Go to…. Adire Audax BESL Bottlehead Dillon DIY HiFi Supply E-Speakers GR Research Hammer Dynamics Hornet Human IPL John K Linkwitz Lab Madisound MurphyBlaster Productions Newform North Creek Parts Express SCH Seas Selah Shamrock Audio Speaker City Swans Visaton Wilmslow Zalytron

Vendor guidelines - Audax

Designed by: Vance Dickason, Joe D'Appolito, and others To complement its drivers, Audax, like several other driver vendors, also sells kit plans. What adds value to Audax's offering is their reliance on established designers with excellent reputations. The older A65x kits were designed by Vance Dickason and are generally well-regarded, though generally not considered to be state of the art any more. The newer home theater "Designer" series designed by Joe D'Appolito is another matter entirely. Since it first arrived not too long ago, this design has been built by a number of people, all of whom have praised it's suitability to the task. (Note that the same praise does not extend to the Audax Designer subwoofer, which has not been recommended.) Audax supplies plans only to its designs, however complete kits are offered by some Audax suppliers.

Vendor guidelines - Bottlehead

Designed by: N.A. Bottlehead.com primarily sells tube/valve amplifier kits. They do, however, sell one speaker kit, the "Straight 8". For the kit, Bottlehead supplies eight 5" woofers with treated aluminum cones, plus a single 1" titanium dome tweeter, all from anonymous manufacturers. Most people in its target audience of high efficiency, hi-fi loudspeaker afficiandos recommend it highly. However, the few people who've heard both it and some of the Orca/Zalytron arrays have generally preferred the Zalytron's. Note, however, that the Straight 8 is less expensive than any of the Zalytron arrays.

Vendor guidelines - BESL

Designed by: Philip E. Bamberg Phil Bamberg (known to many simply as "PEB") is one of the acknowledged masters of crossover design. It's therefore hardly surprising that his systems have received almost universal praise. The only other recommended kit vendors with similar reputations are Linkwitz Lab and North Creek. PEB is known to like class A amplifiers and is not a big fan of excessive bass, so his designs reflect these sensibilities. For folks wanting a bit more bass with their BESL systems, Phil offers some excellent subwoofers. Unlike many vendors, BESL's subwoofers are notable for their extreme accuracy, musicality, and linearity rather than ultimate bass extension and SPL. None of this is to say that BESL systems are bass-shy, only that head bangers and home theater lovers might not find BESL's systems at the top of their lists. BESL current premium subwoofer uses a Peerless XLS series driver which should satisfy almost anyone's most rabid bass ambitions. One interesting point about doing business with BESL is that all purchasers are required to execute a non-disclosure agreement with BESL prior to being able to buy any products. This agreement essentially means that the buyer is legally committed to keeping the specifics of BESL designs as proprietary trade secrets. In fact, only BESL's two least expensive kits come with crossover kits. On all of BESL's more expensive models, PEB supplies only prebuilt crossovers, individually matched to the measured specifications of the supplied drivers. Also unusual is BESL's policy of offering a "Zcomp" network for all of its systems. The "Zcomp" circuit is designed specifically for each BESL model and compensates for the system's input impedance, effectively turning it into an almost constant purely resistive load. This degree of linearization is most advantageous with class A and tube/valve amplifiers and so doesn't come standard, but is offered for all. BESL designs are available in the following levels of completion: Plans only. Plans and parts Plans, parts and premade baffles. Plans, parts and complete knocked-down cabinet flats. Plans, parts, and complete prebuilt unfinished cabinets. Plans, parts, and complete prebuilt finished cabinets. Note that in each of the above options, the previous note about crossovers applies. For example, the plans for BESL's better systems simply call for the appropriate pre-buillt BESL crossover.

Vendor guidelines - Dillon Acoustics

Designed by: Geoffrey Dillon Geoffrey Dillon has quickly become another acknowledged crossover master in the DIY community. What few realize is that he's been paid for designing speakers professionally for a number of years and has won several prestigious awards for his efforts. His "Metaphor" system became an instant hit almost immeidately upon introduction. He is currently known to be working on a new high-efficiency system as well as a kit for Zalytron. Like BESL and North Creek, Dillon's Metaphor has earned a reputation for extremely high sound quality. Areas of difference between Dillon's and other high-end designs include: Dillon's Metaphor is significantly less efficient than other high-end kit designs. This also means correspondingly less ultimate SPL. Dillon designs for a bit more bass than BESL. One apparent characteristic of Dillon is his choice of drivers of uncompromising quality. BESL and North Creek both include systems with less expensive drivers in their line up's. Since Dillon sells plans only, it doesn't directly compete with more full service vendors of system kits such as BESL and North Creek. Dillon sells plans only.

