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AudioKinesis Cabs Part VI...

#6,241
It just a quick prediction here, the small size of the acoustic image speaker is going to be a huge factor in what I believe will be a successful design for him. Time will tell. (Although I believe having two speakers facing forward will be a Improvement on that design) Nobody is going to care about not putting an amp on the top. Especially if it is small. Making it a two-way design will add to the Size. And again, I personally want to hear my full sound coming straight up to my ear not just part of it.. This is a speaker for the upright bass player, similar to the concept behind the birdhouse, which is a speaker for the guys on the stage, my suggestion was just to take it one step further and make it for the most important guy on the stage. And of course, the needs of electric and upright players are very different. I fully believe, as evidenced by the two aforementioned designs, an upright bass player will be just fine with a tweeter Less full range cabinet without a crossover. My current main speaker is a sealed full range cabinet with no crossover and sadly my thunder child stays home for upright gigs.
 
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#6,242
shwashwa said:
I play through sealed Tweetter less cabs without a crossover currently. They work just fine. I want the full range sound coming straight up to my ear , not a crossover frequency band. The Phil Jones is full range, the new acoustic image is one speaker shooting straight up. No crossover. In my opinion amplifiers do not belong on the speaker anyway, so that is a positive as far as I'm concerned. I can find something else to hold an amp. A chair works, the floor works. My main concern is my performance.
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You're probably in a very small minority regarding amp placement.
 
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#6,243
Marial said:
You're probably in a very small minority regarding amp placement.
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I guess I should mention that I'm talking about upright bass gigs mostly for Jazz, and I'm definitely not in the minority when we're talking about that group of people. Most places I play, whether it be in Manhattan or in the suburbs, there's barely enough room to fit the people in the band much less our gear. And amp underneath my ass shooting straight up would be perfect. I guess time will tell with the acoustic Image Design, I was just struck by it considering I was asking for this a year ago and I think having two speakers in each Direction would actually be better retaining the floor coupling, but perhaps the vent underneath the acoustic image does that somehow, I don't know
 
#6,245
shwashwa said:
No need to get overly complicated here. The Phil Jones design has been around for many years and is successful and gets good reviews from the people who use it.
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I don't have access to the Phil Jones driver, which has unusually good top-end extension. Imo there is no point in me doing something inferior to Phil Jones in an area that matters.

shwashwa said:
I personally want to hear my full sound coming straight up to my ear not just part of it.
Click to expand...

You'll still get fullrange sound up above the cab because I'll pay attention to the radiation patterns and how they combine through the crossover region.
 
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#6,246
Boy, one minor pitfall of being a boutique designer is no matter what amazing designs you come up with, someone insists you change everything based on their personal thoughts.

I make my living as an upright player. I put my amp right on top of the amp, just like practically everyone else. Great two way designs like Dukes are far superior to get all the subtleties of upright bass IN MY OPINION. I care a great deal what the audience thinks of my tone and the benefits of good dispersion pretty much speak for themselves. I also used a tc115AF on the floor and heard myself very well for many gigs in many different rooms.

I dunno. Just my two cents...Duke is one of the best designers out there and I'd be a lot more excited to hear what HE comes up with next :)
 
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#6,247
I think about everything bass players take the time to tell me, because they are telling me things that bass players want. Shwashwa may very well be right - a better Birdhaus configuration may very well have one of the speakers up-firing. But when I think of "building a killer dedicated upright bass cab", what comes to mind is, something with more top-end articulation than what I can get out of the 6" cone in the Birdhaus 46. That's why I lean towards a two-way for this application.

The big picture would be, good dispersion all the way up the spectrum that fully includes the upright bass player (who is virtually on top of the cab), and does a decent job for the rest of the band as well, is highly desirable. That's where the goal posts are, and shwashwa has done a great job of communicating that. I'm pretty sure it CAN be done - it's just a matter of HOW best to go about it.
 
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#6,248
And FYI I'm not criticizing Dukes design or anything like that, I want to see him fill this niche before anybody else does and sell a million cabinets. I'm literally quite surprised that the Phil Jones design isn't offered without the amp integrated into it. I would love to see Duke be first to Market with this.
 
