Build 5 watt speakers

What you need:

• a pair of speaker chassis
• wood
• glue
• Speaker cable

Conventional boxes are a compromise. You should music reproduce equally well from Rammstein to the string quartet. Damped enclosures and heavy chassis require a lot of amplifier power. Crossovers bring phase errors. Anyone who has ever heard an old music chest knows how good that sounds. Why it is like that? Because it doesn't have all of the components mentioned. Highly sensitive loudspeakers are not for deep bass fans and a normal amplifier does not even get going with such a low output power, triodes and tripats all the more. Such an amplifier brings significantly more than a room volume of just 0.5 watts and sounds excellent - provided that the loudspeakers are extremely sensitive.

Highly sensitive speakers

• You can find low-power loudspeaker chassis used, cannibalized from old tube radios and music boxes. Because of the low amplifier power at the time (rarely more than 5 watts), they were lightweight and therefore extremely sensitive. They're good, hard to come by, and now expensive.
• A good loudspeaker for beginners is the Beyma 8AG / N, which Götz Wilimzig also recommends as an alternative in his book "Highly sensitive". With a pair price of less than 100 EUR, it is a good choice.
• Since it is not worth building "howler cubes" yourself, this is about something that is not available in stores - speakers that really sound "live" without phase errors.

Loudspeaker with 5 watts as baffle or Resobox?

• Provided there is enough space, you should choose baffles with the minimum dimensions of 100 x 80 cm each. Use the jigsaw to cut the cutouts for the speakers. The center point is 50 cm from the left, lower and right edge. Ideally, the speakers are mounted from behind. However, a circular cutout is not so easy to get neatly by hand. Therefore, mounting from the front is a good compromise in which the cutout is covered. Two side parts each support the baffle at an angle of approx. 75 degrees.


Infinity SM 150 Product Information

Connoisseurs will appreciate them - the SM 150 loudspeakers from Infinity. Though …

• With programs like Boxsim, baffles can be calculated exactly. This construction proposal is a good and simple compromise for beginners.
• Additional tweeters can be connected with a capacitor to protect against low frequencies. This "1 1/2-way crossover" does not cause any audible phase problems.
• If there is less space, a box with approx. 50 l in the golden ratio made from 9 mm birch plywood. You therefore need 2 pieces per box with the dimensions 37 x 23cm (top and bottom), 2 pieces each 60.8 x 23cm (side parts), 1 piece á 37 x 59cm (back) and 1 piece á 60.8 x 38.8cm (front, put on).
• The center of the speaker cutout is equidistant from the left, top and right sides. Underneath, at a distance of about 10 cm from the chassis, the ventilation opening comes with approx. 10 cm in diameter.
• The concept of low-power triode or tripath amplifiers with highly sensitive historical speakers or their modern successors is a listening experience. Give yourself a few weeks to listen and decide for yourself whether your system for 200 EUR or your bolides have the better sound.