Introduction
Thank you for visiting my website.
My name is István Gerencsér, I'm an electrical engineer and I live in Budapest, Hungary. Back when I was a university student in the beginning of the 1990's, I had already been interested in how to realize faithful sound reproduction. True, at the time I lacked the necessary knowledge, so I only wanted to purchase a quality hi-fi system, not to design and build home audio components. From 2001 to 2003 I was engaged in audiophile loudspeaker design and implementation. I designed and built several loudspeakers, among them the very unique Lithosphere 110, which consisted of two concrete spheres joined together, and a gradually tapered tube. In the beginning of 2017, I restarted my loudspeaker design activity and also embarked on learning more on audio power amplifier design.
Many undertake building DIY audio components, especially loudspeakers in the hope that they will turn out an outstanding quality system that is cheaper than one bought it in a retail store. Unfortunately this -- except for systems that cost an arm and a leg -- is practically impossible; a home made audio component will always be more expensive than a factory made one of similar quality, if you factor in the many work hours thrown into the project. Mass-product manufacturers can buy components and materials at the fraction of the retail price and their design, logistics, and some other costs split among a large quantity of end products.
In my opinion, the real "make-sense" of DIY is the challenge that you complete a project as much on your own as possible, intuitively solving any arising problem. In the end you'll have created something valuable, something unique that carries the touches of your fingers, so you can have the feeling that what you made is truly yours.
On this website, I'd like to share my loudspeaker experiences. My main goal is to provide high quality, free DIY loudspeaker plans with high performance/cost ratio. The plans published here only contain the important technical detail that can affect sound quality, and not the arbitrary features: cover, paint, finish, etc. your components to your liking -- if possible artistically -- to make it unique, make it blend in with your room or even make it more like you.
You will also find loudspeaker and speaker cable buying tips, and I aim to collect useful and valuable links for DIY loudspeaker designers and builders.
This site is also the home of the LDA DIY kits. The LDA is a very low distortion and very low noise audio amplifier that lives up to the most rigorous demands that can arise in listening to music in your home in terms of transparency and neutrality.
My main design principle is faithful sound reproduction. My goal is that the audio components I designed preferably do not have their own sound signature, that they do not add anything to and do not take anything from the musical recording. In other words they should sound transparent and neutral. For the loudspeakers I designed this means smooth frequency response -- and for the more expensive ones -- low distortion as well. For the amplifiers this means low distortion.
I'm well aware that many people prefer audio components, audio systems with colored sound. I myself generally like it when a loudspeaker or amplifier produces sound that is richer than the reality. I still don't endorse the endeavors for designing for colored sound. Why? Because this is also a kind of distortion (even if it's pleasant), and in this way you'll not hear what the musical author and the sound engineer dreamed of, instead your system will have imprinted its sonic character on each recording. If you buy or build a system with colored sonic character, you'll be forced to listen to its tonality all the time, you can't remove it for a single moment. For example, if a musical composition was aimed at imparting a sorrowful mood, (e.g. think of a funeral march), and your loudspeaker lends it a happy and vivid tonality, would that fit the artistic efforts of the composer? I would like to give it up to the artists, orchestrators, sound engineers to decide if they want to make the recording colored and to what extent. For example, the sound engineer can use a microphone with any sonic character to his/her preference, can put the signal through a tube preamplifier with rich tonality etc. Chances are that the sound engineer had already made the sound of a recording colored in this way, now if your system further intensifies that, then it will easily be "too much of the good", the recording will sound corny and tiring to listen to in the long run. The loudspeakers and amplifier I designed would like to remain in the background and serve "unawares" and unobtrusively.
In mid 2017 when I launched this website, I had been searching for a free domain name on .com. I was getting very desperate as my quest went on for hours and all the names I could think of that sounded catchy had already been taken. Then I remember trying europaudio.com and no surprise it had also been taken. Why not "euraudio", it pronounces very much like "your audio" so it fits a DIY audio site like charm, besides I live in Europe... click... and lo and behold: euraudio.com was free!
I still can (and must) learn a lot, so I gladly accept observations, reflections, corrections and amendments to what I have written.