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DIY enclosure

M

miku

Jul 30, 2010
2
0
#1
Hello
im new here.
i just got my new fender 50's p bass.
apparently my present combo (squire) is going to die soon, so im trying to find a way out :)
Does anyone know a good web site with well described bass enclosures for DIY?
i have build some stereo speakers, so im not a total beginner. there is plenty of material online for guitar, but hard to find anything for the bass.
im planing to buy a decent head do the cabinet myself.
any suggestions will be good :)

i live in finland, and there is limited amount of imported equipment ( small country) so, its hard to find suitable stuff. or they tell me to way 6 months!!! and act like they do me a favour :)

miku
 
#5
Moi Miku.

Tervetuloa TalkBass foorumiin.

I second Paul's suggestion to take either the fEarful approach (traditional 2&3 way IIRC) or BFM approach (modern horn loaded enclosures).

While the Eminence enclosure designs are great, and work well with their drivers, a sad truth is that building a traditional 1 way enclosure won't mean saving money, ever.

If You however build a fEarful cab, you'll get a full range cab for less than half the price compared with "eqvivalent" commercial one. For BFM designs the comparison with commercial units is hard as there's none to compare them with ;). Horn loaded enclosure is way too expensive to manufacture in mass quantities (for MI use) for a reasonable price, but they're perfect for DIYers.

Regards
Sam
 
#6
T-Bird said:
.

While the Eminence enclosure designs are great, and work well with their drivers, a sad truth is that building a traditional 1 way enclosure won't mean saving money, ever.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that, a Deltalite 1-15 DIY cab can come in under $200, and it's probably going to be better than 80% of what you'll find in a music store. You could do an 8 ohm Basslite 2-15 for under $300.
 
#7
muddycreek said:
I don't know about that, a Deltalite 1-15 DIY cab can come in under $200, and it's probably going to be better than 80% of what you'll find in a music store. You could do an 8 ohm Basslite 2-15 for under $300.
Click to expand...

If you're only considering wood and speakers, yes. It's all the little things that add up. What are you going to cover it with? carpet, vinyl, or what? Where are you going to get that stuff and what does it cost? Hardware like corner metal/jacks/wiring and a plate to mount it all in to? What are you going to protect your speakers with. The extra work of a frame that mounts to the front stretched with grillcloth that cost $15/yard or a metal grill that'll cost at least as much and considering build details on the cabinet to accept one or the other but not both?

That's only considering a "one speaker does it all" box. Things like HF be they mid drivers or tweeters or both and the components needed to make them work haven't even been considered yet. What about glue and screws?, your whole shop setup/assemblyline/economy of scale thing? In DIY, the goal can't be to make something basic for cheaper, it'll never work. They've got you in wholesale/quantity buy prices and the fact that they rig up, build things 100 or 1000 or 10,000 at a time instead of 1 at a time....in their shop....not their garage.

Where you get ahead with DIY is doing your homework, asking some hopefully thoughtful questions and spending a ton of time reading and understanding the answers, then building something that in the commercial world would be considered the high end of medium-grade to the best available. That's where the cost benefit comes in...if you consider your time as being free.

You can end up with something that cost a few hundred to build that on the commercial market would have a cost measured in the thousands, or more likely between $1000 and $2000 bucks. You're never going to be able to build a 410/215 or whatever cheaper than somebody who makes 100 of them everyday can....although that may be required for you to gain the knowledge required to build a better box.
 
#8
Hi.

That's just my opinion based on about 25 years of DIY madness and most of the time plain kidding myself ;). Only when I accepted that I want to do things DIY way, it all started to make some sense. That was the time (at least over here), when the few cheapos available were total junk.

Couldn't find a deal on Deltalite I, but the II is around 120€, hardware and misc stuff around 50€, paint around 20€, pre-cut panels and braces out of a quality plywood ~100€. ~290€ for the parts.

That can be cut down by omitting the handles, corners and finish, and/or using lesser grade materials, but why build junk? Or something that looks like junk?

DIY is a great approach, I follow that route with everything I do in life, but IME is seldom a money saver.

Edit:will33 beat me to it :D

Regards
Sam
 
#10
MPU said:
Come on, Miku, it's not THAT hard to find good amps, cabs and stuff in Finland. Have you checked Tori at muusikoiden.net?
Marko
Click to expand...


Mortonki :)
so, when i asked for ampeg b200r combo in soundata, they told me to wait, perhaps till November,(it was in May) assuming it will ever arrive. Someone else told me that the company Importing Ampeg to Europe is in financial trouble.

I'm tracking muusikoiden.net every day. I wanna buy something new, or still on warranty, since any repair is ridiculously expensive.
And I can't get the reason why some wood and one speaker is so expensive. I understand a head, where is plenty of parts and it is complicated construction.

That's why i thought of buying decent head (probably Ampeg) and do the enclosure myself ( especially that i have askarteluhuone in my kerrostalo :)
 

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