[.ca] Designing, Building, and Testing Your Own Speaker System ... (ISBN 007069429X)

Too basic to be useful:
The author covers a variety of subjects but too lightly to be useful. Too much effort is spent on things that are useless. For example, Testing of Loudspeakers - part of the book's title - is barely 13 pages and is so basic as to not allow tuning of cabinet design. Rather this section focuses on determining specifications that speakers already come with. Suggestion of using PVC piping for ducts and asphalt paper for damping really remove any credibility for a successful high fidelity outcome using these techniques. Pictures of a hammer over a brad and a ruler on a woofer kind of tells it all. Many pages taken up with basic programming print outs - stuff that's available in Windows format free on the internet now. Horn designs are not covered and the project section only has a couple of basic designs. That said, the author does a great job telling you how to make inductors for cross-over networks.I was done with this 200 page book in about 1 hour. Rather dissapointing.

There are better resources on the web for free:
I bought this book as part of a two book purchase for a reference for a home built speaker project. The info that's there seems valid but doesn't cover the title's impression. There is no real info on building speakers and the design data is a little hard to follow. There are much better resources on the web. The basic program just shows how dated the book is. I am sorry that I spent money on this...publication.

LIttle hard to get round:
Maybe it's my lack of knowledge with the whole area of speaker design but I thought that the book was a little dated to start with. Additionally, I felt that the whole part on determining the characteristics of the speaker driver was unnecessary as most drivers come with this data. Perhaps pointing this out with less coverage would have been good. The book covers determing box size and vented boxes rather well but falls down in the projects section which is basically a list of ideas. I would have liked to see the book focussing more on designing boxes with multiple drivers etc. Maybe it's because the book is so dated that it like that. And please, loose the BASIC programs!

Highly Recommended:
I bought the 1st edition of this book back around 1981 and have built both sealed and vented systems as well as fitted existing enclosures with just the right woofer, all with very happy results. I owe it all to what I've learned from this book. Thank you Mr. Weems! But alas, the ol' book has gotten worn so I decided a couple of weeks ago to order a new copy, the 4th edition. When it finally came I was very happy to see not only did it still retain all the information and programs I've grown to trust was still there, but has been expanded. There isn't the variety of projects as in the first edition but that didn't bother me because I've learned that by the time you get around to building the "projects" the components are usually discontinued anyway. BASIC programs isn't a problem for me but might be for some people as a lot of them may not even know what BASIC is or may not want to take the time to type them in. No need to worry though because you can order both the BASIC and Windows versions of the program through the book... If you like it, buy it. The Bottom line is, If your just an average joe, "like me" and you want to learn how build great sounding speakers that you'll be proud of.. without being a phd, or going broke.. then get this book.

Excellent Book:
Unlike some others I found the basic listings to be very useful indeed. I did have a few problems with LDP but after more than a little debugging it works quite well. This book covered the topic better than I expected, more than enough for an interested amateur. One thing I would like, if David B.Weems is still alive... a web site where I could download the source code for both versions of LDP. C'mon Weemsy mate, you can do it...