Welcome!
To be brutally honest, DIY speakers are almost never awesome (except to the proud papa).
DIY speakers are all but impossible to audition prior to completing them, so you're getting into a complete unknown. Mistakes can be made. Good veneering products have come a long way but great veneering is very hard for a DIYer to pull off. And DIY gear has very low resale value. If you go the DIY speaker route, do it for the fun of building something.
The best speakers come from leading companies, like Dynaudio or JBL for instance that have deep R&D and in-house manufacturing resources along with long histories. They have access to the best drivers and produce in numbers that allow for relatively low cost. The JBL 305 Mk2 is a good example of high value, very good sounding speakers ($300/pair that includes built-in power amps that fit on a desktop or can fill a medium sized room). There's no way a DIYer can match that price/performance combination.
