Need help building custom speaker system?

Question

Alright here is the deal. as a senior at my high school we have to do a senior research project (write a 15 page paper, 12 minute presentation and some sort of product aka the project). Decided to do mine on how speakers work (like the driver etc.) For my project I thought it would be fun to build my own speaker system, except when I looked online most of the speaker kits I saw were like 500$+, which is way to much for me. Does anyone have any recommendations for sites with easy to make kits like 150$ or less? or even just a site that gives instructions with specific parts list and where to buy them. I would just go and buy individual drivers, crossover and amp myself but I'm afraid that they wont work together or something. h**l even if you have plans and a list of the parts you used to make your own speakers that would be useful. Also on a side note I'd prefer if it was a 3 channel system (sub, midrange and tweeter) but a 2 channel system would work also.

Answer 1

Sounds like a great project. You might want to consider using car audio speakers because of the cost. They may not sound as as good but they should be ok sounding and I presume the idea is to learn about speaker building and not necessarily build the best. Otherwise, the links below may be of some help.

These guys have a "bargain basement" that might be helpful

http://www.speakerparts.com/bargains.asp

This kit is under $200 but doesn't include the cabinets

http://www.partsexpress.com/projectshowc...

Also:

http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?...

Those don't include a sub. That site does have all the parts you'd need though and you should be able to get everything inside your price range.

Answer 2

Great project.  Parts express (http://www.partsexpress.com/) is definitely one of the better places to buy your parts.  

Keep the kit simple.  Use 1 woofer, 1 tweeter, X-over, Clips (spring type) and then stuffing for the box.  Another option you might want to consider is making a subwoofer instead of a 2 channel system.

If you want to be creative (although you will lose sound quality), I would make the cabinet out of plexiglass so thIat everyone can see how the speaker was made and how the drivers move when  music is playing.  

Plexiglass will obviously have different properties than mdf, but I think this would look good as part of your presentation.