DIY Home Theater Speakers

Has anyone ever built their own Home Theater/Audio speakers?

A guy at work and I got to talking about car stereos and he told me he had an Infinity 10DVQ sub that he was not using and sold it to me for $40. My first thought was to integrate it w/the Bose system in our Tahoe, but my wife balked at the idea of a box taking up ANY of the limited carrying room of the Tahoe, so I said, hmmm i wonder if car speakers can be used for home theater because I have a cheap +7y/o Yamana speaker set up for my home theater w.a powered sub that can't handle being driven real hard on really low LFE's.
Anyway, turns out this particular sub in a properly tuned, ported enclosure makes an excellent home theater sub. I researched the precise set up (enclosure volume/port size, length etc) based on the theille/small properties of the sub to tune it to around 22-23 hz. I scavenged the plate amp off the Yamaha sub (it's only about 47watts RMS), and this thing ROCKS the room. My youngest son was watching Nemo, and my wife and I were sitting on the tailgate of my truck parked on the street near our driveway and i could hear the bass. it rattles pictures hanging on the walls of the office directly below it and i can hear it in my bathroom on the furthest end of the house.
The problem now is that the rest of my speakers are tiny and there's a pretty good gap in the 80 to about 120'ish hz range. so now i'm looking into replacing at least the CTR/L/R speakers w/something more substantial (and i may even build them too). you can buy components and get a lot of info from PartsExpress.com.

The box is 3/4" MDF w/a red oak veneer w/a walnut stain and 2 coats of satin finish poly. I've never done veneer before, but it's the heat applied kind and it was pretty easy to work with, but it was the most expensive part of the whole project. I don't have pics w/the plate amp installed but it looks prettty cool. I can't believe how good this thing sounds. There's one scene in Finding Nemo where the little girl at the dentists office is tapping on the glass of the fish tank and the scene is from inside the tank. Holy Cow that bass bangs. I've never even noticed that part of the movie before. I couldn't imagine these systems w/500+watt subs...

if you dont mind investing some time and money into building your own, then you can definitely go for it, but there are great home audio speakers that can be had for a great price if you are patient and hunt around.

I've built tons of home audio speakers with great results over the years. There are too many good brands around to list for drivers. Parts Express makes it very easy. If you really want to get into it pick up the Loudspeaker Design Cook Book. There is a ton of great info there.

Right now I've decided that space is more of an issue for me and I love the clean look of an in-wall speaker. My brother is in the home theater business and got me a set of Niles Audio in-walls that sound amazing. I'm running them with a Velodyne powered sub (10" driver and 12" passive radiator). It rocks and sounds awesome. For me the components of the system are as critical as the speakers. I've got a Canary Audio vaccuum tube pre-amp and a Hafler mosfet amp. It's pretty rediculous the sound I'm getting from it. Even my outdoor speakers sound great through a nice set of tubes (I've got Adcom amps running the rest of the house).

Cool stuff... Have fun with it. When we were young we experimented with everything. Even building electrostatics. It's a bug, though. Right now my brother has a set of Martin Logan electrostatics sitting around in his garage with stacks of other really high end stuff that he's cycled through in his system. Like Dan said.... You can get some great home audio cheap if you look around for some used gear.

I'm still happy with my MnK S150thx set up matched to one of their MX200 subs (dual 12" push pull). I used to have a little killer box from an old truck. Pair of old SoundStream SPL10 subs isobaric and ported. Box was tiny and hit really hard and I used it for home theater too. A buddy of mine is still using it today in his set up paired with Martin Logan speakers front and back and super happy with the sound. He filtered it to blend in with the fronts bass response and in his room that old box sounds a lot like a REL sub, it's both there and transparent at the same time. Turn off it's amp and you notice the bottom end of the room drop out, turn it on and it just sounds right.

If/when my MX200 dies I'll build up my own sub to replace it. What would be a large box in a car is pretty modest in a house, makes it easier to get the sound you want with less power.