Welcome to Freespeakerplans The speaker design and build community portal. Freespeakerplans.com is more than just a forum for audio discussion (there are already plenty of those!),we hope to be the leading resource for all things P.A. Speaker building and usage related. From repairing that 20 year old Turbosound cabinet, to designing your own cabinets from scratch you should be able to find. With the right brand and design, folded horn subs will have more max. The speaker specifications to see if it would be good for a folded horn.

• Folded Horn Subwoofer Box Design
• Folded Horn Speaker Plans

A transmission line loudspeaker is a loudspeaker that uses an within the cabinet, compared to the simpler enclosures used by sealed (closed) or designs. Instead of reverberating in a fairly simple enclosure, sound from the back of the is directed into a long (generally folded) damped pathway within the speaker enclosure, which allows far greater control and use of speaker energy and the resulting sound.Inside a transmission line (TL) loudspeaker, is a (usually folded) pathway into which the sound is directed. The pathway is often covered with varying types and depths of absorbent material, and it may vary in size or taper, and may be open or closed at its far end. Used correctly, such a design ensures that undesired resonances and energies, which would otherwise cause undesirable auditory effects, are instead selectively absorbed or reduced (') due to the effects of the duct, or alternatively only emerge from the open end with the sound radiated from the front of the driver, enhancing the output level ('sensitivity') at low frequencies. The transmission line acts as an, and the padding both reduces reflection and resonance, and also slows the speed of sound within the cabinet to allow for better tuning.Transmission line loudspeakers designs are more complex to implement, making mass production difficult, but their advantages have led to acclaim for a number of manufacturers such as, and the like. As a rule, transmission line speakers tend to have exceptionally high fidelity low frequency response far below that of a typical speaker or, reaching into the range (British company TDL's studio monitor range from the 1990s quoted their frequency responses as starting from as low as 17 Hz depending upon model with a sensitivity of 87 dB for 1 W @ 1 metre), without the need for a separate enclosure or driver.

Acoustically, TL speakers roll off more slowly (less steeply) at low frequencies, and they are thought to provide better driver control than standard reflex cabinet designs, are less sensitive to positioning, and tend to create a very spacious. Modern TL speakers were described in a 2000 review as 'matching reflex cabinet designs in every respect, but with an extra octave of bass, lower LF distortion and a frequency balance which is more independent of listening level'.Although more complex to design and tune, and not as easy to analyze and calculate as other designs, the transmission line design is valued by several smaller manufacturers, as it avoids many of the major disadvantages of other loudspeaker designs. In particular, the basic parameters and equations describing sealed and reflex designs are fairly well understood, the range of options involved in a transmission line design mean that the general design can be somewhat calculated but final transmission line tuning requires considerable attention and is less easy to automate. I have an intuitive abhorrence of resonance enhancement to give a loudspeaker more 'kick' or apparent bass as they can sound 'single-noted'. Yes you can pick out the bass rhythm but what about the melody.

What a transmission line gives in my experience is a much smoother and more realistic bass quality.- Steve Davey, former TNT Audio staff member/reviewerA transmission line is used in loudspeaker design to reduce time, phase, and resonance related distortions, and in many designs to gain exceptional bass extension to the lower end of human hearing, and in some cases the near- (below 20 Hz). TDL's 1980s reference speaker range (now discontinued) contained models with frequency ranges of 20 Hz upwards, down to 17 Hz upwards, without needing a separate., an advocate of TL design, stated that:'I believe that speakers should preserve the integrity of the signal waveform and the Audio Perfectionist Journal has presented a great deal of information about the importance of time domain performance in loudspeakers. I’m not the only one who appreciates time- and phase-accurate speakers but I have been virtually the only advocate to speak out in print in recent years. There’s a reason for that.' 'It is difficult and costly to design and manufacture a time- and phase-accurate speaker system.