#6,249
DukeLeJeune said:
I haven't forgotten your suggestion, but imo it needs to be a two-way cab for the sake of clarity top-end and articulation, and a two-way Birdhaus is overly complexicated.

What I have in mind would have multiple 3" cones (kinda like the Changeling) and a single woofer. Imo my custom 10" looks good for this application, as it is very smooth.

I'm still mentally juggling some of the tradeoffs, as there are several different ways this can be done. I may have to move the handle around to the side.

And then there's this: An amp sitting atop the cab is almost guaranteed to at least partially block the upfiring driver. Is that okay?
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What about a kick-back (monitor) styled cab: 1 woofer & 3 hi-mids - 1 hi-miid on baffle, 1 on each end of cab - side-firing?
You could have the baffle at ~30 degree angle to the floor?
 
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#6,250
Maybe something self-propelled that could shoot lighting bolts at drunks?

Screen Shot 2017-09-23 at 10.43.15 PM.png
 
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#6,251
John D Harris said:
What about a kick-back (monitor) styled cab: 1 woofer & 3 hi-mids - 1 hi-miid on baffle, 1 on each end of cab - side-firing?
You could have the baffle at ~30 degree angle to the floor?
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A small,angled, powered monitor(run off the line out, head phone out) with volume control that can sit on top of an amp.

Or, more simply, just use a stand. Doesn't take up any extra room and gets the cab high enough to not need a extra, upward firing speaker.
 
#6,252
shwashwa said:
I play through sealed Tweetter less cabs without a crossover currently. They work just fine. I want the full range sound coming straight up to my ear , not a crossover frequency band. The Phil Jones is full range, the new acoustic image is one speaker shooting straight up. No crossover. In my opinion amplifiers do not belong on the speaker anyway, so that is a positive as far as I'm concerned. I can find something else to hold an amp. A chair works, the floor works. My main concern is my performance.
Click to expand...

You're not alone by any means. I've been talking to Duke about a similar tangent for a good while now. I am extremely confident that he already has a better mousetrap in the works. A well designed crossover will leave you with full range sound at your ears, that's pretty much the whole point. But one thing I don't agree on at all is increasing my overall gig footprint by putting my amp somewhere else. Another chair onstage just for my amp? Nope, not in my world if I can help it.

And to Duke: the amp potentially blocking any useful output is no bueno, IMHO.
 
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#6,256
shwashwa said:
I play through sealed Tweetter less cabs without a crossover currently. They work just fine. I want the full range sound coming straight up to my ear , not a crossover frequency band. The Phil Jones is full range, the new acoustic image is one speaker shooting straight up. No crossover. In my opinion amplifiers do not belong on the speaker anyway, so that is a positive as far as I'm concerned. I can find something else to hold an amp. A chair works, the floor works. My main concern is my performance.
Click to expand...

Hello Swanson. If I were in your position, I would not try to design the cabinet or its contents; rather I would state only my sonic and other functional objectives. Further I would state what I must, should, and would like to have as distinct objectives.

Leave the technical design to Duke and his ilk. Leave the music making to you and the rest of us. Why? Because what leads you to conclude things such as "no crossover" is based on anecdotal evidence; always after the fact of some concrete solution or other. But what leads Duke to his designs mostly is the application of science and the reconciliation of variables that usually we don't even know exist.
 
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#6,257
shwashwa said:
And FYI I'm not criticizing Dukes design or anything like that, I want to see him fill this niche before anybody else does and sell a million cabinets. I'm literally quite surprised that the Phil Jones design isn't offered without the amp integrated into it. I would love to see Duke be first to Market with this.
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Don't be surprised: if that market were so hot, then Phil Jones would have brought a product to it by now. "a million cabinets"? Probably not even a thousand cabinets.

Though they may have the love, these guys are not doing it for their health. R&D time and materials, inventory (of materials or product), marketing in any form, sales and support... they aren't going to bother unless they think there is a market OR they can make a market. Constrain that further by the small production model of a maker like Duke, and the absence of many types of products from the market is not surprising.
 
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