MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: Why are speakers so bloody expensive?

> I want to know if, for less than USD 200, I can find some decent ones. the ones I
> have now make my favorite singer sound like she's wearing a corset tied way too
> tight.

I was very fortunate a few years ago when the colleague of mine whom I let in as a roommate turned out to be a speaker/sound fanatic. He told me everything that a lay-person could hope to know about speaker construction and the best speakers possible. Due to his influence, I wound up spending about $1,500 total on a set of tweeters, woofers, a subwoofer, crossovers, receiver, and cables. Went to www.partsexpress.com and picked up some kits and some individual parts to build myself a 5.1 system. My living room is fairly small (about 10'x8') so that helped me out. Got an Onkyo receiver for an incredibly good price thanks to Amazon's special sales they had at the time, and put together the kits, center speaker, and subwoofer myself. (The kits included the tweeters, woofers, crossovers, cabinets, grills, etc. You just had to solder everything together and put it into the kit. They came in pairs of twos so for the center, I had to run over to Home Depot and get the MDF and other items needed, and just replicate the build of the kits I have. For the subwoofer, my roommate was in the process of building one before he was forced to relocate so I was able to just give him a month's off of rent for what he had completed at the time).

When everything was assembled and hooked up, I used some calibration tools on my computer and I am AMAZED at the sound quality in my speakers. They sound better than the $10,000 systems I've listened to at tech expos in the area. Having a small living room helps as it makes it easier to hear subtleties without needing massively powerful speakers, and the directional audio I hear in Blu-Ray movies and while playing games is nuts.

If you're willing to put in the time to do the research and able to handle various setbacks during construction due to inexperience, I would highly suggest building your own speaker system. The results are so incredibly worth it. (With everything optimized, listening to "The Dark Knight" on Blu-Ray is, to put it mildly, ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE!

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