Few of today’s high-end loudspeakers are time- and phase-accurate designs. The audio magazines need to appeal to a broad spectrum of advertisers including many who make speaker systems which are time incoherent. The magazines, and the reviewers who write for them, have ignored or downplayed the issue of time- and phase-accuracy in order to maximize advertising revenue. I am not alone in recognizing this situation.' The transmission line (TL) is the theoretical ideal, and one of the most complex constructions, with which to load a moving coil drive unit. The most common and practical implementation is to fit a drive unit to the end of a long duct that is usually open at the far end.

In practice, the duct is folded inside a conventional shaped cabinet, so that the open end of the duct appears as a vent on the speaker cabinet. There are many ways in which the duct can be folded and the line is often tapered in crossection to avoid parallel internal surfaces that encourage standing waves. Some speaker designs also use a spiral or elliptic spiral shaped duct, usually with one speaker element in the front or two speaker elements arranged one on each side of the cabinet. Depending upon the drive unit, and quantity and various physical properties of absorbent material, the amount of taper will be adjusted during the design process to tune the duct to remove irregularities in its response. The internal partitioning provides substantial bracing for the entire structure, reducing cabinet flexing and colouration. The inside faces of the duct or line, are treated with an absorbent material to provide the correct termination with frequency to load the drive unit as a TL.

Folded Horn Subwoofer Box Design

The enclosure behaves like an, potentially absorbing most or all of the speaker unit's rear energies. A theoretically perfect TL would absorb all frequencies entering the line from the rear of the drive unit but remains theoretical, as it would have to be infinitely long. The physical constraints of the real world, demand that the length of the line must often be less than 4 meters before the cabinet becomes too large for any practical applications, so not all the rear energy can be absorbed by the line. In a realized TL, only the upper bass is TL loaded in the true sense of the term (i.e. Fully absorbed); the low bass is allowed to freely radiate from the vent in the cabinet.

The line therefore effectively works as a low pass filter, another crossover point in fact, achieved acoustically by the line and its absorbent filling. Below this “crossover point” the low bass is loaded by the column of air formed by the length of the line. The length is specified to reverse the phase of the rear output of the drive unit as it exits the vent. This energy combines with the output of the bass unit, extending its response and effectively creating a second driver.Essentially, the goal of the transmission line is to minimize acoustical or mechanical impedance at frequencies corresponding to the driver's fundamental free air resonance. This simultaneously reduces stored energy in the driver's motion, reduces distortion, and critically damps the driver by maximizing acoustic output (maximal acoustical loading or coupling) at the terminus.

This also minimizes the negative effects of acoustic energy that would otherwise (as with a sealed enclosure) be reflected back to the driver in a sealed cavity.Transmission line loudspeakers employ this tube-like cavity, with the length set between 1/6 and 1/2 the of the of the loudspeaker driver being used. The cross-sectional area of the tube is typically comparable to the cross-sectional area of the driver's radiating surface area. This cross section is typically tapered down to approximately 1/4 of the starting area at the terminus or open end of the line. While not all lines use a taper, the standard classical transmission line employs a taper from 1/3 to 1/4 area (ratio of terminus area to starting area directly behind driver). This taper serves to dampen the buildup of standing waves within the line, which can create sharp nulls in response at the terminus output at even multiples of the driver's Fs.In a transmission line speaker, the transmission line itself can be open ('vented') or closed at the far end. Closed designs typically have negligible acoustic output from the enclosure except from the driver, while open ended designs exploit the low-pass filter effect of the line, and the resultant low bass energy emerges to reinforce the output from the driver at low frequencies. Well designed transmission line enclosures have smooth, possibly from a lack of frequency-specific resonances, but can also have low efficiency if poorly designed.One key advantage of transmission lines is their ability to conduct the back wave behind the transducer more effectively away from it – reducing the chance for reflected energy permeating back through the diaphragm out of phase with the primary signal.

