Le Petit after Jean Hiraga — building my speakers, part 2: the little diva

The first note was the moment I had been working towards since Christmas. Until then, my Le Petit speakers had mainly been a project made of wood, veneer, felt and quite a lot of dust. Now they had to show whether all that work would also pay off when I listened to music.

My partner listened, looked surprised and grinned. I had to grin too. But I soon noticed that these little speakers have minds of their own. With some recordings they delight me immediately. With others, I feel that something is missing. That is exactly why they became little divas to me.

Before I reached that point, however, I still needed stands, terminals and a few corrections to my design ideas. The route to the finished pair was less straightforward than I had hoped.

Part 1: the cabinets, the Fostex drivers and my first attempt at veneering →

The stands: a good idea that took several attempts

After a visit to the DIY store, I built suitable speaker stands. By then I had put so much work into veneering the cabinets that I wanted the stands to look the part as well. My first idea was to coat them with metal leaf. I imagined an interesting steel-like finish.

After applying a great many sheets, the result stood in front of me. Unfortunately, it looked nothing like what I had imagined. At least I now knew how the technique worked. I simply no longer knew why I had wanted to use it here of all places. You could call it a failed attempt. I prefer ‘elaborate further education followed by sanding’.

So it all came off again. Sand, prime again, paint. Black looked much calmer and allowed the veneer of the speakers to take centre stage.

The next surprise was waiting in the top plate. I had matched it exactly to the size of the cabinet. Circular recesses were meant to hold the speaker feet so that the cabinets would stand securely. But the openings on one side were a few millimetres larger than the board allowed. Suddenly, I had a hole in the side wall.

My rescue attempt was to add veneer around the stand. That closed the damaged area, but made the design look restless. So I sanded it down again and painted it black. Only the top surface kept its veneer.

Some decisions, it seems, only become fully clear after you have made them twice. The stands were originally only meant to carry the speakers. By now, they also carried a considerable part of my woodworking learning curve. In the end, I placed several layers of felt in the recesses for the speaker feet. I also attached two layers of felt underneath the stands. My aim was to cushion the contact surfaces and reduce outside influences. I cannot derive any measured sonic effect from this.

Copper, brass and the final millimetres

For the cable terminals, I used copper plates measuring 10 by 10 centimetres. Cutting the matching recess into the finished veneer was one of those jobs that made me work particularly slowly. There was very little room for a second attempt.

In the photograph, the copper is still protected so that it cannot be scratched. The lettering was to be added later by laser. Christian prepared the artwork for me — another heartfelt thank-you to him here.

I also chose the screws for the way they fitted the overall look: round-headed brass screws from boatbuilding, whose heads I even polished. In the HiFi world, people occasionally discuss whether screw materials influence sound. My decision was much simpler: the brass suited the wood and the copper. The fact that I even polished screw heads probably says more about the excesses of my hobby than it does about acoustics.

How do the Le Petit speakers sound in my room?

I had already enjoyed building them. For the first time I had veneered, built cabinets, soldered and solved a string of small problems. Even so, I would have been disappointed if all I had produced in the end were two attractive wooden boxes.

Even then, the Le Petit speakers surprised me with their sound. In my living room, these small speakers create an incredible soundstage — not only in width, but also in depth. The music detaches itself from the cabinets and stands in the room. Visitors sometimes stand in front of them in disbelief and can barely believe that all of it is coming from these small speakers.

The Le Petit speakers sound genuinely good. For me, part of their special appeal lies in the full-range concept: voices and instruments feel coherent and immediate. The fact that they reveal their own idiosyncrasies with some recordings does not change that. To me, they are little divas — but ones I very much enjoy listening to.

Guitars and drums are among the things that particularly appeal to me through them. It is that impression of a recording opening up and allowing me to perceive its construction more clearly. The fact that a single full-range driver in each cabinet is doing all this still amazes me.

I particularly enjoy Yello through them. Some tracks suit the Le Petit so well that I inevitably linger over them. The small speakers convey a sense of space and detail that I would not automatically have expected before I built them.

A little diva has limits too

That is not true of every recording, however. With some tracks, I miss the bass. I then want more foundation, and my enthusiasm is less immediate. I already knew about this characteristic from other builders’ accounts; now I could hear it for myself at home.

An additional bass speaker was therefore already under consideration at the time. The first DIY build was barely finished and I had already found the next possible project. Apparently, even while listening to music I can still discover more work. For the moment, however, I wanted to get to know the Le Petit on their own. A speaker does not have to be equally convincing with every piece of music to earn a permanent place in my hobby. These two make certain recordings interesting in a way that I very much like to hear again.

My impressions relate to my pair, my system and the positioning I used at the time. This is a personal listening account, not a universal test result for every Le Petit build.

A listening sample and my Le Petit playlist

At the time, I recorded a short, unedited clip with Yello on my iPhone: Watch my Le Petit listening sample on YouTube →. The video documents that moment. Naturally, the phone microphone and subsequent playback can only convey the way the speakers actually sound in the room to a limited extent.

To help me find my favourite recordings for this pair quickly, I also created a dedicated collection: Listen to my Le Petit playlist on TIDAL →. It contains tracks that give me particular pleasure through these speakers. Perhaps you will discover something for your own system there too.

What remains from this building project

By early January 2023, the speakers were almost finished. The terminal lettering still had to be added, and I also needed to think about their final position. But the decisive question had been answered: yes, for me this DIY build had been worth it.

What remains with me

What I take away from the detours

I had learned new practical skills and could then listen to music through something I had built myself. For me, the mistakes belong to this story too. Next time, I would approach several things differently. Without this first attempt, however, I would not even know what those things were.

One task was still waiting at the end: tidying the room. After all that sanding, dust, tools and leftover material were practically everywhere. The speakers were already playing. Only the workshop was still a long way from being finished. Perhaps tidying up is the hardest part of building loudspeakers: it neither improves the sound nor makes the speakers look better. Unfortunately, you notice quite quickly when you leave it undone.

The two-part Le Petit story: Part 1 — how it all began →

This story first appeared on 12 January 2023 on Michi’s Oldtimer. For Klanggeschichten, I retold and structured it on 9 October 2026. The main text describes that stage of my project at the time; the dated update adds my listening experience today.