Vendor guidelines - DIY HiFi Supply

Designed by: N.A. DIY HiFi Supply is a Hong Kong based dealer, primarily selling tube/valve electronics. They're also a Lowther dealer and have a single Lowther kit - an established Lowther design called the Acousta 115. As with Hornet's Hedlund Horn enclosures, the Acousta 115 is an attractive, well-crafted example of a cabinet which might otherwise be beyond the capabilities of many DIY speaker builders. DIY HiFi Supply sells its Acousta 115 enclosure directly from Hong Kong via its web site. It is sold either bundled with a Lowther PM6A drivers or without. The price shown in the LDSG is the price with the driver.

Vendor guidelines - E-Speakers

Designed by: Andre Perreault Andre Perreault was formerly with Orca Design, with whom he retains a close working relationship, as well as with Zalytron. Primarily a driver vendor, E-Speakers offers a number of ultra high-end designs, all as projects rather than kits in the usual sense. E-Speakers enjoys being the exclusive North American source for a number of unique high end drivers, such as Manger, Philips ribbons, and Focal's W-series and other Audiom drivers. He offers a number of designs based around these expensive and esoteric drivers as well as others such as Raven, Cabasse and PHL. E-Speakers' designs are typically outrageous and often outrageously priced, but clearly represent the cutting edge of many areas of loudpeaker technology.

Vendor guidelines - GR Research

Designed by: Danny Richie GR Research is a small company which sells kits, speaker building components, and proprietary drivers supplied from Peerless (India) and TangBand in Taiwan. GR has a small line of well-respected kits using its proprietary mid/bass drivers (in 5.25" and 6.5" sizes) along with either its own or Focal 1" dome tweeters. GR kits have garnered some impressive recommendations from a variety of users. All GR kits are reported to be excellent values, excellent with music and generally well suited for home theater use when coupled with one or more subwoofers. The models using dual mid/bass drivers are also notably "tube friendly" due to their high sensitivity. GR Research kits are sold with complete parts and plans. Completed enclosures are also available for some models.

Vendor guidelines - Hammer Dynamics

Designed by: John Wyckoff The late John Wyckoff began selling his S12 kit as the culmination of a long obsession with high efficiency loudspeaker systems. He reportedly tried and gave up on horns and single driver (e.g. Lowther) systems before he designed the S12. The resulting system uses a proprietary 12" wide-range woofer with an extremely lightweight paper dual cone, plus a small semi-coaxially mounted Audax tweeter to augment the high end. Following Wyckoff's death, the S12 system has continued to be offered by his widow per his request. With a rated sensitivity of 97 dB/W/m, it quickly became a favorite of tube/valve amplifier afficianados, garnering rave reviews from all who've heard it. Pleasantly, it also happens to be quite affordable for a high end system. The only caveat is that most users say it requires a long break-in period to achieve its full potential. Also, the 12" driver doesn't have a particularly large Xmax, so SPL in the lowest octaves isn't what you'd expect from a typical HT system using a similar sized woofer.

Vendor guidelines - Hornet

Designed by: Jan Hedlund Hornet is a Croatian dealer which supplies premade cabinets for the beautiful Hedlund horns, designed to use Lowther DX/EX2, DX/EX3 or AER drivers (DX4's or Reps drivers require too much mounting depth). Most people who've heard them claim that the Hedlund horn is the best sounding DIY enclosure ever built for Lowther's and similar full-range drivers. Hornet supplies cabinets only. The cited price is for a pair of enclosures with DX3 drivers shipped to the U.S. west coast. Other destinations in Europe will run about $600 less, while the "as delivered" price in Australia will be about $100 more, and even the U.S. east coast will have to pay about $100 less. As might be expected, shipping is a major part of the cost of such large boxes.

