Hi all,

I really fancy having a go at making some bedroom desktop speakers (my Jambox is definitely on its way out).

For starters, I’m much more about the actual design and construction of the enclosure than the techy specifics of the electronics, I’m just after some speakers that will sound pretty decent!

So, I’m after:
* 2 speakers (no sub), ideally active (but passive is ok if the amp is small and could maybe be fitted into one of the enclosures)
* Desk top (max size very roughly 300mm wide x 600tall by 300deep), maybe on short stands to bring them up a little
* Aux in (will just be playing from my Macbook or phone)
* Will be used to listen to all sorts of music, and watch movies, both from my desk, and from my bed (roughly 3.5meters away)
* Would like them to function fine as one speaker (if I want to take it downstairs), but easy to connect the second speaker
* On a very tight budget – ideally well under £100 all in (not including wood etc for enclosure)

Firstly, anyone on here knowledgeable on DIY speakers? Or, any suggestions for a decent forum?

I’m thinking that to save the complexity of having to design a crossover and all the associated technical work, I will use a single full-range driver in each speaker, maybe with a bass-reflex design to increase bass (or even some kind of folded horn), but that of course means the porting needs to be designed to the specific enclosure dimensions. I’d really like to mount the amp within one of the enclosures (or at least a separate but attached enclosure); with something cheap and small like a Lepy amp is that possible?

What’s the best way to pair drivers to an amp? What numbers should I be looking at?

Any recommendations for enclosure designs that use cheap drivers? I’ve seen the following, which uses Fostex FE103 drivers, but even cheaper drivers would be nice!

http://diyaudioprojects.com/Speakers/Fostex-FE103En-Bass-Reflex-Speakers/

On the flip side, if people strongly feel that a tweeter or sub built into the enclosure would be worth the extra work (and can be done on a budget), I could be keen for that!

Any thoughts would be great.

Cheers,
Duane.

cynic-al to the forum!

Chiefgrooveguru to the forum!

I’d be looking at Active speakers such as these here , They’re usually priced singularly btw.

cynic-al to the forum!

ftw

This link might help.

http://www.zaphaudio.com/

Way back when I was bored in A-Level D&T I decided that building an armchair with sodding great big speakers in would be a good idea for a final project – it was meant to be a gaming chair sort of affair. Used two 12″ subs, two 4.5″ drivers, and two tweeters mounted in pods on the end of the arms pointed towards the general area of the head of the poor victim in the chair. It worked surprisingly well. Used a couple of cheap crossovers to split the signal. I think total cost was around £100 but a lot of material was scavenged plus it wasn’t terribly high quality, just a proof of concept sort of thing. It was very very loud.

Hmmm

You may struggle on your budget if you want to build from parts. Buying some decent pc or similar speakers and building good enclosures will work well. There are ways to measure the parameters of the units and then design enclosures to get the best bas from them which would be the fun bit imo.