Another DIY cab thread. Loud, Small, and Cheap. 22 pounds that pounds.

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

Let me start by saying, "Talkbass, I've missed you." The last year has been crazy, but that's another story.

Any ways, since I've been playing out pretty much once a week in a small quiet acoustic setting, my cab needs have changed. The BP102 loaded DIY 210 I was using is complete overkill, so I went in search of a small cab that matched well with my LM3. All of the cabs and combos were either to heavy for what they were or didn't fall within my budget. 600$ for a small bass cab just seems overly steep to me. Nothing used in the area that I cared for. The other, and my favorite option, Build it.


Here is the front, the baffle is 3/4" birch ply and the rest is 1/2" birch ply with 1" wide strips on edge held in with 23g pin nails and urethane (gorilla glue).


A shot of the non skid feet


Here is the back. Its rear ported at the bottom. I cut the screws short, but not short enough on one side. A second cut on the screw and little paint and it doesn't show.

A shot of the port and the speak on plug hole.

The driver, is a B&C 12CL64. $116 from partsexpress.com. it was the last one, but they should have more soon. B&C recommended a 1.41cuft cab port tuned to 64HZ for this speaker. After running a few different cab dimensions in WinISD, I found one that I liked, thought would work well for my needs, and was very close to what the manufacturer recommended.

I haven't mounted the top handle yet, but I'll take more pictures after its done.
I'll get some shots of the horizontal bracing as well as how I lined it, since I have to pull the speaker to cut for the flush mount handle and clean the inside after wards.

According to WinISD, this cab should take 237watts before reaching Xmax, with an F3 of 62HZ. Its no Low end monster like my 210, but with a 98db sensitivity and very forward mids, its no slouch either. Honestly, it sounds alot like a Markbass 121 without the tweeter. It looks like the OEM driver Markbass uses has the cone of the 12CL64 and the frame and magnet of the 12hp64.

Cost break down,
Speaker $116
Recessed handle $6
Speak on plug $3
Truck bed liner spray paint from Lowe's $7
Non skid few $2
Wood filler, glue and plywood I already had.
This project can be completed for around $180 if you has to buy everything

More picks to come.

 

[will33]

Damn nice man.

62hz at those spl's is nothing to sneeze at. That's the first overtone of a lowB and will make your low E plenty big.

You mention your dual bp-102 rig as being overkill. You do realize this is louder right?

Smaller package to carry though and volume knobs go down as easy as they go up.

Lack of subwoofy stuff ought to mix nice at those gigs.

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

Thanks Will33.
Overkill probably isnt the beat way to word it. The 210 is just so..... big and industrial looking. And the 112 is much smoother through out the frequencies and more portable. The 12 is about the same volume with my head, but the BP's have the lowlow low's that make animals leave their young haha. The 2 cabs are on totally different ends as far as sound goes, its like the 112 sneaks in the mix and pushes it to the audience, where the 210 just bear hugs the room.

Might be time to cut the 210 in half to use an 8 ohm 110 sub with the 8 ohm 112 top...... They share the exact same footprint after all....

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

Here is the adhesive backed Velcro, before staples.
The grill. Its lighter than a full baffle , but since I don't care for the look of them, it got covered.
The back of the cloth grill frame. Its 3/4"plywood strips. It fits tight, and doesn't need the Velcro, but it never hurts to use it.
Very plain, but its what I was going for.

 

[JimmyM]

Nice! Bet it sounds great.

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

To me, it sounds like a MB NY121 with a little VLE rolled in since I opted against a horn. It is about 25% lighter and around $400 cheaper

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

The hardware used. These flush mount handles have a solid metal center, and plenty of overlap between the cut out and the screw holes. Not bad for 5$
the back of the B&C speaker. @ 2.6 pounds, it feels like its fake. The cones are stiff, look to have some type of fiber reinforcement on the back and a little bit of a sheen. I'd be willing to bet its a coating for water/humidity protection.

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

4" dust cap. The mids are strong with this one. Its light, loud, cheap and if your in to a mid heavy sound with tight controllable lows, sounds good.
assembled, minus the grill cloth.

The finished product. Came in at a whopping.........19.8 pounds on the bathroom scale, nails the Markbass tone I was going for, looks clean and well built, is easily cleanable and basically kicks @##.
Tone, so thick, so good.

 

[oerk]

Nice! I like the rounded corners without corner protectors, gives it a modern PA cab-ish look.

 

[will33]

Thanks Will33.
Overkill probably isnt the beat way to word it. The 210 is just so..... big and industrial looking. And the 112 is much smoother through out the frequencies and more portable. The 12 is about the same volume with my head, but the BP's have the lowlow low's that make animals leave their young haha. The 2 cabs are on totally different ends as far as sound goes, its like the 112 sneaks in the mix and pushes it to the audience, where the 210 just bear hugs the room.

Might be time to cut the 210 in half to use an 8 ohm 110 sub with the 8 ohm 112 top...... They share the exact same footprint after all....

Gotcha on the completely different voicings between those two. Nice option to have, and nice job on the cab all around.

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

A shot of the 1" batting I used for lining.

Heavy on the glue, but aside from the top, it doesn't take many staples to hold the batting on. Just the occasional shot in to the bracing.
A trick that works for me, when making marks for your cuts, instead of marking where the material is bunched up, I make the mark much lower so it lines up better.

The batting covers it, but the handle screws in to the wider braces on the top. Probably unnecessary, but if its worth doing, its worth doing well.

We broke this cab in properly the other night in a room aprox. 35' by 70' with about 60 people. It easily carries that room for what we do, and still had a lot to spare

Off topic, but these are good. Basically.

 

[will33]

Yes those are basically good...basically.