Vendor guidelines - Human Speakers

Designed by: Huw Powell and Winslow Burhoe Human Speakers is a small company carrying on the tradition of some of the industry's pioneers - EPI/Epicure and Genesis Physics. All of these companies shared a common modular approach using drivers originally designed by Winslow Burhoe at EPI. After the original companies went out of business, Human was started hy Huw (pronounced like "Hugh") Powell, a former employee, as a source of replacement drivers and parts. Over the years, Huw has built this cottage industry into a complete loudspeaker business with its own designs in both finished and kit form. Human also provides design information for cloning any of the EPI and Genesis systems using Human's updated drivers (also recommended). One notable effect of using the Burhoe modular design is that all of the drivers have been specifically designed to work with one another, allowing simple 1st-order crossovers to match well with the drivers' natural roll offs. All of Human's kit offerings consist of plans, or plans and parts, only.

Vendor guidelines - IPL

Designed by: N.A. IPL is a British company which sells several lines of drivers, including some of its own, plus kits of its own design. Most noteworthy of these are a line of transmission line kits. I've had little feedback about IPL kits, but what I have received has been generally favorable. They sell their kits three ways: IPL's Basic kits include all drivers, crossover kits, plans and instructions. IPL's Plus kits include all of the above and add grille material and studs, binding posts, T-nuts and bolts, Profiled acoustic foam, long haired wool, and spikes. IPL's Total kits add knocked-down MDF Flatpack cabinet kits. The Total kits are not available for export because of their weight.

Vendor guidelines - John K

Designed by: John Kreskovsky "John K" is the popular name for John Kreskovsky. At his web site, he offers a number of system designs for free. John K has become a cult figure on the Madisound discussion forum and elsewhere, with many people reporting favorably on his designs.

Vendor guidelines - Linkwitz Lab

Designed by: Siegfried Linkwitz Linkwitz is one of the most reknowned masters of loudspeaker design, co-inventor of the Linkwitz-Riley filter used in most modern speaker designs. Starting out at Hewlett-Packard working on RF and microwave instruments, he wen on to become VP of Engineering at Audio Aristry where he established his reputation as a designer of dipole systems. His design of the dipole Audio Artistry Beethoven earned the award as 1998 Stereophile Loudspeakers of the Year. Now retired from Audio Artistry, Linkwitz consults and continues to design systems. Not surprisingly, he continues to design dipoles. Also not suprisingly, his designs are considered as among the finest available.

Vendor guidelines - Madisound

Designed by: N.A. Madisound is probably the largest supplier of drivers and DIY supplies in North America. In addition to drivers, it sells kits of its own design as well as recommended kits from Audax, Focal, Seas, and others. Madisound's house brand kits are apparently all anonymously designed by an in-house staff using the LEAP CAE tool (see Appendix C for more information on LEAP and other CAE tools). Despite this pedigree, some of Madisound's have been quite highly recommended. Madisound's kits are all available as plans & parts kits, and most are also available with enclosures as well. Note, however, that Madisound's pre-built enclosures are not the most highly recommended.

Vendor guidelines - MurphyBlaster Productions

Designed by: Dennis Murphy Dennis Murphy is another well-known name in the DIY community, having won many "best in show" awards at DIY gatherings for his designs. Along the way, he's also designed some systems for others, e.g. Selah Audio. All of Dennis' designs are reportedly excellent and all are free, with all schematics and cabinet dimensions on his web site.

Vendor guidelines - Newform Research

Designed by: N.A. Newform Research is a small specialty manufacturer of monopole ribbon drivers (also recommended in the LDSG - see Section 6), as well as loudpseaker systems using their own ribbon drivers. Newform considers itself primarily a systems manufacturer, so both the driver and kit DIY business are secondary to their primary business mission. Currently, Newform offer kit versions of two of its most popular systems, the R630 and R645. Each combines a Newform ribbon tweeter with a bass module using one (R630) or two (R645) Scan-Speak 18W/8545K drivers. My respondents have sent in mixed reviews for the Newform systems. Some people absolutely love them, while other find them wanting. Among the reasons cited by the latter group one is the ribbon drivers themselves, which those people feel are sonically and subjectively inferior to their the large BGC ribbons or the samller Raven ribbons. Another complaint was poor sytem integration between the ribbon and bass module. This integration issue was also noted by Joe D'Appolito in a review published in Speaker Builder magazine. Still, since they were recommended by 50% or more of those who commented on them, they are included here. Newform kits are only available driectly from their web store and consist of parts and plans only.

