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Home built cabs...

JimChjones

JimChjones

Aug 6, 2017
2,147
3,569
SE England
#1
I've often advised people not to build their own cabs, but to go for the secondhand market. And hypocritically I've just completed this one. But in my defence:
1. It's a custom job with storage for amp and cables so I have one trip into rehearsals
2. The driver is secondhand, in fact it's the third cab I've had it in!
3. Much of the wood was left over from other projects.

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And worse, I own three other cabs, all also home built. But two of them are very basic and very mediocre wedge monitors built from left over wood and drivers and fittings from a pair of cabs I got free, whilst my gigging cab is also a special with extra lightweight construction and was also built with a secondhand driver...
If I'm honest none of them are as good as they might be because I haven't put nearly enough effort into tuning and refining porting etc, due to lack of facilities and patience, but hey, good enough for folk music!
 
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#3
nice work for homebuilt, i like the different color wood going thru that.....Looking at 2nd hand or empty 15" cabs...would prefer a wedge type, but dont see any online..gonna be lazy and just go for a seismic audio cab and throw in a neodymium driver, save a few bucks.
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#6
HardNHeavy said:
nice work for homebuilt, i like the different color wood going thru that.....Looking at 2nd hand or empty 15" cabs...would prefer a wedge type, but dont see any online..gonna be lazy and just go for a seismic audio cab and throw in a neodymium driver, save a few bucks.
View attachment 7222551
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That's a heavy cabinet to waste a Neo driver on, even if it's got a reasonable, suitable tuning for the driver... does it?
 
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#8
agedhorse said:
That's a heavy cabinet to waste a Neo driver on, even if it's got a reasonable, suitable tuning for the driver... does it?
Click to expand...
I dunno AH, it must be lighter than my 4x10..i have a cpl of regular 15's here i can toss into it, to test out before i throw down for a neo ...all the 15" cabs i see all seem to be 42-44lbs...my back cant handle much more than that..thank god for handtrucks.
 
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#12
I think a homemade bass cab is not necessarily going to be good or bad based solely upon the fact that it’s homemade.

If someone has the theoretical knowledge (or proven plans) required to build a well designed, well tuned cabinet and the craftsmanship required to assemble it, there’s no reason they couldn’t build a cabinet that stands up to commercially available cabs and there are plenty of home builders who have proven that. I think they’re in the minority, though.

Likewise, there’s no guarantee that a commercial cabinet will be a winner. There are plenty of mediocre bass cabinets with well-known brand names on them, although that’s becoming less common. Even lower priced commercial cabinets have gotten better in recent years.

I think Andy’s (@agedhorse) frequent efforts to dissuade people from building their own cabs, not that I can really speak for him, are based upon two big factors.
1) Professional cab designers don’t just have the theoretical knowledge to design a good cab; they also have the experience to know where design compromises make sense and where they don’t, which gives them much better odds of reaching a successful design right out of the gate. In most cases their mediocre designs are years behind them. Most modern commercial cabinets perform really well because they’re designed by people who really know what they’re doing.
2) You can’t compete with economy of scale. In an apples-to-apples comparison (buying a new commercial cab vs. buying all of your parts and materials new) there is no way one could ever match the performance of a commercial cabinet for the same price. It simply can’t be done. Once you factor in the used market it’s a slam dunk.

Andy’s right in both cases and he points these things out all the time - often only to be “corrected” by people who know a lot less than he does - in order to set home builders’ expectations accordingly. There’s more to it than just sticking a driver in a box and he’s better qualified to point that out than most people.

Do I believe nobody should build their own cabs? Heck no! Nobody would ever gain the know-how and experience without jumping in and doing it. But it also means learning all the theory behind it, which takes a long time and a lot of effort. Most people don’t have the patience for that and they’re unlikely to ever surpass building a merely passable cabinet. If they’re okay with that and they’re having fun…. rock on!!

As for those who really do have the skill set - the design chops and woodworking skills to build a truly excellent cabinet, hey, as long as you enjoy the process and don’t mind the expense, keep on building! You might be the next big innovator!
 
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#14
As one who plays through home-built cabs, I agree with everything that's been said.

One other reason for going with commercial cabs when possible is that trial-and-error is a lot cheaper when you can try someone else's errors. If you live in a populated area, you can try a dozen different cabs in an afternoon. The ones that sound awful stay at the store.

This is harder when you live in a remote village like I do. It's hard when online retail has killed the brick-and-mortar shops. It's hard when you don't belong to the main target market for amps.

A subtle reason for choosing the DIY route is to explore a new technology before it becomes widespread in the market. I'd say it's happened twice in my lifetime for speakers: 1) Accurate-enough design software became widely available. 2) Neo drivers.
 
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#15
A few years ago, we had to move as a band to a rehearsal space in an empty office building. I didn't want to leave expensive amplifiers and speaker boxes behind. So I made a box as ugly as possible, so ugly that no one would even think of stealing it (cheap finish, metal grill, the cheapest plywood). I used a cheap Behringer as an amplifier. By the way, the sound from the box with Eminence Kappa 15a was quite good. Probably because I used the dimensions (volume, port length) recommended by Eminence.


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#16
I've got two homemade cabs, a buddy of mine designed them and we both put them together, they work well enough that I haven't had any great desire for anything else.
 

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#17
As a project, I built a TL 606 about 20 years ago, but I kept going. I'm not a good woodworker and I only have hand tools, but I think that these newer projects stand up against some of the "big boy's" cabs for tone and projection. They aren't supposed to look good they're built to sound good.
 

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