Some quick background: I've been working on a "micro theater" concept using a projector & surround-sound in my bedroom, which somewhat out of the norm, as most people just throw a flatscreen in there & call it a day. But this is AT, home of nerd ballers, where there is no such thing as too much tech! In honor of low-cost & good value, I hereby dub this project the Bros :biggrin:
Anyway, I have a buddy who has a great Bose 5.1 system. I know they get a lot of flack for being overpriced, but I think they sound pretty good for being a tiny speaker system & I definitely didn't have room in my smallish 10x10' bedroom for even moderately-sized bookshelf speakers, due to both the screen size of the projector & height of my dressers. So tiny cube speaker knockoffs were in order!
I first did some research to figure out Bose's tricks for sounding good. For starters, they use 2.5" full-range speakers. Second, they use a subwoofer that is more of a woofer (typically a ported 5.25" woofer, in fact) & covers both the mid-bass & upper-base spectrums. Third, they crossover the sub at 200hz; since the tiny cube speakers can't output bass due to the size, they make up for it by kind of going omni-directional with not just sub-bass, but with the mid & upper base volumes as well (40hz to 200hz). While I wouldn't call it a true subwoofer (since it doesn't touch 20hz), it does give a good punch for the lower notes, which I am satisfied with for the room size.
The first order of business was finding the appropriate speakers. I've installed a ton of small speakers over the years, such as the jewel-style models from Pure Resonance. Nothing has ever impressed me enough to invest in a set of my own. After a ton of research, I came across a satellite set from Acoustic Audio: small (about the size of a large orange), available in black (AA321B) and white (AA321W), and even comes with wall-mounting hardware. The best part is that the price per speaker is only $19!
Having tried various soundbars, soundslabs, and small cube-style speakers, I was never really happy with the tin-can sound that came out of them. These, however, I am really happy with. While I wouldn't say they're quite as good as Bose, as one of my buddies put it, they sound like really good TV speakers off a high-end television set. Being as small as they are & the frequency that they cover (150hz to 20kHz), you'll be missing out on the mid & upper base the most in the front & center speakers, but the sub (with a high crossover) makes up for that.
First, a quick word on pricing: a pair of black speakers is $38 shipped on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Audio-AA321B-Surround-Speakers/dp/B00KSLX5QM/
At the time of writing, a pair of white speakers is ten bucks cheaper:
http://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Audio-AA321W-Surround-Speakers/dp/B00KSLX706/
In addition, the price goes down as the quantity goes up. For $70, you can get a 5-piece set of the white speakers, which brings the price down to about $14 per speaker:
http://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Audio-Mountable-Bookshelf-AA321W-5S/dp/B00KWIU488/
They sell them in quantities of up to 10 pairs (20 speakers for $275; they can be used for a nice, compact stereo system & they are also outdoor-friendly, so you can put them everyone if you have a few extra bucks lying around or want a 7.1 or 9.1 or Atmos-style system with a ton of speakers everywhere). In addition, if it's your first time using Jet.com (and don't mind using someone other than Amazon), there are always 15% off coupons floating around (check RetailMeNot), which can save a good ten bucks off the 5-piece system.
So with the speakers squared away, the next task was to figure out the subwoofer situation. For starters, the speakers sound like absolute crap without a subwoofer. With a subwoofer, however, they sound a thousand times better. I pulled the sub from my Monoprice 5.1 combo set to start out with, and while it sounded good & added the required bass, it didn't sound right. Oh, and one other quick note on the speakers: I initially tested a pair of the speakers with my 20-watt Lepai TA2020+ amp; despite the advertised 200w capacity, these distorted when I cranked it up. The good news is that they can fill the room without distorting without a lot of power, so you don't need a very powerful receiver!
Anyway, next I tried getting a subwoofer that would kind of match the Bose model. Closest I found was a 6" sealed down-firing sub from the manufacturer of the speakers themselves. Terrible combo, ugh! For movies, with these tiny speakers, the subwoofer absolutely needs to be ported, so the sealed model was a no-go. Part of the problem with both subs is that the crossover maxed out at 150hz, so there was no overlap with the lower end of the speaker frequency range. I pondered building a sub, or perhaps hacking one of my existing subs with another of my Lepai amps, a 2.1 model with a 68w sub output that had a variable crossover with a 200hz cap, but I wanted to make a system that anyone could buy off the shelf, plug together, and get pretty decent sound for the money, so I kept looking.
