on Loacals: ibuildit.locals.com
Support this channel on Patreon:
www.patreon.com/user?u=865843...
#diyspeakers
#johnheisz
#audio
My "Scrap bin" channel:
/ ibuilditscrapbin
My main channel:
/ jpheisz
Website: ibuildit.ca/
Facebook: / i-build-it-25804801424...
Instagram: / i_build_it.ca
Long story short, build if you like doing that and have the facilities.
Buy if all you need are the speakers and don't want to wait or work at it.
Upgrade an old pair if you like to tinker.
But the takeaway is that each of these isn't going to give radically different results. Working within a price range will make all of these options come out pretty much the same.
You can buy really good speakers ready made for very little money, just like you can build a pair that will sound great for around the same cost (minus equipment and your time). And upgrading can be worth it if you keep your expectations within reason and do it properly.
There have been hundreds of thousands of pretty good sounding speakers made in the last 50 years, so buying a used set and leaving them as is certainly isn't a bad choice.
Speakers are important, but they will always sound better in a good listening space. If you are really interested in the best sound quality, you cannot ignore the room.
I took on the upgrade path years ago with an old pair of KLH speakers I had basically in storage. I had gotten rid of an expensive set of a popular big name speakers. I replaced the capacitors with new modern quality capacitors and replaced the cheap iron core inductors with same value air core inductors (I did not go overboard on inductor selection but chose one that would represent what I thought was an upgrade but stayed with a modest value replacement part) the speakers had a cloth roll suspension on the cone so I retreated the suspension and I replaced a busted dust cap on one of the drivers. I replaced the gasket material around the woofers to reseal the box. I left the tweeters alone. I did add some reinforcement to the physical box itself. The end result was very satisfying. From where the old speakers were to the upgrade was an audible improvement and it was a fun and extremely satisfying experience. Minimal cost and a positive end result.
While it certainly is possible to make an improvement that way (and I'm not saying you didn't), audio memory isn't as reliable as most guys think it is and then there's the accomplishment bias, where you put in the work so you expect an improvement.
That's the trap a lot of guys fall into, but then if they sound better to you (for whatever reason), then they are better.
@@IBuildIt oh I agree but I have a long experience and exposure being a critical music listener and career music educator and professional musician. My little project was successful from a standpoint thst improved performance was achieved and a small amount of money and time was expended and I consider the end result to have been very satisfying for the project goals.
I appreciate your content John. I hope you are enjoying making it because I enjoy watching it, and learning from it.
John, this was a fantastic break-down! I especially appreciated that you covered the older speakers!
I built my last speakers when I lived in a small apartment. I asked the lumber yard to ruff cut the mdf. Then I made the rest. When I moved out I found a lot of mdf dust from all the routing I made even thou I had a vacuum. But the speakers sound great. And yes I was single at the time. 🤣
Age 57? You're still young, I've been designing and building my own speakers almost that long, I'm old. I have a fellow speaker design/building friend in Palo Alto CA that is 94 that tells me I'm still young. Your video provides good accurate advice, very good job!
Designing your own speakers is easier today than in the past. When I started we didn't have free software measurement systems or CAD software for passive crossover design. We didn't have PC's to run such software on, we didn't even have pocket calculators.
Like you mentioned REW is free and adequate calibrated microphones are available for $100 or less. I suspect there are passive crossover design software packages that are either free or reasonably priced. I've been using LspCAD for crossover design for years so I haven't really looked to see what less expensive options exist but I'm sure there are some.
Building your own speakers is a fun and rewarding hobby, I once built a pair of bookshelf speakers in a hotel room that I lived in for a year in Taiwan so not having a woodworking shop is no excuse not to build🙂
It depends on did you paid a mortgage or did not yet ) If you are in a process, you're young at 65
@@sc0orThat's true, I owned a bunch of houses over the years, some I never even personally entered, investment properties. I got rid of all the rentals in 2016, a few years too early it seems, but I was tired of the business.
No one laugh...back in the days before calculators and computers, slide rules...well they ruled! Folks were well trained on the underlying theories and, instead of brute force, (aka computers iterating to a result), they used slide rules, math, realistic assumptions/simplifications to accomplish complex calculations in a reasonable amount of time. Computers can take the fun out of things, including thinking, creating and learning. But, if they are treated like a tool - like the slide rule - they can help immensely. Take WinISD for example...
Great video John. Touching on many speaker options. Glad to hear your opinion on listening vs measurements. You have the same views as myself on that. Measurements are important and we both use them but listening is the main goal. After all we use our ears to listen and not a PC screen. Great video
Thanks Matt. We both agree that measurement are the solid start and the base to build upon, but they are far from the be-all-end-all, if you want the best sound quality. But that's because we have the hands-on experience.
Too many guys into this hobby want the simple answers and as a result settle on the objective side (all measurements) or the subject side (all ears), when you need to balance both.
