# Easy small DIY kit for novice?



## 16x8=49ers (Apr 24, 2013)

Hello. I have been reading a lot of good stuff on this entire forum, mostly in speakers section. I want a 5.0 system, I already have a Veladyne sub. My budget is 600$. I've shopped & shopped around & found some good stuff but I was kinda of curious on perhaps building my own speakers because I would get a better speaker for the price of a furnished one. How cool would that be, right? My living room is 11x14ft so small is ideal. Like 4-6" woofers. For use for movies, games, & TV only. Are there any easy kits for smallish speakers for someone who has never built a speaker before?


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## Pav26 (May 17, 2013)

There are a lot of kits out there, however they are mainly just composed of a 2.0 (stereo) setup. With any surround sound system, you'll want to try and have 'matching' mains, center and rear surround speakers. I'd say the most important would be matching the mains and the center - with slightly different rears you won't notice the difference as you would with perhaps the mains and center. 

Having said that, PE sells a few nice kits - ie, this. All you have to do is assemble the cabinet + crossover, stuff the enclosure with the provided Acousta-Stuf Polyfill and put the drivers in, wire it all up and you're good to go! These are also Transmission Line design, so they should have some nice bass. Of course, you'd want to paint them - you can match them up to any surrounding furniture, that's always an advantage of DIY 

I have built a DIY subwoofer in the same sort of kit form that the speakers I've mentioned above come in - I'm 14, and these sorts of kits aren't very hard to construct at all!


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

like Pav26 said there's a LOT of kits out there. most of the really good ones tend to be large and bulky though. if you're going smaller and compact I'd go with the Tritrix from Parts express or maybe even the overnight sensations.

for $500-$600 dollars going DIY can be done but you won't get a wild performance boost over store boughts (although you will get pride out of your work). IMO the real gains come from getting more bang for your buck the higher up the ladder you go price wise ...


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## BoomieMCT (Dec 11, 2006)

There are lots of kits and designs out there, but to get the real return for inventsment on DIY bigger is better (companies have economies of scale that make it hard to do small for cheaper). That being said for $600 for five speakers there are lots of ideas.

The PE Tritrix are well reviewed. I've seen plans for a Tritrix center (which could also be used for the surrounds). Best part is the mains are in knock-out cabinets so you could be partially up and running in no time.

The Zaphaudio ZMV5's are another option if you want to keep everything as a bookshelf speaker.


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## BoomieMCT (Dec 11, 2006)

Stupid me - the GR Research X-ls and x-cs would also work very well. I've heard these when they were made by AV123 and they did win a bunch of awards. They should work nearly anywhere (the x-cs is larger but has no port so placment options would be greater). You'd be well under your $600 budget with them (even after buying MDF and what-not) and have a great sounding system.


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