[Wind Chaser]

There was a time when all office furniture was sold completely assembled, delivered in a crate.  Now a days it seems like everyone who manufactures office furniture only sells and ships their goods knocked down, ready to assemble.

I think this approach would also work for many loudspeaker manufacturers.  I don't see why this isn't possible as most loudspeakers are just a simple box.  It would involve and somewhat educate the customer, reduce shipping costs and claims, lower the cost of production for the manufacturer who could in turn pass the savings onto the customer.  Small up starts could hire a third party to produce their cabinets thus reducing their overhead and capital investment.  Looks very much like a win, win, and win situation to me.

What say you?

[jimdgoulding]

I think this would have appeal for some people, perhaps not all.  I am not a speaker manufacturer.  Don't have any idea about what they would think.

[JohnR]

In comparison to furniture, a) scale/market is much smaller b) just because it stands up doesn't mean it works, and c) local support past "did the screw go into the hole" would be pretty hard to get.

I know what you're saying totally, but then again... you could just figure out how to cut your own panels

[jackman]

Another brilliant idea.   You should take these genius ideas to Ikea.   

[Bob in St. Louis]

Some manufacturers already do this, they're called "flat packs".
If memory serves, I *think* GR Research does it, but don't quote me on that.
Also, some guys have "special" things inside their speakers they don't want the general public to know about. Ed's horns come to mind.
Also, something else to keep in mind, if you take your average handy guy who has put together a couple things he bought at Walmart.....How badly do you think he'd hack up a pair of Salks? 

Bob

[werd]

Wouldnt it cost more in shipping to do this?

[neyloj2]

The manufacturer wouldn't warrant the product if every yahoo that bought them assembled them. I could really screw up the cross overs and wiring.

[johzel]

The manufacturer wouldn't warrant the product if every yahoo that bought them assembled them.

I resemble that remark . . . that would be me!  Thank goodness I don't have to assemble anything - otherwise I wouldn't own any audio equipment  . . . or furniture for that matter.  Although I did change tubes in my preamp last week - pretty impressed with myself.  I admire those of you with DIY abilities - that gene just skipped over me. 

[Quiet Earth]

I'm good at putting "assembly required" furniture together, but I have terrible wood working skills. Please don't ask me to cut anything that resembles a straight line.  And what about glue? I've never had to glue any of my assembly required furniture. Wanna see a big mess? Bring it over to my house, I'll glue it for you. 

most loudspeakers are just a simple box

Are you sure about that?

[TheChairGuy]

What say you?

It's probably not economically viable...but, I admire your enthusiasm for it

For one, I'd assume the vast majority of ALL speakers sold worldwide are bookshelves (keeping in mind that mass sales including computer-oriented setups are probably the largest segment of speakers sold, all in all, not our eeny-weeny specialist slice).  So, thousands already fit in container from China where many are made or in a truck from the US or Canada, where some are still made.

btw, it costs ~ $5000 today for a container to ship from Shanghai or Yantian ports in China (the two busiest ports in China and centers of the Chinese electronics industry) to New York / Newark...and these are the two costliest ports to deliver to in either US or Canada. All the other ports are less costly to deliver to.

If said mass manufacturer could put 2000 speakers on a 40 hi-cube container (I'm just guess-timating this), it adds only USD$2.50 to the cost of each speaker to cover freight. Hardly, a deal breaking amount in the final cost of a speaker bought at Best Buy, or Walmart, etc. If you're Walmart, you probably have pre-nogotiated rates 30-40% less than many, so it may only be $3000 to get the goods to Port of NY/Newark and you'd have even less built into the cost of the speaker to cover freight costs.

Also, the end result for furniture is a lot different than with speakers.  Furniture needs to be stable after assembly; speakers need not only to be stable, but also have no air gaps (except the ports if so equipped) between the panels. 

