I can’t comment as to the kits referenced above, but have built a few well researched/thought out designs of my own. Many moons, piles of MDF dust, and iteration finally resulted in something that by objective measurements is “good.” You know what? To mine own ears, this Active MTM Bathroom-Shelf-Bachelor-Speaker-Thing sounds quite nice really. Sonically, it lays “the veil” quite nicely over those ghastly 200-400Hz (ish) oscillations frequently found in said Speaker-Thing’s home . Oh, and I haven’t gotten around to the cosmetics yet, so unless unfinished MDF is your thing, it looks like the end result of aforementioned “oscillations.” . It’ll probably stay that way…
That little speaker, a lark really represents in excess of 100 hours of research, reading, learning, ASRing, more ASRing, then re-ASRing. The actual assembly once I had verified and checked and re-checked everything took maybe a weekend. I agree with all of the above. I have the knowledge, skills, tools, resources, materials to theoretically re-create some very good speakers. In fact, I spent waaaaay too many hours unsuccessfully trying to figure out who makes the drivers in both the DBR62 and Debut 6.2. I already own two pairs of the former and one of the latter. I was gonna try and recreate my DBR62s. Even if I definitively found the OEM woofers, which I can’t— SB? SEAS? Peerless, Vifa? Wavecor? Anybody?
Buy the DBR62 for $425. Great price, I’m sure if they aren’t to your taste, you’ll have no problem offloading them. If you have an appreciation for good engineering choices, what is possible for asking price (see also JBL Studio 530, have and love them too), they are worth it just to see. I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the woofers in the Elat’s. Especially the woofers in the DBR62s. Wish I knew who made ‘em, curiosity won’t subside.
Whatever choice you make I hope its fun. This forum, and a little research will make it more funnnnnnner!