Not all transmission lines designs do this effectively. Most offset transmission line speakers place a reflective wall fairly close behind the transducer within the enclosure – posing a problem for internal reflections emanating back through the transducer diaphragm. Older descriptions explained the design in terms of 'impedance mismatch', or pressure waves 'reflected' back into the enclosure; these descriptions are now considered outdated and inaccurate as technically the transmission line works through selective production of and and (see below).A second benefit is that the resulting music is (i.e., ). Fried quoted in 2002, a listening test performed and reported in December 2000's (as he believed) in which a high-quality recording was obtained using reputable but non-time-coherent loudspeakers and this recording was then time phase corrected; an expert listening panel 'voted unanimously for the superior realism and accuracy of the time corrected output' for high quality sound reproduction.A transmission line speaker employs essentially, two distinct forms of, which historically and confusingly have been amalgamated in the TL description.

Separating the upper and lower bass analysis reveals why such designs have so many potential advantages over reflex and infinite baffle designs. The upper bass is completely absorbed by the line allowing a clean and neutral response. The lower bass is extended effortlessly and distortion is lowered by the line's control over the drive unit's excursion.

One of the exclusive benefits of a TL design is its ability to produce very low frequencies even at low monitoring levels – TL speakers can routinely produce full range sound usually requiring a, and do so to very high levels of accuracy. The main disadvantage of the design is that it is more labor-intensive to create and a high quality and consistent transmission line, compared to building a simple enclosure. A 2010 Hifi Avenue TL speaker review commented that 'One thing I have noticed about transmission line designs is that they create a rather big and seem to handle crescendoes with ease'. History of transmission line loudspeakers Invention and early use. This image is actually an inverted folded horn. You can tell as the throat is larger than near the port opening. A true Transmission Line enclosure is the same width 'vent' throughout.The concept was innovated within acoustic enclosure design, and originally termed an 'acoustical labyrinth', by acoustic engineer and later Director of Research Benjamin Olney, who developed the concept at the in the early 1930s while studying the effect of enclosure shape and size on speaker output, including the effect of 'extreme length in a box baffle'.

A patent was filed in 1934. The design was used in their console radios beginning in 1936. A loudspeaker enclosure based on the concept was proposed in October 1965 by Dr A.R. Bailey and A.H. Radford in (p483-486) magazine.

The article postulated that energy from the rear of a driver unit could be essentially absorbed, without damping the cone's motion or superimposing internal reflections and resonance, so Bailey and Radford reasoned that the rear wave could be channeled down a long pipe. If the acoustic energy was absorbed, it would not be available to excite resonances. A pipe of sufficient length could be tapered, and stuffed so that the energy loss was almost complete, minimizing output from the open end. No broad consensus on the ideal taper (expanding, uniform cross-section, or contracting) has been established.'

Classic' era transmission line loudspeakers Source for much of this section: Loudspeakers: for music recording and reproduction (Newell & Holland, 2007)The birth of the modern transmission line speaker design came about in 1965 with the publication of A R Bailey's article in Wireless World, “A Non-resonant Loudspeaker Enclosure Design”, detailing a working Transmission Line. Radford Audio took up this innovative design and briefly manufactured the first commercial Transmission Line loudspeaker. Although acknowledged as the father of the Transmission Line, Bailey's work drew on the work on labyrinth design, dating back as early as the 1930s. His design, however, differed significantly in the way in which he filled the cabinet with absorbent materials. Bailey hit upon the idea of absorbing all the energy generated by the bass unit inside the cabinet, providing an inert platform for the drive unit to work from; unchecked, this energy produces spurious resonances in the cabinet and its structure, adding distortion to the original signal.Shortly thereafter the design entered mainstream, through the works of in the United States, and a trio: John Hayes, and David Brown. Dave D'Lugos describes the period that followed (approx. 35 years until the start of the 21st Century) as a period when the 'classical designs' were created.Fried was exposed during his time at to high fidelity audio reproduction, and later became an importer of audiophile items.