Vendor guidelines - North Creek Music Systems

Designed by: George E. Short III and Lynn Olsen North Creek Music Systems is the best known vendor of ultra high-end, no compromise kit systems. Hardly inexpensive, North Creek systems have an unsurpassed reputation of being just about the best one the market. Using almost exclusively Scan-Speak drivers, the recommended North Creek system kits are sold in matched pairs with the option of individually matched drivers. North Creek's crossovers use only top quality components to begin with, however even more expensive parts are available. Each North Creek kit is available as a "Value" project, using the sorts of esoteric components that would make any high-end vendor proud. They then offer one or more "Unlimited" project upgrades. Each of the Unlimited projects includes the absolute best quality crossover componenets that money can buy. Each Unlimited crossover is then hand matched to the system's drivers - which are themselves hand-matched. In some cases, more than one Unlimited option may be offered, each using a different tweeter - the top of the Unlimited lines using Scan-Speak 9900 Revelator tweeters. The only other kit vendors with similar reputations are BESL and Linkwitz Lab. In addition to its own systems designed by George Short, North Creek also sells a kit version of the popular "Ariel" design by Lynn Olsen.

Vendor guidelines - Parts Express

Designed by: N.A. Parts Express is a large distributor of electronic components and drivers. Note that unlike Madisound, Speaker City, or Zalytron, speaker DIY supplies are only a small portion of Parts Express' business. Among DIY'ers, its most signficant offerings are its Dayton drivers (some of which are also listed in the LDSG) and its highly regarded enclosures. Parts Express' enclosures are all extremely sturdy and supplied as a kit of knocked down flats. See Section 17 for further information on prebuilt and kit cabinetry. Despite making some of the best pre-cut enclosure kits, Parts Express only offers one real kit in the conventional sense - a subwoofer consisting of a 3 cu.ft. sealed enclosure, a Dayton Titanic 1200 12" driver, and a 250 Watt "plate" amplifier. See Appendix D for more information on plate amplifiers.

Vendor guidelines - SCH

Designed by: N.A. SCH is a small specialty company which buys up high quality, low cost drivers. It also features a full line of kits using these drivers. Despite such a humble pedigree, SCH systems are generally quite well regarded. This is probably because the company is run by engineers and dedicated audio hobbyists. All SCH kits are supplied as parts & plans. Surprising options include pre-cut baffles and pre-built crossovers.

Vendor guidelines - Seas

Designed by: Murray Zeligman, Jon Paulsen, Bjørn Nørja, and Joe D'Apppolito Seas has a reputation for making excellent drivers, the best of which are notoriously challenging for crossover designers. For DIY'ers who want the advantage of, for example, the Seas Excel magnesium cone woofers, but are reluctant to tackle the crossover, Seas provides tried and tested designs. The Seas designs have all been well reviewed, and well reported by LDSG respondents. All of Seas' kits reportedly sound very good to excellent. It's worth noting, however, that some of the same driver combinations are also available in somewhat better designs from BESL, Zalytron, and others. Seas provides free plans on its web site, and complete Seas kits are available from Zalytron, Madisound, and other Seas distributors.

Vendor guidelines - Selah

Designed by: Rick Craig and Dennis Murphy Over the past several years, Rick Craig has offered a number of kits from his own company, Selah Audio. All can be characterized as excellent values. After initially offering a dizzying assortment of designs, Selah today offers only a few selected kits. All of Selah's designs are free, although Rick does request contributions to Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy in lieu of payment. In addition, Selah offers complete parts and plans kits for almost all its designs. Reports on Selah's kits have ranged from very good to excellent. All of Selah's current kits are designed either by the owner, Rick Craig, or Dennis Murphy, who is well known for winning several DIY speaker showdowns.