Extremely well said. Excellent video.
glad ya like those Elacs. been liking them too for normal non ocd listening
On the bottom of the price scale, just buy. On the upper end of the price scale, build. When I include the value of my time, I can't build a pair of speakers below $500 significantly better than store bought, because my personal time is very valuable. That said, If you have a $5000 DIY parts budget, you can build some speakers that rival many of the the $20k+ models. The only way I would recommend upgrading a store bought loudspeaker is if someone else did all the measuring/testing already, and posted their modifications online for you to copy. Another aspect of the build/upgrade path is aesthetics. Audiophiles pretend looks don't matter to them, but anyone in HiFi sales will tell you it absolutely matters. If you have some woodworking skills, upgrading the aesthetics of a store bought loudspeaker is a much more worthwhile endeavor than trying to improve their sound.
Nice to hear from you John!
Haven't watched your channel for a long time, but enjoyed to see this video to pop up ❤
Electronics lying all around ... that's why my wife gave me and our youngest one for painting our own room in the new flat.
I have been watching your woodworking videos for a long time and somehow did not know you were the same great teacher when it comes to all of this cool audio stuff! I have only started looking into getting a home theater setup in my bedroom that can also play records (I do not have a record player - or records [two on the way!]) and do streaming. I am by no means an audiophile but I would very much like to find the sweet spot at the crossroads of DIY/cost(value or getting the biggest boom for my buck)/having something that will work great for a long time. Right now, I am in the learning phase. I do not mind spending time building things and spending money but I don't want to buy marketing, I want what I pay for to be great. I am so excited to be learning from you! Thank you for sharing what you know about this stuff and thank you for "keeping it real" when it comes to what matters vs. what marketers say is real or important.
I have been designing my own speakers and for the money if you can take the time to learn they can't be beat and I am a carpenter so I make them look like furniture. But I did run into a pair of ADS for $75 and those were a steal. I have bought other older speakers like khl before I knew how to design crossovers and took a gamble and bought a remade crossover from Dayton audio and it improved the sound by 90% the caps do shift and most of those old crossovers just threw a cap on the tweeter and that was it and they let the woofers roll off so it was a huge difference. As far as new speakers I actually bought my first pair of new speakers the Sony bookshelves that were hyped up. That's right before I designed my first pair. My first pair I built on a budget and used free hard maple from some furniture I found on the road and they sounded so good that I sold the Sonys and decided to spend some money and build my reference pair and I spent almost $800 not included wood which was MDF with flooring adhesive and solid.75 oak over the MDF and those speakers just blow my mind how good they sound compared to anything I have heard. But if took a lot of time to learn I become obsessed when I want to learn something and I have carpentry skills and tools so it helps. But for the $800 for the ones I designed they would cost a lot more in the thousands if you could find a company to build you something with that much love put into it. That's the other thing when it's yours and you take pride you go extra and like John said the companies are on a budget they use cheap components . Definitely designing your own can be the best but I have also have seen people that have been designing speakers much longer than me and they can't get a speaker and crossover to sound right so idk. I some people have that talent and most don't
I would love to see a video or series from you that shows the design process of a simple set of bookshelf speakers. How you select drivers, size the boxes and make aesthetic decisions.
Love your videos!
I like your demeanor.
As a young engineer I trained under Neville Thiele, speaker design was a passion and hobby for him. A wonderful gentleman.
I brought some Elac speakers back in like 2000, they have been great. They weren't hugely expensive and I still have them to this day.
I upgraded the speakers I bought in 1977 in the early 8ties: I replaced the 4 meters of 2x0,75mm² cables with 2x4mm² (short as possible and into the box, onto the speakers) in one box, first. Compared it to the original with 3 of my friends. Worked! So I did the 2nd one, too. Next I replaced the original sheet of foam material inside with sheep wool. (The foam would have disintegrated by today, anyways.) That took a bit. Again: 4 people listening until we found the right amount of wool to please us all. Those speakers are still standing in my brother's living room in the US.
Found a pair of these speakers used, later on. I wanna copy/upgrade the crossovers by changing all capacitors to MKP/MKT.. whatever with matching them to 1% difference. Leaving the coils as are. But after all these years, that should be an improovement. And I do have spare chassis, if one @ my brother's should fail.
We did listen to my upgraded ones once in comparison with a much more expensive pair from a highly recommended manufakturer. And found high- and midrange on mine better. Just found one of the famous tweeters offered for 200€. I just bought a pair of "my" speakers (smaller sibling, but with the same chassis for high and midrange) for 30€. Bargain ;-)
Thanks for sharing.
Hey John. I've been searching for a "Beginners 2.1 DIY System" video all morning and theres a huge void for this type of project. It'd be really cool if you could make a video on this type of project!
Did you purchase a new camera, John? Wow that was a good picture!