Under the 'IMF' (his initials), from 1961, he eventually became involved with many advancements in equipment: cartridges (IMF – London, IMF – Goldring), (SME, Gould, Audio and Design), amplifiers (Quad, Custom Series), loudspeakers (Lowther, Quad, Celestion, Bowers and Wilkins, Barker, etc.). In 1968 he met John Hayes and John Wright, who had already designed an award-winning tonearm in the UK and had brought along a transmission line speaker designed by - described by Hayes as 'fanatical regarding quality' - in order to promote and demonstrate the tonearm at a New York hifi show. Irving unexpectedly received a number of orders for the unnamed speaker, which he dubbed the 'IMF'. The British pair, along with Hayes' colleague David Brown, agreed to form a UK company to design and manufacture speakers which would be sold by Irving in the United States. John Hayes later wrote that:Of course, Bud, had called it the IMF, and therefore, perhaps mistakenly we registered IMF and formed an IMF company. At no time did Bud Fried have any input on the designs. We sold him speakers and he was the US Distributor.

Bud Fried was never a Director or shareholder of IMF Electronics. IMF electronics were the only company manufacturing the transmission line speakers.

The name IMF was adopted because Bud Fried had demonstrated the first prototype speakers at the New York hi fi show, and because of the publicity and the fact that he had used his name on the then unnamed speakers, we stuck with the name which was a mistake on our part. It was never his company. After our lawsuit he called his speakers Fried.The relationship broke down acrimoniously when Irving began to make his own, poorer quality speakers, also marketed as 'IMF', and refused to cease until a court agreed that the UK business had the right to the trademark IMF for loudspeakers. Following the split, Irving in the USA (under the 'Fried') and the three founders of IMF Electronics in the UK (via a with driver manufacturer Elac under the name ), both became well known in audiophile circles for many years as major advocates of transmission line speaker design. TDL closed after John Wright's gradual failing of health and death in 1999 from.

He was described in his 1999 obituary as 'one of the most important figures on the British hi-fi scene since the mid-1960s. Best remembered for his transmission-line loudspeaker designs'. The brand was acquired by (part of retailer group ). Freid died six years later, in 2005. 21st century In the early 21st centurythat seemed to approximate the behavior of real-world TL speakers and cabinets, began to emerge. According to the website t-linespeakers.org, this led to an understanding that what he termed the 'classical' speakers, designed largely by 'trial and error', were a 'good job' and the best that was reasonably possible at those time, but that better designs were now achievable based on modeled responses. Design principles.

Main article:Phase inversion is achieved by selecting a length of line that is equal to the quarter wavelength of the target lowest frequency. The effect is illustrated in Fig.

1, which shows a hard boundary at one end (the speaker) and the open-ended line vent at the other. The phase relationship between the bass driver and vent is in phase in the pass band until the frequency approaches the quarter wavelength, when the relationship reaches 90 degrees as shown. However, by this time the vent is producing most of the output (Fig. Because the line is operating over several octaves with the drive unit, cone excursion is reduced, providing higher SPL's and lower distortion levels, compared with reflex and infinite baffle designs.The complex loading of the bass drive unit demands specific to realise the full benefits of a TL design. Most drive units in the marketplace are developed for the more common reflex and infinite baffle designs and are usually not suitable for TL loading. High efficiency bass drivers with extended low frequency ability, are usually designed to be extremely light and flexible, having very compliant suspensions. Whilst performing well in a reflex design, these characteristics do not match the demands of a TL design.

The drive unit is effectively coupled to a long column of air which has mass. This lowers the resonant frequency of the drive unit, negating the need for a highly compliant device. Furthermore, the column of air provides greater force on the driver itself than a driver opening onto a large volume of air (in simple terms it provides more resistance to the driver's attempt to move it), so to control the movement of air requires an extremely rigid cone, to avoid deformation and consequent distortion.The introduction of the absorption materials reduces the velocity of sound through the line, as discovered by Bailey in his original work. L Bradbury published his extensive tests to determine this effect in an AES Journal in 1976 and his results agreed that heavily damped lines could reduce the velocity of sound by as much as 50%, although 35% is typical in medium damped lines. Bradbury's tests were carried out using fibrous materials, typically longhaired wool and glass fibre. These kinds of materials however produce highly variable effects that are not consistently repeatable for production purposes.