 

[INTP]

Nice work. I've been thinking of doing something similar, a small and light cabinet that is easily transportable but good for rehearsals and small(ish) gigs. I also want to keep it simple with a 1-way design (woofer with enough mids to cover bass). Also not wanting subwoofer range, so F3 around 60 would be fine.

I like the nice clean look of yours. Putting the port shelf on the back really helps make the front lines clean. I know everyone puts corner protectors on their cabinets, but for a small lightweight cabinet, they really don't do much. And when you can build your own cabinet, the box doesn't seem so precious...

That driver looks like a good match for a small box, and the price is good for that power and weight. The chart shows it falling off around 3k-5k which seems just right for bass.

 

[Woodstockz]

Good DIY project. Things have been quiet on the DIY front lately. Thanks for posting.

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

Good DIY project. Things have been quiet on the DIY front lately. Thanks for posting.

Ive noticed that. Seems that a lot of the "help" is gone, and if its a new idea, people bash it or tell you to stick with an existing design.

Nice work. I've been thinking of doing something similar, a small and light cabinet that is easily transportable but good for rehearsals and small(ish) gigs. I also want to keep it simple with a 1-way design (woofer with enough mids to cover bass). Also not wanting subwoofer range, so F3 around 60 would be fine.

I like the nice clean look of yours. Putting the port shelf on the back really helps make the front lines clean. I know everyone puts corner protectors on their cabinets, but for a small lightweight cabinet, they really don't do much. And when you can build your own cabinet, the box doesn't seem so precious...

That driver looks like a good match for a small box, and the price is good for that power and weight. The chart shows it falling off around 3k-5k which seems just right for bass.

If you were in this area, Id let you play it to see if its your flavor or not. I chose this speaker for a few reasons, the lack of weight and price were just bonuses. I looked in to Eminence drivers, but the don't make anything with that flat of a response in the reigon
I wanted without going with a crossover and dual speaker design. Looked at some Celestion speakers, and my opinion of them is even lower.
The rear port was used mainly for overall cab dimensions, I like to work with whole numbers and use 1/2"material. To build it with the port on the front, one of the cabs dimensions would have been a funky number, and it would have been more math to center the handle than I used to build the whole thing.
Its 15" wide, 15" deep and 17" tall. The baffle is recessed 1" and the port is 1 1/2" tall by 13 1/2" wide (the width of the interior dimensions minus the 1/2" center brace) the port shelf is 7"long.
Its an easy build IMO, but I built speaker enclosures for cars for almost 10 years.

Yes those are basically good...basically.

The plainer flavors are much better IMO. We bought one of the variety 12 packs to try them. there is one with ginger that I didn't care for, but I don't like ginger at all, not even with sushi. And one called Ederflower....... Remember as a kid, when you get a hold of cologne and walk right through the mist you sprayed, but forgot to close your mouth? Its totally got that going on.

 

[Lethgar]

Is there a pre-made box on PE that would work well for this build?

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

Is there a pre-made box on PE that would work well for this build?

I couldn't really answer that, because I didn't look at any pre made boxes. Generally, they are made of MDF which is much heavier and doesn't hold up as well as plywood. They are also usually covered in a carpet which I also don't care for because I have dogs and cant keep it clean.

If you can get accurate dimensions to some pre made cabs, its fairly simple to model this, or any speaker with published specs. The width, height and depth of the cab as well as the height, width and depth of the port, or the diameter and length on a round port are the measurements needed.

If you find a pre made box of similar size, and give me all the numbers, I can run it through my program and see what it looks like. The manufacture recommends 1.41 CuFt port tuned to 64HZ, and every scenario close to that that I modeled looked like it would be fine.

If building it your self isn't an option, id look in to having some type of cabinet/wood working business make it, or cut your pieces for you. Id imagine you could get the whole "kit" cut for a good price and assemble it with finish nails or screws and some type of urethane based glue. The urethane will foam up and seal every thing so there isn't a need to caulk it afterwards. It is messy though. Or if you supplied the plywood, a good car audio shop should be able to make a box like that pretty quickly.

 

[pie_man_25]

I dig it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that B&C driver looks fairly similar to the eminence Basslite.

 

[Lowactnsatsfctn]

I dig it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that B&C driver looks fairly similar to the eminence Basslite.

The link showed the 15", which is way different.

There is a 12" version that looks similar, the S2012. The specs are pretty different and the weight is way off. Almost the speaker I used, but the power handling in the lows was much lower according to WinISD and the midrange graphs didn't seem as smooth.

The eminence drivers Ive used in the past had different styled labels and screwed the magnets on. The B&C had a hologram sticker and epoxies the magnet. The terminals are attached differently and the front gaskets are different. The cut out sizes are almost 1/4" different also. The Eminence uses a layered paper one where the B&C uses a rubberized gasket. Overall, it seems like a very high quality speaker, and I seriously doubt these woofers share any design or manufacturing

 

[pie_man_25]

The link showed the 15", which is way different.

There is a 12" version that looks similar, the S2012. The specs are pretty different and the weight is way off. Almost the speaker I used, but the power handling in the lows was much lower according to WinISD and the midrange graphs didn't seem as smooth.

The eminence drivers Ive used in the past had different styled labels and screwed the magnets on. The B&C had a hologram sticker and epoxies the magnet. The terminals are attached differently and the front gaskets are different. The cut out sizes are almost 1/4" different also. The Eminence uses a layered paper one where the B&C uses a rubberized gasket. Overall, it seems like a very high quality speaker, and I seriously doubt these woofers share any design or manufacturing

I don't recall posting a link, but I get yah. Also, I don't think they share design or manufacturing either, they just seem to be two different takes on a similar niche - lightweight 12" woofer with decent excursion and mid-range capabilities.