Any good DIY speaker suppliers in Canada?

[upcoast604]

Basics, match up dbls for tweeter, mid, woofer and crossover ( shoot for 96 or above). Watts fills the room with dbl (noise), bigger the room u need more watts. Woofer comes in paper, poly and carbon fiber carbon the better( pay attention to magnet weight more is better). Woofers also are bass reflex(hole in cabnet) or acoustic(no hole) each manufacture has it's own dimensions of cabnet of what it has to be. Mids come in a sealed housing or not ( use the sealed). Tweeters, don't get those plastic horn crap ones. long and short building will cost more than $200 for anything half good, your best bet is to go down to the local pawn shop and buy a set for $50.

To the one that has a dead tweeter if u can't get the exact match u need to replace both.

[Babrbarossa]

Thanks for the input guys-

"your best bet is to go down to the local pawn shop and buy a set for $50. To the one that has a dead tweeter if u can't get the exact match u need to replace both."

It's a single dead tweeter in a center speaker- and I don't want a cheapo replacement - it's a paradigm monitor series (not high end, but a good mid-range)

[biff]

Can you take the tweet out and take a few pics of it? Maybe I'll be able to recognize it? or maybe it will have some info on it. I'm not an expert but from what little I've seen cheaper speakers use proprietary stuff that's made who knows where by who knows who. When you start getting up in the price scale manufacturers will sometimes use 'proper' manufacturers drivers that us DIYers can get. For instance I was in long&mcquaid getting some adapters and wandered through their speakers, in their larger book shelf speakers (a tweet + 7") I recognized many of the drivers on first sight. One pair I saw has some nice drivers probably about $500 in raw drivers... they were on sale for ~$3k.

[biff]

Vulcan,
Here's a short list of a few designs and what the parts would cost you at Solen. These prices are just the drivers, XO parts and some binding posts, it doesn't include the box. BUT... MDF is pretty cheap, so is ABS pipe for ports and stuffing/damping material can be a lot of things.... insulation, pillow stuffing, cotton balls, even seen shreaded news paper used before. I also limited the list to 8 Ohm designs.

Dreydels ~$300
TriTrix ~$220
Dayton II ~$210
Overnight Sensations ~$125
Classix ~$225 (two different XO flavours available)

Note the Overnight sensations only have a 4" driver in them but I hear they sound very nice. The Dreydels are what I built (that I linked to earlier). I included them because they use some very popular drivers that are used in many designs... this gives you an 'upgrade' path for the future - plus they are probably the best of the speakers listed. Again I have these speakers but only having a 5.5" driver they get a little thin in the upper bass when cranking some AC/DC before my sub picks up the bottom end. They do most types of music VERY well but hard rock isn't their best. So I found a 3-way design that uses these drivers plus a pair of 8"s (or maybe they're classed as 9's?) to get some more bottom end. Saves me at least having to re-buy a mid and tweet again so I'm only leaving behind the box. These are them:



That's a very short list of what's available. Here's a page that has links to a lot of speaker builders pages if you wanted to do some poking around. Oh and here's a link on how to make the crossovers form a published schematic.... from the designer of the TriTrix you were looking at no less.

[vulcan500rider]

Wow..That sounds like one big ball of complicated... Maybe I should just stick with the recession destroyer and a version of the Tritrix enclosure--perhaps the ported one.

Yes, my primary concern is sound quality. I can make my current speakers loud enough to make my ears hurt--it just doesn't sound particularly nice. It would also be handy if the speakers performed better specifically in producing dialogue in movies; sometimes the music just overtakes the dialogue. Now, I realize that some of that is due to receiver settings as well, but I get the feeling that some of it is how accurately (and non-muddily) my speakers can reproduce the sound.

EDIT: Just saw your post with the lists of parts and costs from Solen. Thanks! I'll take a peruse through all of that and post again!

EDIT 2: Wow...I looked at your first speaker build, and it's phenomenal! I wish my woodworking was that sophisticated; I'm just hoping to make something that isn't embarassing to display...

[biff]

Thanks... there's a lot of tricks you can do to make the build come out pretty clean. Just make sure your joints are sound and airtight. What power tools do you have?... a router makes life pretty easy.... that's why I have 5 .

You mention dialogue... I'm assuming these are mainly for HT? If that's the case the TriTrix was also designed to be a center channel too which not all MTM designs can do (well). So if you can swing it build three. The center can be built as the sealed version if you want to keep the box size down since center channels are almost always crossed over at ~100Hz. Curt also made a TM version of these that you can later build for surrounds, it's always nice to have matching stuff.

And just to straighten this out the Recession Destroyer IS the TriTrix. Since this is a very popular design for beginners and 'frugal' builders Parts Express (with Curt's permission) bundled all the parts needed to build the TriTrix together along with the other extras like stuffing and posts, etc. and is selling it as a kit under the name of Recession Destroyer but it IS the TriTrix. Not being anal about it, just letting you know what's what.

If you have a sub then there may not be much point in making the mains ported either though it does lend itself well since it needs a bigger box to being a floor stander which looks better IMO then speakers up on stands. And a rolled up sock stuffed into the port will make a ported enclosure into a sealed one real easy.

[inbalance99]

zaphaudio.com has some budget builds.

I built 5 of his L18's, all parts from Solen, not a budget build. Everything all in about 1,400 for 5. this includes good wood veneer and funds for a few tools for probably reasonably high end sound.

The place I bought the mdf and veneer did the initial cuts, he recommended someone with a 3 axis router, they did the cutouts and round overs. I simply glued and screwed it, including the Zaph designed, tried and tested cross over. The most time was spent on the veneer and finishing it.

Look good, sound great, and expect to get 20 years from them. I'm not a wood worker, electrician etc, just an accountant, but I can follow plans.

Good luck.

[vulcan500rider]

OK. After much reading, I think I'm going to go with the TriTrix (I see what you mean; I was thinking of the cabinet as TriTrix, and the speakers as the RD).

However, I was wondering about something. If, in the future, I decide that I would like to add a larger woofers (or two), as you did, would it be as simple as adding another hole in the tower, and getting a separate crossover to control the new woofers, or would I have to completely redo the crossover to take the new speakers into account?

Also, is there any problem running a combination of 4 ohm and 8 ohm speakers off of my receiver, which is able to deliver around 90W at 6ohms? I understand the general idea of impedance, but I'm not sure how it all plays out.

Thanks again for all the help...still so much reading to do!

[Babrbarossa]

Thanks Biff- Here it is without the plastic face plate- It's a Paradigm part B3TWHF-TIM-090. I found one palce that said they could get it for about $100 which seems steep so I'd like to try an aftermarket that might even be better.

All Paradigm parts are made in Canada- great stuff and one of the last (and best) remaining legacies of the great drive in Canadian acoustic research of the 60's and 70's. they are great value and I get that warm fuzzy feeling of buying Canadian made home electronics that don't cost a small fortune- it's like finding a Dodo bird if dodo birds were cheap and sounded good.

Oh yeah- the dome is 26mm and the magnet is 68mm

[vulcan500rider]

Edited and removed due to personal neurosis <laugh> I solved this particular problem through more reading...