Building speakers

Psh, $300?

As a seemingly life-long student, the prospect of owning any kind of nice audio equipment has mostly felt like a ‘someday’ proposition. Especially when audiophilia pushes prices into absurd (and comical) territories. I’ve been lucky enough to have a university surplus store that occasionally sells broadcast equipment for very, very cheap, but the speakers are mostly misses.

The now-discontinued KEF Q100’s were what started me down this path. I really liked the old-school vibe, but their $500 MSRP – and even semi-annual $300 sales – were a little too rich for my blood. However, when taking to the internet, I found a very active DIY-speaker enthusiast scene with enough of kits, schematics, and diagrams to tickle my engineering brain. It seemed like a fun project, I had research that I wanted to procrastinate against, and as most of my bad ideas start: “I bet I could build something just as nice for half the price”.

Lacking any wood working tools or experience, I opted to go with Paul Carmody Overnight Sensations which checked a lot of boxes for me. It was the right size, relative simplicity, and price point. I ended up buying the kit through Parts Express, and while it was comparatively cheap ($138 vs. $300), this is where things began heading south.

Yes, you get the components and cabinets, but I soon realized the things I was missing: Clamps, a drill, terminal cups, speaker wire, bannana plugs, finishing supplies, veneering tools, and a 2’x4’ sheet of walnut veneer from MacBeath hardwood. That place rules.

Check out my photo log that roughly documents the process.

It was a great project and delivered on all fronts. In my pursuit of building a beautiful and great-sounding pair of speakers, I succeeded in making no progress on my research throughout the entire build process and spent more than double the cost of buying the KEFs outright.

And then I ended up buying a separate pair of speakers for my bedroom, anyway.