Vendor guidelines - Shamrock Audio

Designed by: Mike McCall Shamrock Audio is a labor of love by Mike McCall. Mike is one of the few designers generally considered among the top people in the field. He has been known to take the better part of a year tweaking crossovers to get the design sounding "just right". Shamrock's "Eire" system (sadly not currently available as a kit) has repeatedly received rave reviews from both users and the audio press. Due to a one-time offer some time back, several LDSG respondents did have the opportunity to purchase Eire kits, which resulted in it becoming one of the most comprehensively reviewed high-end designs in the DIY community. All who heard it reportedly loved it. Shamrock sells plans for two designs, the SE-1 and SE-2. Both of these are similar to the Eire in that they are 2-way designs. The difference is that the SE's use Vifa drivers while the Eire's use Scan-Speak drivers. Since these do use less expensive drivers and Shamrock doesn't sell complete kits, Shamrock's most direct competition is Dillon. Shamrock does not sell parts kits, but only plans. In a departure from other vendors, however, although not selling parts, Shamrock does sell complete enclosures in various degrees of finish (raw MDF, unfinished veneer, and finished veneer).

Vendor guidelines - Speaker City

Designed by: N.A. Speaker City is another supplier of drivers and DIY supplies, similar to Madisound or Zalytron, but smaller. It also sells a limited line of kits, both of its own design and from vendors such as Focal. Speaker City's enclosures are generally highly regarded. Two of its proprietary designs have recommended, the "Scanspeak 7" and their top of the line "MTM-18". The latter is particularly noteworthy, being available in several variants, each with a different model of Scan-Speak tweeter. These two kits are comparable to North Creek's in quality (if not in crossover sophistication) at a fraction of North Creek's price. Speaker City kits are all available with finished cabinets in a variety of fine furniture finishes.

Vendor guidelines - Swans

Designed by: N.A. Swans kit speakers are the product of a multinational conglomerate that includes, among other lines, the Hi-Vi line of drivers - several of which are also listed in the LDSG. In addition to kits, Swans also make a complete line of finished speaker systems, but the kit and finished lines are separate. All recommended Swans kits are based on Hi-Vi shielded drivers, combining one or two 5" paper/Kevlar mid/bass drivers with a small planar "Isodynamic" tweeter. These have both been recommended, one of them receiving an excellent review from in Speaker Builder (now Audio xPress) magazine. The only caveat in the recommendations is that you can't expect them to play too loudly. Swans kits provide complete plans and parts, less cabinets.

Vendor guidelines - Visaton

Designed by: N.A. Visaton is a major German manufacturer of drivers, crossovers, kits, and complete systems. Of their many kits, I've only received a recommendation for one to date. Actually, there are two variants of the same design, which differ only in cosmetics. The Monitor 890 MK II uses a large MDF horn/lens for midrange, while the otherwise identical Monitor 890 MK II TL substitutes a more attractive beech wood horn. As noted elsewhere in the LDSG, Visaton has no North American distribution and information on various options and configurations of these kits are difficult to obtain. Similarly, please note that the price, listed in USD, is converted from the advertised price, which is in DM.

Vendor guidelines - Wilmslow Audio

Designed by: N.A. Wilmslow is one of the largest speaker vendors in the UK, selling drivers, complete systems, crossover, parts and hardware. Like only a few other system vendors, Wilmslow sells all of its systems either completed or as kits. Wilmslow's kits come in a variety of configurations from parts kits only to parts kits with optional enclosures. Although strictly a UK vendor, Wilmslow can accept international credit card orders at its web store.

Vendor guidelines - Zalytron

Designed by: Joe D'Appolito, Jim Bergantino, Vance Dickason, Dick Olsher, Geoffrey Dillon, and others Zalytron is undoubtedly the major player in the whole DIY/kit field. Although somewhat smaller than Madisound, Zalytron offers a truly impressive array of kits and designs, all of excellent quality. As noted above, Zalytron's kits are designed by some of the best designers in the business. Most notably, Zalytron has an extremely close working relationship with Orca Design, which in turn has an extremely close relationship with Joe D'Appolito - one of the premier deisgners working in the field, inventor of the D'Appolito design principle, and author of several standard references on speaker system design. Zalytron's kits run the gamut from bookshelf to large tower systems, from extremely affordable to extremely expensive, and includes separate lines of home theater, high efficiency, and line array systems. All are offered as parts and plans kits, with completed cabinets sold separately. Also note that Zalytron has the reputation os supplying some of the finest enclosures in the business.

©1998-2007 by Bob Stout, all rights reserved

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