What kind of bugs me is that there really aren't any kits and very few DIY designs that match the kind of speakers I really miss, at least not ones focused on home audio.
Those speakers being the old-school big boxes with 12-15" woofers, sometimes multiple and usually 3-way designs, sometimes 4-way. Large, heavy, imposing and punchy, big speakers for big music. I know modern speaker drivers have come a long way, but you just can't get that from 6" or 8" drivers in the same way.
DIY PA speaker designs do provide some of this, but I'll have to tweak the aesthetics more in a "living room-friendly" direction, because nobody seems to want big beefy speakers anymore.
There's a series of PA cab designs called fEarFul, that incorporate the newer 12" and 15" woofers from Eminence. You might have to dig around to locate the actual design data, but I do know that the designs were carefully tweaked and are stoopid loud.
In my own case, I worked out what SPL I actually need for my listening tastes, and chose a suitable woofer by keeping an eye on the close-outs at Parts Express. The drawback is that my designs are irreproducible because the parts are sold out. But they're also not worth publishing. The benefit is that the prices are often pretty compelling.
Lower specs also reduce the requirements for the tweeter and any other components such as crossover.
The JBELL SS15 tapped horn is another great design. Using the 55€ 15LB075-UW4 chassis, this is probably the best bang-for-buck subwoofer you can build right now. Not as easy to build as a BR though. Report with detailed measurements:
Interesting, I had the impression the DIY scene is not considering the WAF as much as the mainstream market. But I agree on kits, if you don't have a workshop its hard to built most designs. Don Highend has designed a few larger ones too, eg http://www.donhighend.de/?page_id=5291
If my dad was still alive, that would have been a perfect project for us to jump into and spend countless weekends working on. For now I'll have to wait until I have my own workshop to build a set of beasts like that.
Those speakers being the old-school big boxes with 12-15" woofers, sometimes multiple and usually 3-way designs, sometimes 4-way. Large, heavy, imposing and punchy, big speakers for big music. I know modern speaker drivers have come a long way, but you just can't get that from 6" or 8" drivers in the same way.
DIY PA speaker designs do provide some of this, but I'll have to tweak the aesthetics more in a "living room-friendly" direction, because nobody seems to want big beefy speakers anymore.