Acoustic 8x10 cab mods

I finally pulled some speakers on this reissue Acoustic 8x10....it has 3 partial 1/2 inch thick mdf shelves placed inside the cabinet, with a cutout on the front speaker baffle.

So basically there is not enough reinforcement on the front speaker baffle..... when you tap the front baffle in the middle section top to bottom it vibrates like crazy!

The sides are actually quite strong and the back baffle has the shelving attached all the way across the back.

So.......I am adding four 1" x 1/2" x 13 3/8" reinforcement boards running from the front to back baffle in the weakest point.....this will tie together the front and back baffles as they will be glued and screwed in place....this is similar to how Marshall reinforces their 4x12's front to back.

The next issue is the shelves themselves vibrate (what a cheap design)...so I will tie them together as well.

This will add some weight maybe 4 to 5 pounds but I know will improve the cab performance by minimizing vibration on the front baffle, back baffle and shelves inside.

I can load pics to cell phones or Facebook if any wants to see what the inside looks like in these Acoustic reissue 8x10's.

Thought I would share!

 

ember: 163829"]I have one and wouldn't mind seeing their innards .[/QUOTE]
If you pull one speaker you will see what I am talking about.

 

Well another discovery....the accordion edge on the speakers are not properly doped, they POSSIBLY leak air.

SOOO....now I have to decide what to use to seal the accordion edge.....probably Weldwood contact cement which is widely used to dope speaker edges & cones.

 

Finally I completed the cabinet bracing on my Acoustic 8x10.

I added 3 front to back baffle braces made of 1 1/2" x 1/1/2" thick boards.....I tapped the whole cabinet with a hammer and found the weakest spots were the front and back baffles.

Each brace was cut to wedge in tightly with carpenters glue on each end and drilled with 1 black wood screw on each end to hold even more tightly.

The 3 shelves inside the were basically braced the same way using one brace in the middle of the top and middle shelf & then the middle to bottom shelf was braced with 2 more braces spread apart.

Before, the shelves vibrated badly.....Very poor design...the back and front baffles were not solid before the added bracing....the plywood being a cheaper grade no doubt.

So again, each brace was wedged in tightly with glue and an added wood screw on each end.

Now the cabinet is VERY solid and I probably did not add more than 3 lbs. to the whole cabinet.

The result is the overall tone & bass is much more focused and defined....the speakers definitely have their limitations but were severely compromised by the vibrating cabinet.

I can now run my GK 400 RBIII with the input and master volume at 10 and add in just a bit of the boost (no more than 10 o clock on the boost or about 3) and my Peavey Fury with a Duncan SPB2 (hot P pickup) sounds excellent with great dynamics according to pick attack, however the bass is turned somewhat low as the SPB2 pickup has a huge amount of bottom end.

All in all, well worth the effort, but it did take me at least 10 hours total.

Compared to my Eden Metro 2x10, the Acoustic 8x10 doesn't seem to go as deep but the extra cone area of the 8x10 just adds something to the mids.....of course the cabinet is NOW tight, adding little to no coloration to the sound.

I do have my Eden Metro 2x10 sitting on top of a 4x10 cabinet otherwise its hard to hear the 2x10 on the floor in a smaller room.

I have pics on my cell if I can figure out how to load them here.