They are also liable to produce inconsistencies due to movement, climatic factors and effects over time. High specification acoustic foams, developed by manufacturers such as PMC, with similar characteristics to longhaired wool, provide repeatable results for consistent production. The density of the polymer, the diameter of the pores and the sculptured profiling are all specified to provide the correct absorption for each speaker model. Quantity and position of the foam is critical to engineer a low pass acoustic filter that provides adequate attenuation of the upper bass frequencies, whilst allowing an unimpeded path for the low bass frequencies.

Although the end result may require lot of modeling and testing, the starting point is usually based on one of three basic principles. Filling the entire tube treats the TL as a damper, aiming at completely eliminating the rear wave. Filling half the cross section throughout its full length treat the TL as an infinite baffle, basically damping high frequencies and wall to wall resonances. Filling the tube from the driver to half the tubes length aim at a quarter wave resonator, leaving the fundamental tone with its velocity maxima at the open end of the tube intact, while damping all the over tunes.Mathematical equations, modelling, and design process The section of this article links to a number of resources that detail the mathematical principles, models, and DIY calculations, as well as extended practical design material, related to transmission line speakers.For most of the 20th century, transmission line design remained more of an art than a science, requiring much. Jon Risch states in an article on classic transmission line design, that the hard part was finding the best stuffing density along the line's length, because 'the line stuffing affects both the total apparent line length AND the total apparent box volume simultaneously'. He summarized the state of design at the time as: 'The classic transmission line bass enclosure has never been completely and successfully such that it can be built from a pat set of.

Some claim to have done this, but it doesn't seem to allow a first time build without adjustments, so the models have enough wrong to require a.' Dave D'Lugos, founder of fan site t-linespeakers.org, comments that this reflects the 'classical' designs from the 1960s until Risch's writing, during which period 'TL design was seat of the pants'.However, from the 21st century, Martin King and George Augspurger (both separately and referencing each other's works), produced models which show these to be 'generally less than optimal' designs which 'did a good job of approaching what was possible in their day'. Audio engineer Augspurger had modeled TL using an electrical analogy, and found it to agree closely with King's existing work, based on a mechanical analogy. D'Lugos concluded in his overview of TL modeling and design theory: 'I think that using modern drivers & tools such as King's software you can build a better TL easier today'.In addition to these more sophisticated models a number of approximation algorithms exist.

One such is to design a closed box speaker, then building a transmission line of the same volume tuned to the closed speakers resonance frequency. Another is to design a bass reflex speaker, again building a transmission line of the same volume, tuned to the frequency of the Helmholtz resonator.Prominent individuals and companies Pioneers:. Benjamin Olney - originated the idea of a duct in speaker enclosure design, which he termed an 'acoustic ', while working for as an acoustic engineer and studying the effect of enclosure size on output sound. Bailey and Radford - worked together and developed the concept for loudspeakers (1965).

Their design was a significant development from the earlier work. Bailey's name was on the article and Radford built the first commercial TL speaker. together with business partner John Hayes and (later) David Brown, and their company IMF Electronics Ltd (later: TDL) - Wright, a 'fanatical' pursuer of quality, had designed an award winning tonearm and to demonstrate it, brought to New York a non-commercial TL speaker he had also designed. The speaker gained considerable attention and Wright, Hayes and colleague Brown formed a company that specialized in TL speakers, and won numerous awards (1968).

TDL disbanded following Wright's death in 1999 and the brand - as a shell - was bought by Richer Sounds. American audiophile and TL advocate, who encountered Wright and Hayes in 1968, recognized the potential of Wright's unnamed speaker, and began marketing their TL speakers in the United States.

Retrieved 2015-06-13. ^.

Retrieved 2015-06-13. PMC FB1 Loudspeaker (2000-03-24). Retrieved 2015-06-13.

Retrieved 2015-06-13. ^ lam seng fatt (2010-09-06). Retrieved 2015-06-13. ^. Retrieved 2015-06-13. ^.

Retrieved 2015-06-13. Winslow Burhoe (1978). Retrieved 2015-06-13. Retrieved 2013-03-13. B. Olney (7 July 1931).