As luck would have it, I finally found the right sub after a couple weeks of searching: the 8" Premium Select subwoofer from Monoprice, which has a whopping 250hz onboard crossover & sells for $129:
http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=14567
I lucked out even more & found it on Amazon for $85 shipped:
http://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-114567-Select-Subwoofer-Black/dp/B019PZ936W/
I got my 5-piece white speakers off Jet.com with the first-time buyer discount for about $60 shipped, so with the sub, it range out to $145 (sans wiring & receiver). However, I put $200 in the thread title because that's what the retail price is for the speakers off Amazon & the sub off Monoprice, so just in case the pricing changes, I highballed it. Good deal either way!
A couple notes on the subwoofer: first, at least on mine, I had to remove the front grill because the woofer was hitting it & making it rattle when I had the crossover up high. Second, I set my crossover a bit above max, maybe around 230hz, and also only do the power at either 50% or 75% to balance it out with the rest of the system. Third, if you don't have control at the LFE frequency output on your receiver, you also have the option to set the speakers to Large, which typically passes through the full frequency range, which means you can use the high-level inputs on the sub to act as a middleman between the front left & front right speakers in order to capture the higher range for the mid & upper bass frequencies.
So to summarize this system: budget-friendly ($200 for 5 speakers & a sub), flexible to your choice of receiver (which doesn't need a lot of power), maybe not a perfect Bose clone, but definitely way better than your average soundbar (I've had Vizio, ZVOX, etc., and this is far better & doesn't sound like it's coming out of a speaker in a tin can), especially for the money, and kind of a cool little project. I've used it in a room as small as 100 square feet & as large as 250 square feet with good results.
For reference, here is a quick video from my iPhone of the center speaker & sub. Note that all of the speakers are the same, so when I say center speaker, I just mean it's wired up to the center output. Also, I dunno if the phone mic picked up any of the bass. You can see my hand for speaker size reference & I threw my shoe next to the sub so you could see how big that piece is:
https://vid.me/hyVk
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the clarity of the speaker system & the oomph from the sub for the price. I'm using a basic $249 Sony 7.1 receiver from Amazon, which conveniently came with a mic for calibration (I still did some manual tweaking after that). Again, pretty much any budget 5.1 or better receiver will do, you don't need much wattage at all to drive these to a good listening volume. Based on my results, I will probably be putting in a few more of these systems for family & friends...throw in a receiver & some speaker wire and you're probably looking at about $500 for everything, which is pretty reasonable for a system as compact as this is :thumbsup:
Tags for google searches: (including these because when I did a search, I didn't really find much of anything that was small, cheap, and actually sounded decent) diy bose system, bose clone, bose 5.1 knockoff, make your own bose-style speaker set for cheap
Anyway, I have a buddy who has a great Bose 5.1 system. I know they get a lot of flack for being overpriced, but I think they sound pretty good for being a tiny speaker system & I definitely didn't have room in my smallish 10x10' bedroom for even moderately-sized bookshelf speakers, due to both the screen size of the projector & height of my dressers. So tiny cube speaker knockoffs were in order!
I first did some research to figure out Bose's tricks for sounding good. For starters, they use 2.5" full-range speakers. Second, they use a subwoofer that is more of a woofer (typically a ported 5.25" woofer, in fact) & covers both the mid-bass & upper-base spectrums. Third, they crossover the sub at 200hz; since the tiny cube speakers can't output bass due to the size, they make up for it by kind of going omni-directional with not just sub-bass, but with the mid & upper base volumes as well (40hz to 200hz). While I wouldn't call it a true subwoofer (since it doesn't touch 20hz), it does give a good punch for the lower notes, which I am satisfied with for the room size.
The first order of business was finding the appropriate speakers. I've installed a ton of small speakers over the years, such as the jewel-style models from Pure Resonance. Nothing has ever impressed me enough to invest in a set of my own. After a ton of research, I came across a satellite set from Acoustic Audio: small (about the size of a large orange), available in black (AA321B) and white (AA321W), and even comes with wall-mounting hardware. The best part is that the price per speaker is only $19!
Having tried various soundbars, soundslabs, and small cube-style speakers, I was never really happy with the tin-can sound that came out of them. These, however, I am really happy with. While I wouldn't say they're quite as good as Bose, as one of my buddies put it, they sound like really good TV speakers off a high-end television set. Being as small as they are & the frequency that they cover (150hz to 20kHz), you'll be missing out on the mid & upper base the most in the front & center speakers, but the sub (with a high crossover) makes up for that.
