Designing, Building, and Testing Your Own Speaker System with Projects [Paperback]

This book does an excellent job of explaining almost all aspects of speakers and speaker box design. It mainly focuses on closed and ported boxes, so it's not suited for people intending to make more elaborate boxes like bandpass and transmission lines. Also, many aspects of the book are quite dated.

The first chapter gives an excellent explanation of the basics of speakers, such as frequency response, damping, efficiency, etc. I really liked this chapter because almost anyone would be able to understand it, yet there is a tremendous amount of detail. I also liked it because Weems gives details which I have never seen in any other book on speaker box design, and gives very useful information like describing how changing a certain box or speaker parameter will affect the sound.

The second chapter gives a good overview of the different kinds of speaker boxes. Almost every kind of box is covered, although some only briefly: sealed, ported, passive-radiator, bandpass, labyrinth, transmission line, tapered pipes, and horns (only closed and ported boxes are given much detail in this or any other chapter). Again, Weems provides very interesting details, such as how changing the box size or port size will affect the sound.

The third chapter gives details about speaker box construction in general. Details such as box size, box shape, speaker placement, box material, and stuffing material are covered. Several general woodworking tips are also given, such as how to properly seal or brace a box.

Chapters 4 and 5 give detailed descriptions for building sealed and ported boxes, respectively. The various box and speaker parameters are explained (such as Vas, Q, fs, etc) and formulas and graphs are given to enable the reader to calculate the proper box size for particular driver parameters and tuning requirements. Most modern speaker-design computer programs will do the calculations for you so these formulas and graphs very useful, but the details given in these chapters about how the parameters interact with each other is very valuable information.

Chapter 6 covers crossovers. First- and second-order crossovers are described and formulas are given to compute the required component values. This chapter also covers L-pads, impedance equalizers, notch filters, resonant-peak filters, and subwoofer filters.

The seventh chapter describes some extremely out-dated computer programs for designing speaker boxes. These are command-line programs (in other words, there's no visual interface or graphs; you just type inputs and it gives text outputs) that were written in the mid 90s in the BASIC programming language. The source-code is given, so the reader could copy it onto their computer, but considering the wide availability of free, high-quality, graphical speaker box design programs that are now available, I see absolutely no point in the programs provided in this book.

Chapter 8 is about choosing and using speakers. It describes how to choose the best speaker for your purpose and how to place speakers in your listening room.

Chapter 9 describes a few tests to analyze the performance and parameters of a speaker. Many tests don't require any equipment, but others need special equipment like a sound level meter or signal generator. A very useful section of this chapter is the part that describes how to find a speaker's various parameter, such as Q, resonant frequency, etc, using a signal generator and multimeter.

Chapter 10 describes a few speaker box projects, but I found that this chapter wasn't very useful. The projects use low-quality speaker drivers and don't add much more information than what was provided in previous chapters.

There are also a few appendices. Appendix A lists many useful formulas and examples of how to use them. This would be quite useful for someone with limited knowledge of electrical terms. Appendix B describes how to many inductors; appendix C provides more code for the out-dated computer programs mentioned earlier; D lists a few mail-order suppliers, which is also very out-dated (especially since it doesn't list any websites); and finally, there is a very thorough glossary.

I would recommend this book to almost anyone intending to build their own speakers boxes. It's easy to read for someone with no knowledge of the subject, yet it provides enough detail that it's useful for an experienced speaker box builder. As I mentioned at the beginning it doesn't give much detail for box designs other than sealed and ported, but for those types of boxes it gives lots of detail.

I bought the 1st edition of this book back around 1981 and have built both sealed and vented systems as well as fitted existing enclosures with just the right woofer, all with very happy results. I owe it all to what I've learned from this book. Thank you Mr. Weems! But alas, the ol' book has gotten worn so I decided a couple of weeks ago to order a new copy, the 4th edition. When it finally came I was very happy to see not only did it still retain all the information and programs I've grown to trust was still there, but has been expanded. There isn't the variety of projects as in the first edition but that didn't bother me because I've learned that by the time you get around to building the "projects" the components are usually discontinued anyway.
BASIC programs isn't a problem for me but might be for some people as a lot of them may not even know what BASIC is or may not want to take the time to type them in. No need to worry though because you can order both the BASIC and Windows versions of the program through the book... If you like it, buy it.

The Bottom line is, If your just an average joe, "like me" and you want to learn how build great sounding speakers that you'll be proud of.. without being a phd, or going broke.. then get this book.

The author covers a variety of subjects but too lightly to be useful. Too much effort is spent on things that are useless. For example, Testing of Loudspeakers - part of the book's title - is barely 13 pages and is so basic as to not allow tuning of cabinet design. Rather this section focuses on determining specifications that speakers already come with. Suggestion of using PVC piping for ducts and asphalt paper for damping really remove any credibility for a successful high fidelity outcome using these techniques. Pictures of a hammer over a brad and a ruler on a woofer kind of tells it all. Many pages taken up with basic programming print outs - stuff that's available in Windows format free on the internet now. Horn designs are not covered and the project section only has a couple of basic designs. That said, the author does a great job telling you how to make inductors for cross-over networks.I was done with this 200 page book in about 1 hour. Rather dissapointing.