'Notes on Loud Speaker Response Measurements and Some Typical Response Curves'. Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers. 19 (7): 1111–1130. (in German). Retrieved 2015-06-13. ^, Wireless World October 1965 P483-486. P.NEWELL, K.HOLLAND (2007).

Loudspeakers: for music recording and reproduction. UK: Elsevier Ltd. Home Theater. Retrieved 2013-02-24. Retrieved 2015-06-13.

Retrieved 2015-06-13. ^. Retrieved 2015-06-13. L J S Bradbury “The Use of Fibrous Materials in Loudspeaker Enclosures” Journal of the Audio Engineering Society April 1976 P404-412. ^. Retrieved 2015-06-13.

Retrieved 2015-06-13. Retrieved 2015-06-13.

Retrieved 2015-06-13. Retrieved 2015-06-13. Retrieved 2015-06-13. Retrieved 2015-06-13.

Retrieved 2015-06-13.External links. – TL projects, history & more.

– by Martin J King, developer of TL modeling software; also includes design calculations for professional and DIY TL speaker creation. mathematics of the TL speaker, Perry Marshall. ( 2009-10-24) – Application, tips, essays. description of operation, equation and online calculation. has a sizeable section on TL speakers. Newell & Holland (2007). Loudspeakers: for music recording and reproduction.

UK: Elsevier Ltd, Newell & Holland. Pp. 78–81.Papers. Bailey's original 1965 paper. Bailey's 1972 follow-up paper. Papers and documents related to Olney's original 'Acoustic Labyrinth':.

Had been browsing the web for good speaker designs and was intrigued by the concept of horn speakers. Thought I would go ahead and make one just to see if the claims on the web were true or not (very high efficiency, no cross over distortion, great sound in th mid range, and bass up to 30-50 Hz without woofers). The designs on frugal-horn.com seemed well thought out and the family seemed to be good performers especially after the glowing reviews on equivalent speakers. I was planning on recycling drivers (3 inch or 4 inch speakers) that I already had so therefore selected the least wide Spawn speakers. The picture shows how the speakers turned out.

Wife likes em! Will post a video later on. Printed the out. I needed 18 inch wide panels for the sides and 5 1/8th inch wides for the baffles and dividers etc. Closest were 16 inch wide and 5.5 inch wide. So decided to get enough of the 5.5 inch white MDF panels to make one speaker. Also bought some nice plywood and Lowes cut it for me to 18 inches wide.

Was simpler to stick to the original 18 inch dimensions otherwise I would have to recalculate the internal baffle dimensions. I cut the 18 inch wide panels to a height of 6 feet from it's original height of 8 feet. I then drew the locations of the internal baffles onto the plywood panel. Then drilled 1 mm dia. Holes though the panel so that I could attach nails to hold the baffles. Got busy with the glue bottle and clamps and screws to assemble the the back, top, bottom and front panels (baffled) onto one 18 inch by 72 inch side panel.

Used biscuits to hook the panels together which makes the final assembly quite a bit easier. You can see the biscuit slots in the left most speaker. Even with biscuits is is important that the panels are perpendicular otherwise the final large panel will not fit on top. While the glue was curing, I cut the 5.5 inch wide panels into 38 pieces based on the handy table included in the plans. This was a bit of a work as only had a handheld circular saw. Glued the internal labyrinth of baffles in.

And painted exposed surfaces with black paint. Let everything dry and cure overnight. Could not wait to see if these speakers actually performed as stated so wired an RCA socket on one end and a 3 inch speaker that I removed from a Creative Labs D80 bluetooth speaker box.

The original speaker output on the amplified Creative bluetooth D80 unit was extended with a longer wire to which I soldered an RCA plug. Know this is not the ideal speaker driver but it was good enough for a test. Without the second side panel, the sound was not too bad! And not that different from the second speaker still in the creative box. This got me a bit worried.

