151–160 of 338 posts
Years ago I visited a friend in emmm..., "Europe". He was not home and the neighbour let us in. He asked us to entertain ourselves until he gets back. It took little time to notice the pair of speakers: 50cm cubes, almost. I managed to turn them on and connect them to the TV. There I heard the most lifelike sound I ever heard from any speakers. I wondered: these should be some crazy European brand... no brand names a…
Years ago I visited a friend in emmm..., "Europe". He was not home and the neighbour let us in. He asked us to entertain ourselves until he gets back. It took little time to notice the pair of speakers: 50cm cubes, almost. I managed to turn them on and connect them to the TV. There I heard the most lifelike sound I ever heard from any speakers. I wondered: these should be some crazy European brand... no brand names a…
they tune it so that you would not be able to
distinguish a person talking behind you, from
the recording of them being played with these
speakers
It's trivial to get perfect on-axis sound (ie, the tweeters are pointed at your ears) even with cheap speaker components if you add some active DSP to compensate for the speaker's imperfections.
In professional studio audio this is more or less the norm with monitors from Genelec, JBL, etc.
In nearfield use (ie, you're close enough to the speaker that the direct sound from the speaker dwarfs the sound reflected off of the walls of the room) this will sound eerily good, basically like putting on a pair of headphones.
I built my own speakers for under $200 and I honestly think they are some of the best I've ever heard for a personal setup. They were inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKIye4RZ-5k (Tech Ingredients) . I built the speakers from foam board, the subwoofer from car audio parts and the amp is a standard class D amp. The best part is whenever someone comments on how good my speakers sound I can say I built them m…
Were there any guides or tutorials you followed? 20 years ago or so, I knew someone who built their own speaker cabinets and I couldn’t believe DIY speakers could match companies that spent hundreds millions on audio engineering. I’ve heard enough anecdotes that I would be interested in learning more.
I knew someone who built their own speaker cabinets and
I couldn’t believe DIY speakers could match companies
that spent hundreds millions on audio engineering
That said, designing your own high quality (I'm defining "high quality" as "measures objectively well") speaker "from scratch" is quite a bit of work.
https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy-speaker-faqs/...
Most folks, even designers, start by building other peoples' designs. If you really want to design your own speakers, then absolutely go for it. It's not rocket science, but it's somewhat involved if you want to do it right.
If you just want a pair of high quality speakers for cheap (I am one of those people!) then use an existing design w/ a flat-pack kit from Parts Express or elsewhere.
What I'd like as a consumer is the antidote to this. I saw something like this trying to get a replacement plumbing fitting at my parent's house a few years back. The local hardware store with the high-quality stuff had been closed down by the big-box stores. Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just…
Amazon and other high volume low margin retailers are a is pretty good antidote "for this". Good shipped from manufacturer to consumer with smallest markup possible. Of course it kills service, local shopping, city taxes, retail employment along the way but that was the overhead.
How can someone actually find a quality item and know that's what it is on Amazon?
Years ago I visited a friend in emmm..., "Europe". He was not home and the neighbour let us in. He asked us to entertain ourselves until he gets back. It took little time to notice the pair of speakers: 50cm cubes, almost. I managed to turn them on and connect them to the TV. There I heard the most lifelike sound I ever heard from any speakers. I wondered: these should be some crazy European brand... no brand names a…
> The cost of building a consumer audio product is generally no more than 30% of retail. 30% COGS (cost of goods sold) is virtually a maximum for items sold at mainstream retailers. There’s nothing wrong with this. These are standard ratios, not some dirty secret. The cost of goods sold is only a fraction of the costs that go into getting products all the way into the customers’ hands and supporting them (customer su…
> There’s nothing wrong with this. These are standard ratios, not some dirty secret. There's a lot wrong with this, but not in a moral sense. For all his faults, Elon Musk made a good point about the space industry near the beginning of SpaceX. He asked a team of "rocket scientists" how much a rocket cost. They said something like $100M. Then he asked them to sum up the material costs. Sheetmetal, tubing, rivets, etc…
Additionally advertising a certain price and actually selling at a different price is a surefire way to get delisted from google for example. This is why the whole promotion codes/voucher concept is popular.
> The cost of building a consumer audio product is generally no more than 30% of retail. 30% COGS (cost of goods sold) is virtually a maximum for items sold at mainstream retailers. There’s nothing wrong with this. These are standard ratios, not some dirty secret. The cost of goods sold is only a fraction of the costs that go into getting products all the way into the customers’ hands and supporting them (customer su…
yeah, it's quite typical that wholesale = 2x COGS and retail = 2x wholesale. for high end stuff it's likely far higher. that $75 Intel AX210 WiFi 6e upgrade is likely a $5 part at wholesale in 10k quantities. upgraded op-amps for $100? probably $4 each on digikey or aliexpress (and thats already marked up from maybe $2 COGS)
I guess I'm the worst type of customer for audio retailers. I recently switched from buying $50-$100 gaming headphones to $5 wired earbuds with a built in microphone. They are still working perfectly after months, and I got a spare for another $5. The reason I decided to try that is because the wires in my headphones always get partially broken after a few months and so I end up with only one channel. And the cheap B…
The wires are usually the first thing to go out for me too. Have you considered buying a pair of headphones with detachable cable?
Not that I also haven't had bad experience with general quality of headphones. That is other parts just breaking with only slightly careless use. Thankfully the wireless Pioneers I bought seem to have lasted with Boses I alternate with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Were there any guides or tutorials you followed? 20 years ago or so, I knew someone who built their own speaker cabinets and I couldn’t believe DIY speakers could match companies that spent hundreds millions on audio engineering. I’ve heard enough anecdotes that I would be interested in learning more.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/ is the main online forum. There's a fair bit of discussion over at parts-express.com's forums as well. There's a variety of books out there. Sound Reproduction by Dr Toole is a very comprehensive reference to the big picture, but doesn't really get into speaker and crossover design specifically. There's other books you can find for that, but I'm unaware of the most recent good ones…
Listeners prefer objectively accurate (ie, the input matches the output) audio reproduction, with some added emphasis on the bass frequencies. Because most of the sound we hear indoors is actually reflected, it is crucial that frequency response of the speakers remains constant as we move off axis.
This might seem blindingly obvious, especially the first part, but it's groundbreaking work as far as demystifying audio is concerned.
For so many decades, the snake oil salesmen dominated the hifi industry with bogus claims. They wanted us to think that building speakers was like crafting the perfect wine. But it's not. It's engineering. =)