First, a quick word on pricing: a pair of black speakers is $38 shipped on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Audio-AA321B-Surround-Speakers/dp/B00KSLX5QM/
At the time of writing, a pair of white speakers is ten bucks cheaper:
http://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Audio-AA321W-Surround-Speakers/dp/B00KSLX706/
In addition, the price goes down as the quantity goes up. For $70, you can get a 5-piece set of the white speakers, which brings the price down to about $14 per speaker:
http://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Audio-Mountable-Bookshelf-AA321W-5S/dp/B00KWIU488/
They sell them in quantities of up to 10 pairs (20 speakers for $275; they can be used for a nice, compact stereo system & they are also outdoor-friendly, so you can put them everyone if you have a few extra bucks lying around or want a 7.1 or 9.1 or Atmos-style system with a ton of speakers everywhere). In addition, if it's your first time using Jet.com (and don't mind using someone other than Amazon), there are always 15% off coupons floating around (check RetailMeNot), which can save a good ten bucks off the 5-piece system.
So with the speakers squared away, the next task was to figure out the subwoofer situation. For starters, the speakers sound like absolute crap without a subwoofer. With a subwoofer, however, they sound a thousand times better. I pulled the sub from my Monoprice 5.1 combo set to start out with, and while it sounded good & added the required bass, it didn't sound right. Oh, and one other quick note on the speakers: I initially tested a pair of the speakers with my 20-watt Lepai TA2020+ amp; despite the advertised 200w capacity, these distorted when I cranked it up. The good news is that they can fill the room without distorting without a lot of power, so you don't need a very powerful receiver!
Anyway, next I tried getting a subwoofer that would kind of match the Bose model. Closest I found was a 6" sealed down-firing sub from the manufacturer of the speakers themselves. Terrible combo, ugh! For movies, with these tiny speakers, the subwoofer absolutely needs to be ported, so the sealed model was a no-go. Part of the problem with both subs is that the crossover maxed out at 150hz, so there was no overlap with the lower end of the speaker frequency range. I pondered building a sub, or perhaps hacking one of my existing subs with another of my Lepai amps, a 2.1 model with a 68w sub output that had a variable crossover with a 200hz cap, but I wanted to make a system that anyone could buy off the shelf, plug together, and get pretty decent sound for the money, so I kept looking.
As luck would have it, I finally found the right sub after a couple weeks of searching: the 8" Premium Select subwoofer from Monoprice, which has a whopping 250hz onboard crossover & sells for $129:
http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=14567
I lucked out even more & found it on Amazon for $85 shipped:
http://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-114567-Select-Subwoofer-Black/dp/B019PZ936W/
I got my 5-piece white speakers off Jet.com with the first-time buyer discount for about $60 shipped, so with the sub, it range out to $145 (sans wiring & receiver). However, I put $200 in the thread title because that's what the retail price is for the speakers off Amazon & the sub off Monoprice, so just in case the pricing changes, I highballed it. Good deal either way!
A couple notes on the subwoofer: first, at least on mine, I had to remove the front grill because the woofer was hitting it & making it rattle when I had the crossover up high. Second, I set my crossover a bit above max, maybe around 230hz, and also only do the power at either 50% or 75% to balance it out with the rest of the system. Third, if you don't have control at the LFE frequency output on your receiver, you also have the option to set the speakers to Large, which typically passes through the full frequency range, which means you can use the high-level inputs on the sub to act as a middleman between the front left & front right speakers in order to capture the higher range for the mid & upper bass frequencies.
So to summarize this system: budget-friendly ($200 for 5 speakers & a sub), flexible to your choice of receiver (which doesn't need a lot of power), maybe not a perfect Bose clone, but definitely way better than your average soundbar (I've had Vizio, ZVOX, etc., and this is far better & doesn't sound like it's coming out of a speaker in a tin can), especially for the money, and kind of a cool little project. I've used it in a room as small as 100 square feet & as large as 250 square feet with good results.
For reference, here is a quick video from my iPhone of the center speaker & sub. Note that all of the speakers are the same, so when I say center speaker, I just mean it's wired up to the center output. Also, I dunno if the phone mic picked up any of the bass. You can see my hand for speaker size reference & I threw my shoe next to the sub so you could see how big that piece is:
https://vid.me/hyVk
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the clarity of the speaker system & the oomph from the sub for the price. I'm using a basic $249 Sony 7.1 receiver from Amazon, which conveniently came with a mic for calibration (I still did some manual tweaking after that). Again, pretty much any budget 5.1 or better receiver will do, you don't need much wattage at all to drive these to a good listening volume. Based on my results, I will probably be putting in a few more of these systems for family & friends...throw in a receiver & some speaker wire and you're probably looking at about $500 for everything, which is pretty reasonable for a system as compact as this is :thumbsup:
Tags for google searches: (including these because when I did a search, I didn't really find much of anything that was small, cheap, and actually sounded decent) diy bose system, bose clone, bose 5.1 knockoff, make your own bose-style speaker set for cheap