Anyway clamped the other panel on temporarily to see if the sound was different, and yes, it was, there was more bass and more 'presence', more gravitas! So even with mediocre speaker drivers there was a bit of an improvement. Ok, this might be worth putting more effort into. Based on the above informal test, I decided to use speakers that I had removed from a Fostex SPA11 powered speaker unit. Expanded the hole in the front panel to fit the speaker (used a jigsaw to cut the hole). Stuffed the speaker chamber only with polyester stuffing to minimize sound reflections.

And permanently attached the side panel with expanding polyurethane glue and tons of clamps, weights etc. To really push the side panel onto the baffles. Also applied a few strategic screws to hold and clamp the side panel in place. I did something stupid, directly attached the speaker to the iPhone head phone output. Yes, without an amplifier, and the sound was nice and loud. Did a bit of testing using an oscillator app on the iPhone.

Could hear from about 40Hz to about 16KHz. The picture shows my crude cutting set up. The baffles with the trial speaker attached. Close ups of the stuffing behind the speaker.

Temporarily placing the side panel for testing! After the speaker bodies were assembled I attached black velvet across the fronts of the speakers covering up the horn openings. As was using scrap velvet left from a previous project that was not big enough had to use two pieces for each speaker, one piece covering the top half of the speaker and the other piece covering the bottom half, with the seam in the middle. Attached the velvet with glue and staples. I then attached standard-of-the-shelf 0.75 in x 1.5 inch wooden strips to the top, to the sides (to hide the velvet edge), and the bottom of the box for additional support.

I used standard 6 feet long strips from Lowes. These projected out below the bottom of the speaker box forming support feet. The diagram will make a bit more sense. The left three boxes show how I added the velvet fabric. The right three boxes, how the wooden strips were added. Finally, added molding on the top and bottom, stained, soldered the speaker clips to one end of lamp wire and an RCA jack to the other after confirming continuity with a multimeter.

Added the driver. 95% of the cost of commercial box speaker manufacturing is in the box.

Folded Horn Speaker Plans

5% is in the drivers. An exponential folded horn is probably the most efficient design and the most difficult to manufacture.There are a number of reports that state stepping the sides to replicate a folded exponential horn makes no perceivable difference to the bass frequencies.

The horn design you used is a proven design and will provide more bass drive for a lower power than a standard sub-woofer box. What will improve the sound is the box material.

Regardless of the price, commercial manufacturer's will not use plywood because the material is too resonant and too difficult to quality control the bass. The best material is HDF. If you cannot find HDF; use MDF or particle board.

Instead of using stepped corner pieces, an easier method is cut the corner pieces so one piece fits at a 45 degree angle and it cuts down on the overall weight of the box. A sub-woofer box will not improve the bass response, but it may give you a honky bass that a lot of people perceive as lower bass. You could use the same box and use a better quality driver, try Parts Express, that would give you a far superior sound than any sub-woofer design. You can also try inserting anti-resonant material at the mouth of the horn.

One of the two speakers has the internal baffles, speaker bottom, top, back and speaker front panels of MDF. Had a pile of ready-to-use 5.5 inch wide primed MDF 6 feet long panels from Lowes (typically used in shelving). The left and right side of this speaker is plywood. The second speaker is all plywood. So would be a good way to test if MDF has an impact on sound quality by comparing the two. On the stepped corner, guess it attentuates high frequency more effectively than a smooth panel so you get more bass reflected out. I hooked up a cheap T amplifier (and the sound quality us stunning and loud (from 10 W RMS)!

Do not see a need for a sub-woofer. Honestly, am really loving these speakers.

Am toying with the idea of making another pair with 8 inch drivers that I had bought a while back from guess what - Parts Express! These are not Fostex but some other full ranges with a wheezer cone that I was going to use for in wall speakers. I have seen some well done acrylic cabinets, including at least one folded horn design previously. The 'true audiophile' will not stand for the use of such material for dozens of reasons.

Mainly, rigidity and unwanted coloration from resonance. But, speakers are kind of a personal thing. As far as I'm concerned, if you want them, make but. Just always remember that there is time proven reason for component selection, materials, and construction methods for those who take such things in esoteric doses.