Lena, you sure can pick 'em! For a long time, Dynaudio was selling their drivers to the "DIY" market. A few years ago, they pulled out. For some reason their drivers are still fairly sought after. Check Ebay some time, and you may see a pair or two here and there, and they get pretty good money for them. I've heard a few (DIY) systems using Dynaudio drivers, and they were good, but I've heard better. Depending on how much you want to spend on speakers, there are a lot of great driver manufacturers out there. Just last weekend we had a little get-together here in Iowa for local speaker builders. There were some really great designs there using some really nice drivers. Here are some of the impressions I have...

My personal experience was that I could tell the biggest difference between speakers in the highest frequencies, so my opinion is that the tweeters may make a bigger difference than the mid/woofers (assuming the woofers were also of high quality). I really like the Scan Speak tweeters. The Hiquiphon OWIII that I heard was also pretty nice. The Seas Millenium and Dynaudio D260 were also pretty nice, but didn't please my ear quite as much. Again, personal preference. I've never heard a ribbon tweeter, but everything I've heard about them indicates that they are hard to get right. I would think that because of their typical poor dispersion, they wouldn't be real good for HT use. (Some may be great for dedicated music listening...)

For midbass drivers, there are a lot of options. The Seas Excel drivers seem pretty nice to me. I think that any of the Scan Speak drivers would also be great. I've heard several Peerless, Vifa and Seas systems, and they all seem pretty decent on a cheaper budget.

For a wide variety of kits, check out the stuff on the Zalytron web site. *Most* of them were designed by some really great designers. I usually buy my parts from Parts Express, mostly because it's convenient and they have a pretty big selection. Madisound is probably one of the biggest speaker distributors in the US. They carry some stuff that Parts Express doesn't. They also have some design services, etc.

Check out Gonk's FAQ page. I think there are a bunch of links there to a variety of sources for parts and information. This is definitely a hobby that can consume a lot of time if you allow yourself to become addicted. Although a completely different subject matter, it has a way of pulling you in the way auto work does. For those that are a little technically minded, there's the intellectual side that is fascinating. For those that just like to turn wrenches, there's the "creation from nothing" factor that makes a person proud to say "I built that".

Jason