building a cab

[gary mitchell]

iam building a 15 cab and i was wondering do you have to have a horn are a tweeter in it i know on my carvin br615 combo i keep the high frequency attenuation turn off. iam using a fane 15 speaker. that i got off of a old bass player from my church its rated at 800 watts,

 

[gregoire1]

I've been considering doing the same thing. I've played thru a 1x15 before (rock metal) without a tweeter just fine. Plenty bright. For my new project I plan on leaving room to add a tweeter (or even better,a mid-range) later. That way I don't have to worry. Let us know what you choose.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

iam building a 15 cab and i was wondering do you have to have a horn are a tweeter in it i know on my carvin br615 combo i keep the high frequency attenuation turn off. iam using a fane 15 speaker. that i got off of a old bass player from my church its rated at 800 watts,

Fifteens should always be mated to a midrange driver, no higher than 1.5Hz, preferably closer to 1kHz. Even if the fifteen has strong response to 4kHz on-axis no fifteen has good response beyond 1.5kHz off-axis, and off-axis is where 90% of your audience is.

 

[black_labb]

thats true, but their not going to be any worse than the 4x10's most people swear by.

not saying its a bad practice, but i dont really agree with the "always must be paired with mid driver".

i do agree that a mid driver would be more important for the sound than a tweeter. a suitable mid driver will cover most of the treble that a tweeter would supply (for bass guitar that is), but the tweeter would leave a pretty big gap in the frequency spectrum.

 

[dannybuoy]

Check out the Greenboy Fearful design on this forum, with an Eminence 3015LF and a 6.5" midrange. That's what I'm planning on building! If you want to build a solo 15", the Eminence 3015 goes up to 5kHz and should do the job well.

 

[joegeezer]

Link Removed

here's a real sweet cab for a great price. I own 2 of them now. I'd buy more.

 

[joegeezer]

http://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SA-215

I also own 2 of these.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

thats true, but their not going to be any worse than the 4x10's most people swear by.
.

A 1x15 will actually have considerably better dispersion than a 4x10, for a variety of reasons. If one needed a poster child for how not to build a speaker cabinet the 4x10 would be it.
One advantage to going DIY is that one does not have to employ the cost-cutting measures employed by manufacturers to maintain competitive price points, nor does one have to worry about the cabinet 'looking right' as opposed to sounding right. If all you're trying to accomplish with a DIY is to reach the same level of performance as a commercial cab you're economically better off to just buy a commercial cab.

 

[greenboy]

If all you're trying to accomplish with a DIY is to reach the same level of performance as a commercial cab you're economically better off to just buy a commercial cab.

Yes, if you are building to save money many actually end off worse. Shaving bucks on drivers and not really willing to learn enough to use the drivers well, it's a crapshoot at best.