AudioBanter.com - View Single Post

"Arny Krueger" wrote:

Chu Gai wrote:
He had invited various DIY'ers to bring their speaker creations to be
measured at a facility using test equipment in an ancheoic chamber.
Now that was 10 years ago and at that time it was a Celestion that
bested them on the bench. Available software has gotten better and so
hopefully has the ability of the individual to properly measure the
performance of their speaker creations.
Has a scenario such as Tom described been repeated recently? Are
present day DIY speaker creations getting better to the point where if
we ignore the amount of time a person spends (we all need something to
do) that they can produce a very competently performing loudspeaker
that measures well and doesn't suffer from the very convenient
'builder's ear' when it comes to giving a pass to what would
rightfully be considered undesireable characteristics?

This gets discussed with Tom from time to time. . I think that the current
consensus is that enough amateurs are using relatively sophisticated speaker
design and analysis tools, courtesy of the PC revolution, that the gap is at
least narrowing.

That much may be true, especially with the newer Berhinger pieces available,
but on the whole and in the particular its much harder to best commercial
designs when cost is considered. (with the exception of subwoofers.)

With good system tuning it is much more likely today as long as you have an
acoustical merasurement system..... which are more widely available and much
less expensive ....... which includes a measurement microphone.... to gauge how
you are proceeding. That's what the PSACS test was .... a way for amatuers to
get access to test equipment they couldn't afford to own.

If you consider the acquisition of the equipment to make a good set of speakers
you still can't beat the better $300 2 way 6.5-inch systems on the market
today.

OTOH if you're going all out (ready to adjust things to the drivers available
in quantities of 2.... which may be a completely different issue) and want to
"better" $10K commercial speakers I'd say that's often possible (but only
because there are so many pretty poor $10K systems) but you have to be willing
to spend a large amount of time and effort.

For most people ..... make a system with a few $.... then compare it to your
neighbors $300 speakers and decide for yourself.

But I'm not downgrading DIY speakers. I love the "format"; god knows that I
spent years wallowing in it, and I don't mean to discourage it, but frankly
engineers at Paradigm, PSB and more lately JBL and Infinity have discovered
all the "secrets" of making good sounding speaker systems for cheap.