If you love audio and are looking for a fun project, why not build your own speaker? You don’t have to build one from scratch (although you could). There is a whole world of DIY kits that you can assemble with relative ease, but still call your own. A speaker kit skips the hard steps — like finding all your own components, speaker drivers, crossover boards and other hardware — and basically just asks you to assemble the speaker, which is still a challenge and an accomplishment. It’s kind of like Legos, except you can listen to them.
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There are advantages of building a speaker from a kit, aside from it being a fun project, but the main thing is that you can get a beautiful, high-quality speaker for significantly less than it would’ve normally cost. And with a personal touch to boot.
If you Google around for kits, odds are you’ll find plenty that cost in the thousands. Fortunately, you can get a great DYI speaker kit for way less than that.
KMA (Kirby Makes Audio), run by audio engineer and woodworker Jared Kirby, is a California speaker company that sells DIY build kits for passive speakers and powered Bluetooth speakers. Kirby also runs Salvage Audio, an audio company that makes higher-end speakers out of reclaimed wood.
KMA’s kits run between $100 and $300 bucks, and designed to be built relatively quickly (a few hours), requiring only a few tools, such as a screwdriver, wood glue and the occasional drill or sander. All the audio components are included.
If you’re looking for a fun new project, we’ve rounded up a few of KMA’s coolest DIY built kits below. Just make sure to buy one the models with the wood enclosure kit. And stain that wood with something nice.
