DIY.. HF-FI Speakers.

Hi-Fi Audio


I have always had an enduring passion for music and good quality Hi-Fi audio equipment. In the 70's when I was somewhat younger, we have a plethora of excellent quality hi-fi gear to choose from. In those days a lot of it was affordable and very high quality. Then through the '80s we saw a real drop off of high quality and a influx of mass produced rubbish.
Then followed the CD and the digital age, both of which do absolutely nothing for good quality sound recordings. Listen to a L.P on a good turntable then play the digital equivalent and you start to realise, as well as hear, just how much is lost in the mix.


The 21st Century
Enter the era of high quality speaker componentry and if you have some wood working skills high quality sound is again available at an affordable price.

Retired B&W DM 308's
Very refined and warm sound
from these speakers.
Originally cost $2500
Replacement cost now around
$4000.00NZD

For the last decade I've had a set of B&W floor-standing speakers. They were in their day top line. My sons shop stocks the latest comparable B&W speakers. The 684's sound remarkably similar to my old retired B&W's. The Dm308's were bought April 2000 and retired October 2011 to a new owner who wanted a second set of speakers for an audio visual room. Why did I retire them. Simple really. Home theatre was still relatively new in the early 2000's and the B&W's were primarily audiophile speakers. With the growing demands on sound gear for home theatre use and the advent of true DTS home cinema, these units were being pushed too hard in an environment they weren't well suited to.


However because of the recent and ongoing recession being experienced funds for replacement speakers were all but nil, and this is where the componentry comes in. There are a number of suppliers here in NZ and they have speaker drivers from in-expensive to seriously audiophile expensive! Basically it's just a matter of what you want and what you want to spend.


As I have a pretty well equipped woodworking workshop at home it seemed obvious that a speaker build was in order. I already had a couple of designs in mind, one for replacement towers for the B&W's and one for a new set of two-way hi-fi audio speakers. I find with a lot of the manufactured systems these days from the likes of Kef & B&W just to name a couple of speaker makers have a sameness about them even in the upper end of their ranges.

'Aria 1" New Home theatre speaker
with final shellac coating ready for
 components to be fitted.

The criteria for home theatre is room fill and our H.T room is 5 x 9 metres or 15 x 27 feet, so it works out as a mid size room. This takes a bit to fill when watching movies so I was going to need something big.
What follows is a diary of how the build(s) went and where they are today.
Oh yes almost forgot.... all images courtesy of the Fuji HS20.