I'm a tinkerer. I love to take things apart, figure out how they work and try to make them sound "better", even going so far as to pull drivers out of their original boxes to repurpose them in new projects. I now acknowledge that I have an issue with hoarding speaker drivers and crossover components, but I've had worse vices. Heh
For the last 40 years, I have been down the DIY speaker building rabbit hole (measurement mic, WinISD, WinPCD, ARTA, SOUNDEASY, REW, etc.) and there is no way I would ever buy a pre built speaker now. But I also see that this is certainly not for everyone. If your viewers want to buy new, the best resource is Erin’s Audio Corner. If you want to upgrade an existing speaker, then GR Research is good. While I think Danny probably over rates his replacement parts, his measurements and analysis are generally spot on.
But I am getting older and I just got my first hearing aids the week. Like you, I was not thrilled with the initial results. Hearing aids are largely just equalizers, but they do add a lot of DSP to make speech more easy to understand beyond just boosting sounds around 3k to 4k hz. But I certainly don’t see how they justify the mid four figure price tags them. I am interested to see your hearing aid project if you care to share it. Thanks for all you do and keep posting.
Holy cow. Audiophile hearing aids. I'm gonna be RICH! Cryo treated silicone tubes baby!
Every time I realize a $20 driver is used inside a $2000 speaker, I want to build one by myself. But when I begin to calculate a price of equipment needed, I purchase that speaker and relax. ) Upgrading of some cheap cabinet with that good $20 driver might be an interesting idea
Well, I understand zero about audio, John... Unfortunately. 😬
But I want to learn a bit, soon. I love building stuff, even more with electronics. But Unfortunately I can't right now... But things are getting better and soon enough I'm going to be able to buy some stuff to make a few experiments. 😊
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Just yesterday I was thinking about those limited run of speakers, I am in the market for a new pair of speakers and am very interested in those.
Electronics scattered all over....yup, my problem but it is a priority to make a corner storage to go in my office to keep things organized. I want to keep all electronic components in the house to encourage me to get the projects finished. I need to separate my audio, microprocessor and "other" electronics for easy access then separate storage based on components. I watched your small component storage on your other channel but I need something that has larger storage. I need to get off my butt and design/build solutions.
DIY hearing aid....I am very interested in this. Like you I have had to go back to the audiologist numerous to adjust the settings and I have never been happy with the results. For music listening I can do better with a good graphic equalizer adjusting the frequencies without wearing my hearing aids vs hearing aids with no DSP. However, listening to speech as in a conference call, the hearing aids by themselves are better. Speech is uber complicated.
I went the kit route with GR Research as I had too many projects/commitments to give the time necessary to design a speaker from the ground up. I am very happy with the two kits that I built.
Take care and thank you for posting!
The hearing aid is pretty big, so it's not really portable and I'll only be using it in my listening room. Much harder than I expected to get the frequency response correct and the gain levels right, and while I'm close, I'm still not quite there.
Have you ever had the opportunity to listen to Bang Olufsen’s “Beolab 90”? If so, what are your impressions?
For my money I'd rather buy that wooden cabinet amp you built. The one with the round VU meters.
Very nice ... much good advice.
As a 70's teen, I bought silk dome tweeters and a three-way xover from Radio Shack ...
Modded my single driver full range speakers into a mid/high box, with LF support from the family RCA console giant oval woofers!
I loved it.
Ignorance was bliss.
Can you cite the example you're thinking of ... relative to saying even a highly regarded kit isn't going to outperform a ready made, similarly priced counterpart?
No specific example on kits to give, but I know that the big advantage a major manufacturer has is buying components in quantity to get a price break. So the woofer they use may cost them as much as 50% less that it would for someone who's buying it retail for a kit, even if it's virtually the same driver.
At the end of the day, it's extremely hard to beat the value you get when buying a competitive factory made speaker, simply because they are pumping out thousands of units.
I used to think that the better the driver, the better the speaker you get in the end. As in, the more expensive, the better. I now know that's not true. A great speaker is all of the major stuff working together to get the best sound quality, and has little to do with the actual cost of the parts used.
I have no idea why specially but I always thought separating speakers and filtering the frequency range could cut out spaces between. If you have a subwoofer and then the next speaker is smaller than the range. Filtering overlaps and having large woofers. I just have large soaker towers and a very large sub. Seems like a bigger woofer would be nice but smaller woofers probably are capable to cover that gap I perceive.
I was thinking about tinkering with some old Polk bookshelf speakers I have collecting dust. Do you think it’s a bad idea to remove the crossover inside, and rewire it to work only bi amped and use a miniDSP as the crossover, so I can test different crossover frequencies for each driver?
Almost all Bluetooth speakers sound like crap. There is also some well known stereo and surround speakers are equally bad. Not to name any brands.
They are still making bad speakers John. Even some really expensive ones. Not sure where you’re coming from here.
the problem nowdays there are lots of subjective oriented smaller brands that reject all research of speakers and try instead to be as "different" as possible, like removing crossovers entirely, or wildly high points with spl range like a rollercoaster. while at the same time pretending they are "detailed, fast" etc.