About Speakerbuilder.net
This site is a private, non-commercial website for the purpose of assisting
the do-it-yourself speaker-building enthusiast. All the projects on this
site are freely licensed for non-commercial use. You may build and enjoy
(I hope) any project on the pages contained herein for your own, personal use.
Of course, when you want to move on to another speaker, you can sell your
creations or do whatever you want with them. Those who choose to build
speakers and sell them in commercial channels should contact me for a license.
Since I only do this as a hobby and for personal enjoyment, please don't abuse
the non-commercial license. Since my employment is as an intellectual
property attorney (patent, trademark, and copyright law), I will aggressively
police and pursue license violations and intellectual property infringement.
That aside, please understand that as an amateur speaker designer, I do not
provide any warranty with regard to any of these projects and by using this
site, you are assumed to have read and agreed to the terms of service, for
which a link is provided at the bottom of each page. More importantly,
please have reasonable expectations of what to expect when you build a D-I-Y
speaker and know your own limitations. If you're not comfortable working
with electronics, please consult someone more experienced than yourself.
If you're uncomfortable working with power tools, for god's sake get some help
-- if you lose a finger on a table saw, no one is going to replace it and I'm
sure not going to pay your medical bills.
Finally, this site is my own, personal project showcase. I don't get
paid a dime for anything I post, any of my designs, or any of my DIY
speakerbuilding activities (I did sell the Veritas speakers shown on the site
for a rather hefty sum, but that's none of your damn business, is it? <g>)
What I choose to build and what drivers, crossover components, or suppliers I
prefer are based on my own opinions (hence if you want to be a jackass and
post that I shill for Parts Express, get a clue -- it's a great place to buy
stuff from, the people there are nice and friendly, and their service and
support beats the socks off every other speaker building parts supplier there
is). Those of you who have ever looked into it know that web hosting
isn't cheap (and I chose a fast host with good services). I pay over
$50/mo out of my own pocket for this site and I don't accept advertising or
other forms of compensation. Why? Because if I don't like
something, I want to be able to say so without taking heat from someone.
But I also like to give credit where credit is due, so if it seems like I'm
overly enthusiastic about a particular product or supplier, it's because I
think they deserve the credit. It's that simple -- good or bad, this
site is all about my unbiased, unadulterated opinions.
Further, just as I choose to exercise my right to speak freely on this site,
you should too -- whether that be on this site's message forum or another.
If you build one of my projects and aren't happy with it, say so. I
don't know what other people think unless they give me honest, detailed
feedback. As I've mentioned, I don't get a dime either way, so I have no
incentive to post projects that I don't think are worth your time, money, or
effort to build (which, by the way, makes me unique in the DIY community --
other than the occasional page posted by fine people who are proud of their
work, I'm not aware of anyone else who goes through this trouble out of their
sheer enjoyment of audio.) I've been a sterophile since I got my first
Yamaha receiver and Klipsch speakers at the age of 13. I started
building my own speakers when I was 17 and have never looked back.
Finally, who am I? I'm the Reverend, baby! That's a little joke --
the name "Reverend" was pinned on me by my good friends on the Parts Express
Tech Talk board, probably due to my occasional sermons and inspiration
lectures on speaker-building related subjects, after I designed the Lyra for
one of them and he proclaimed that there must have been divine intervention in
their creation. Don't tell him it wasn't anything supernatural, it was
just good engineering. My undergraduate education was at a school whose
motto was "Knowledge and Thoroughness" and has a thermometer in the school's
seal -- despite having a reputation for a student body that looked like the
cast of extras from "Revenge of the Nerds", the place perennial turns out some
of the best engineers this fine country has. I suppose after that
education, it's not surprising that my hobbies and interests tend toward the
highly-technical and I have an obsession for accuracy.
If anything, I'm someone with the gift of gab who's predisposed to putting
things in writing (hence the lawyer thing). I'm a 38 year old
intellectual property attorney and engineer. I have a Bachelor's Degree
in Chemical Engineering from Rensselear
Polytechnic Institute and a law degree, cum laude, from
American University. I
currently work for the law firm of Morrison &
Foerster LLP, one of the world's largest, oldest international technology
and finance law firms, where I practice intellectual property law. I've
been practicing in Washington, D.C. since 1994.
