DIY Speaker Project – using just 2 tools
DIY Floor standing speakers for beginners
Are you a beginner and thirsting for a DIY speaker project? You landed to the right place! The idea of this project is to make use of minimal power tools (just a drill and a jigsaw needed) and also to keep the cost down. Ideal setup for someone who wants to begin exercising their DIY skills. If you want detailed instructions on how to build these speakers, just go and watch this video on YouTube. Here you will find the technical stuff: parts list, dimensions, etc.
Dimensions
To make this box I used 18 mm thick MDF. Now, I got many complaints that in US you can’t find 18 mm MDF, but rather 19 mm, which is 3/4″ MDF. To please everyone, here’s the dimensions for both types of boxes:
18 mm thick MDF
- Front and back: 960 x 230 mm
- Top and bottom: 290 x 230 mm
- Sides: 290 x 924 mm
- Braces: 194 x 290 mm
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3/4″ thick MDF
- Front and back: 37.8 x 9.06″
- Top and bottom: 11.54 x 9.06″
- Sides: 11.54 x 36.3″
- Braces: 7.56 x 11.54′
For the braces just make a cutout in the panel so you can make a frame-like looking piece.
Just above we have a mockup of the speaker box, and the dimensions where everything has to go. One side note. If you are using 3/4″ MDF, and therefore 19 mm thick, the braces are offset by 1 mm, but doesn’t change anything.
Parts list
Following table contains affiliate paid links:
| Item | US | Europe |
| Peerless by Tymphany SDS-P830657 (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Peerless by Tymphany DX20BF00-04 (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Dayton Audio BPA-38G HD Binding posts (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Dayton Audio DMPC-8.2 – Capacitor 8.2 uF (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Dayton Audio DMPC-4.7 – Capacitor 4.7 uF (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Dayton Audio LW18-50 – Inductor 0.5 mH 18 AWG (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Dayton Audio IC182 Inductor 2mH 18 AWG (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Dayton Audio 8.0 Ω / 10 W – Resistor (x4) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Muhwolle damping / Polyfill (1 kg/ 2.5 lbs per box) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
| Precision Port 3″ (x2) | Parts Express | Sound Imports |
The damping material is not something optional. Sometimes it’s nice to have, but here it’s mandatory. Tall speakers have problems with standing waves, and in this case it’s no exception. You need damping material to minimize the standing wave inside the box.
Crossover
Here is a diagram with the crossover design:
There is not much to say about the crossover design. One thing though: if you find 20W resistors, you can use a single 4 Ohm 20W resistor instead of the twin 8 Ohm 10W resistors in parallel.
Conclusion
The speakers turned out nicely, with good frequency response for the price you are paying. Even though we are using cheap drivers, we compensate by designing a large box and try to achieve good bass response as well.
Play’s down to 45 Hz, which is pretty respectable for the speaker size and price range. The speaker plays linearly and goes pretty low, but don’t expect ear bleeding volumes. Because I know some of you like to crank their speakers up. All-in-all, this DIY speaker project is a nice package for the money.
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21 comments
Fantastic !
Salutare,
Ce folosesti pentru proiectarea/desenarea panourilor?
Salut! Sketchup folosesc. E free si se foloseste direct din browser.
I’ve only simulated these using VituixCAD but 52 litres with that port is exactly the right size for the SBS-P830657 and so they should sound really good. Flat to 40Hz within 0.5dB.
I’m tempted.
What is the lenght of the port plz. 132mm ?
The 3″ precision port, just the flares with the connection ring, is 150 mm long.
Thank you for the info i appreciate.
Salut,
De unde iei placile gata taiate?
Multumesc,
Razvan.
Le iau de la Holver. Ei lucreaza in principiu doar cu firme dar fac si la persoane fizice. Daca vrei MDF gata taiat te obliga sa iei o placa intreaga chiar daca tie iti trebuie doar cateva bucati. O placa intreaga are aprox 6 m2.
hi Marius,
I’m from South Africa, with limited resources & high import cost.
Can I replace the sds-p830657 with sds-160f25fro1-08, that’s available to me? &
any changes to x/over design?
thanks,
Hello! I checked the specs online and they are identical. I don’t know if it’s an error or not. But if they are the same, I don’t see why not use it. Maybe they continued to use an old driver and just changed the name.
Thanks., appreciated.
Hi Marius,
Thank you for this wonderful design.I want to make an enclosure in MTM configuration with same units.could you please help me with the enclosure volume required.
It’s not about the box volume as it is the crossover design. The crossover needs to be completely different, and it cannot be designed without having the MTM speaker to measure it.
So i can use the same dimensions in your plan for two woofers and one tweeter configuration with crossover modification?
Unfortunately not. You still have to modify the box volume and the port dimensions.
Hey! Will be making these in the following months!
Two questions though:
1. For this specific setup (without changing the design of the box/crossover), is there any alternative for the midbass loudspeaker? I am EU based, soundimports is out of stock for a while, and I could not find them in stock in any other places except for US.
2. What universal hole jig do you use for your router? I want it bad 😀
FYI, I am following through with some of your courses, big thanks for making these kind of things digestible!
Hello! You can’t really change the speaker without changing the crossover as well. You need wait for speaker to be on stock, or find some other supplier.
The circle jig is called Jasper circle jig.
One more thing – on your circuit diagram for the crossover, the tweeter seems to be connected in reverse polarity (180 deg out of phase) compared to the woofer. Is this meant to be connected the way I understood or does the diagram look misleading to me?
Hello Marius,
First of all, thank you for these projects and courses. I have learnt from the courses.
It is great that you are providing all these projects and their details, including crossover. For these projects, could you please also provide the FRD/ZMA files / Z- Offset or the X-sim files. It will be great to tweak with them, try alternate drivers and improve my intuition around crossover and speaker build in general.
Also, could you do a build with full range speakers?- a floor standing speaker with FR speaker and woofers for bass extension.
Thanks again.
Hi Marius, this looks like a great design, I’d like to build it but I can’t get a hold of the port you mentioned. Could you please mention the port length? Or share a WinISD model so I can fine-tune the port’s diameter myself? Thanks.