I’ve been using a pair of KEF LS50 Metas as my front speakers and my DIY KEF LS50 clone as the center channel speaker in my home theater for a while now. I’ve been generally happy with the smooth sound they produce, but there’s one thing lacking: dynamics. Lately, I’ve been thinking about building high-sensitivity speakers using pro-audio drivers. Horn-loaded compression drivers, which are used to reproduce high frequencies, can get really loud with little distortion…
I was looking to buy speaker stands for my KEF LS50 Metas and the DIY KEF LS50 Clone I use as my center channel speaker. KEF’s matching extruded aluminum S2 stands were a natural choice. Unfortunately, they were quite expensive, and I’m not really a fan of single column stands anyway, so I decided to build a few dual column stands myself…
Since you can buy two to three pairs of KEF Q150 for the price of one pair of LS50 Meta depending on whether there’s a sale or not, I decided to build an LS50 clone using a Q150 driver to see if they would sound similar after equalization. The clone wouldn’t have the beautiful curved front baffle and better crossover of LS50 Meta, but it would otherwise be very similar in construction….
A few months ago, I bought an entry-level CNC router from a local supplier, knowing full well that I would probably need to modify it extensively. The price of the machine was right, and in case I decide to build a better one on my own, this machine would be a good starting point to learn how all the parts are connected together…
For the casual, not so casual, and advanced users who would like to integrate subwoofers to their music or home theater systems…