Not that this cannot be done....you can buy knock-down speaker cabinets from several places in the US and Canada today - a few of them: Parts Express, Zalytron, and Madisound. But, you need glue, clamps and much time to finish it...a lot longer than an hour it might take making a file cabinet

Speaker kits at Parts Express (fully finished cabinets in cherry, maple and gloss black even): http://www.parts-express.com/wizards/searchResults.cfm?srchExt=CAT&srchCat=769

John 

[JLM]

I know of a few vendors that offer this option, and at greatly reduced prices.  If you're half way handy, but lack a decent workshop, table saw, and/or garage you can still assemble these in an apartment. 

After one year of highschool woodworking class I built a pair of 6 cu. ft. transmission line bass cabinets.  Not terrible hard, but I only had the shop/table saw for a limited time, and sweated making mistakes.  The gluing up of the cabinets is child's play.  The real question is if the panels can be preveneered.

As far as cost savings for shipping, it's probably minimal for standmounts (or subs that are mostly wood, driver, and amp inside).

[Wayner]

Engineering a product to end up being a kit, as you would suggest would involve many trade-offs for design, shipping and overall quality. While the cabinet could be designed to be knocked-down, there is the fact that drivers, cross-overs, acoustic stuffing would all have to find a home inside yet another box. It would in fact be many boxes inside of one even larger box.

Now you have an over-enthusiastic DIYer earger as hell to assemble these new speakers, so the manufacturer would have to create assembly instructions that any 3rd grader could follow. Soldering skills would have to be taken into account, and then there are always accidents.

Even after final assembly there would have to be tests. Does the cabinet buzz at certain frequencies, because a joint was poorly glued or fastened? Many, many problems are foreseen.

So infact, this effort, not only increased the size of the shipping container, but cost more then it's assembled and tested unit.

Wayner

[planet10]

We manufacture a few flat-paks. uFonken, a number of milliSize enclosures, Fonken Floorstander, Mileva, the Frugel-Horn 3 once it has passed thru beta. We'd like to do more but they are a challenge to make a flat-pak for that does not require a table saw at the other end.

All these designs are single driver with no crossovers/filters.

These are primarily aimed at people who want to diy but don't have the woodworking kit needed to work from scratch. A drill, screwdriver, glue, clamps (can be masking/packing tape on some, and a soldering iron). They require finishing after assembly, a pre-finished flatpak is much more of a challenge.

We limit ourselves to packages that fit into the post (max 30 kg) and 1m max dimension, Shipping costs can be quite a bit less (especially if you end up shipping just 1 package instead of 2), and cost to the end user is ~ 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost of a finished enclosure.

dave

[Eric]

Maybe we could do this with Cars as well 

[turkey]

Some speakers are mostly assembled from a single piece of vinyl-covered particle board. You just cut both sides of the mitre at once, cut through the vinyl in some places and not in others, then just fold up the sides, top and bottom and you've got 5 sides of the box. Add on a baffle or a cabinet back and you're done.

I would think that shipping these out flat would be more expensive than just selling them assembled.

Also, better cabinets have radiused edges to avoid diffraction, and this can be difficult to do as a kit. (I will never buy another pair of speakers that don't have edges with 2" or greater radius rounding.)

Warranty issues and customer satisfaction are also going to be major problems. Not everyone has the skills or disposition to assemble a cabinet, but they'll try it in order to save some money. Then the speaker company has to try to clean up the mess.

The speaker maker also has to write the instructions for assembly and testing. Writing docs is difficult for many people, and they won't spend the money to have a technical writer do it properly. This is why parents shudder when they buy toys with "some assembly required."

It's difficult to test a kit, so much of the quality control gets left to the end user. Given the problems some offshore products already have with QA, I wouldn't want to buy a kit from them.

This is only a few of the potential problems I can see with flat-pack speaker kits...

[cujobob]

High End Audio is almost as much about appearance as it is sound.  Soldering is not something all people do, though there are workarounds for that.  Since a lot of speakers are built out of the country, labor isn't as big of a cost as it once was.  However, for smaller companies, this is likely an issue.

[Barry_NJ]

Maybe we could do this with Cars as well 

I'm game...

[Bob in St. Louis]

Atta boy.  Rock on Brother.