Low-cost DIY practice/coffeehouse tweeterless 110 [long]

[ACB0015]

Thank you very much, kraigo and DJ Bebop. That tuning about matches Duke's suggestion near the beginning of the thread for better low B performance. I'll try the shorter tube port and see what that brings.

 

[DJ Bebop]

I measure the internal volume of the CX110 box to be 1.3 cu ft less whatever volume the port tube takes up and whatever the speaker takes up. Port tube is 3 in diameter x 8.8 in long. S2010 has 1 mm more xmax than the Beta 10a I have in there and the resonant freq is 46 as opposed to 53 with the Beta. Don't know how to figure the tuning.

Let us know please, if you follow through and, with what outcome. I may want to try.

 

[ACB0015]

Yeah certainly I will. Tube is heavy cardboard not PVC should be easy enough to shorten and mess around with. Should improve even with the Beta 10a that is in there now.

 

[ACB0015]

Say, while we're on this, any suggestions for replacement drivers for the Eden D210XLT and D112XLT that would perform better than stock?

 

[Wes Whitmore]

If you supply that airspace of the cabs, and any port sizes, someone will probably chime in. The S2010 that this design uses would cost you $300 to replace 2 10s, so you might be better off just selling the cab if you want to go neo.
Wes

 

[kraigo]

I don't necessarily think the S2010 would be a good replacement anyway. It would be hard to alter the tuning on those cabs because the ports are slots, not tubes. Unless you have a specific reason for wanting a replacement I would recommend you keep them stock. They're good speakers.

KO

 

[JdoubleH]

Say, while we're on this, any suggestions for replacement drivers for the Eden D210XLT and D112XLT that would perform better than stock?

3012lf or 3015lf in a [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[rpsands]

I recall running some numbers for someone on the D112XLT and found the tuning to be pretty weird. Very high, IIRC.

Definitely want to get some good numbers on tuning before you try swapping woofers in those.

 

[ACB0015]

Thanks for the input. Yes, I've got plans for a fEARful, wanted to see if I might get any more out of what's in front of me before I go on that path.

 

[JdoubleH]

Thanks for the input. Yes, I've got plans for a fEARful, wanted to see if I might get any more out of what's in front of me before I go on that path.

Yeah, it's very unlikely any drop-in replacement will perform better in your current box than the drivers it was designed for. The only way to really get more spl out of your existing cab is possibly an amp upgrade but only if your current amp isn't capable of driving it to it's full potential. If it is tone you want to change, I'd start with new strings, then reconsider how you set pre/post gain and EQ. Save the rest of your dough for that new cab!

 

[ACB0015]

Yeah, it's very unlikely any drop-in replacement will perform better in your current box than the drivers it was designed for. The only way to really get more spl out of your existing cab is possibly an amp upgrade but only if your current amp isn't capable of driving it to it's full potential. If it is tone you want to change, I'd start with new strings, then reconsider how you set pre/post gain and EQ. Save the rest of your dough for that new cab!

Ya, good advice, thank you. Amp power and instruments are together.

 

[JdoubleH]

Ya, good advice, thank you. Amp power and instruments are together.

 

[christw]

If it wasn't for the Neo prices issue, I think people would be building this thing left and right. I have been very happy with mine for months. It has held up fine. I don't need much stage volume, but I do crank on it at practices and at home when we don't have PA support. Lots of people don't need to fill the bar with bass from the backline, and this works really well for a personal monitor. It also does a good job keeping my amp and tuner off the ground. It's loud enough for my needs. I use it with a PF-500.
Wes

This is still one of my intentions for mine. I wanna build a nice little cab for $130 again!

 

[mikeddd]

I'll be opening mine up to add the stuffing which I couldn't do before. Will tame the boominess a bit, I'm sure. Still very happy with this little guy though.

 

[kraigo]

I finally got to play with one of the S2010's. Thanks to Duke for pointing them out. I bought the parts for two cabs before the price of neo speakers doubled. I started building one of the cabs, but the T-nuts ripped up the cab pretty badly. I'm hoping to find a way to salvage it, but that's not the point of this post.

I have an old Traynor Bassmate combo from 1973. The speaker cab is about 1.35 ft^3 before deducting port and speaker displacements. Into it they stuffed a 15" speaker. It worked every bit as badly as you'd expect. Boomy and indistinct. Pretty much no pleasure at all to play through, but when I'd hook up the amp to a different cabinet it sounded pretty good. It's a nice little amp - 15 - 20 watts with two EL-84's in the power section. Traynor always used good transformers and they're point to point wired. I had it recapped a few years ago, but I rarely used it anyway.

When I opened up the cab I saw that the baffle was screwed on. I went looking for a cheap replacement speaker. Nothing looked all that appealing. I have the guts from an Ampeg Portabass 1x10 that I was thinking of using, but the amp is made for an eight ohm load and the Portabass uses a four ohm speaker. In my searches I realized that the S2010 was about the best match I could find for the cab. At $140 new they aren't cheap, but since I had two of them in boxes I decided to give it a try.

I had a new baffle made for the Bassmate and I had spent time playing with the model in WinISD. I estimated that the volume after deducting the speaker and ports was about 1.25 ft^3. I liked where the transfer function looked when I tuned it to 55 Hz. I placed the speaker placed low in the baffle to help it couple to the floor and to the left to help balance out the amp's transformers.

Since the cab is only 7" deep internally and I was leaving the rest of the cabinet alone (I can reverse the mod if I want to sell the amp, side ports weren't an option), I needed two 2" diameter ports about 3 1/4" deep. I have the ports close to the woofer to mitigate phasing issues and on opposite sides set diagonally for cooling. I doubt it's an issue with only 20 watts driving the thing, but since I could I did. The ports are large enough that at that power chuffing isn't an issue.

It looks as though cone excursion would be an issue at full power at around 37 Hz. In practice it seems to handle a low B just fine though. xLim gives a safety margin, and the amp is into full distortion before you hit the limits.

Anyway, it sounds great and again I'd like to thank Duke for starting this thread so I had this speaker to try in the cab. I'm thrilled with this little amp now.

KO

 

[Wes Whitmore]

Kraigo, Good work on breathing some new life in an old cab!

If you have the old portabass cab (and all it's rattles, if I remember correctly), let me know. I would like to have it. If you want to sell the other s2010, let me know too. I am trying to piece together another portabass s2010 for modularity.
Thanks,
Wes

 

[Crockettnj]

Cool thread, love DIY budget re-work projects. Nice to see Duke and some other pro's joining into the fray here for fun. No better way to get your feet wet in cab building imo.

I've had various DIY and "reconstruct" 1x10 practice cabs for quite some time now, using them weekly. Unless I am competing with a loud drummer on a gig, its surprising how useful a good quality 1x10 driver is.

My most recent S2010 1x10 tweetless cab is based off of the Alex Clabber Barefaced Midget cabinet. Originally built by Rpsands, its made of 3/8" ply, is well braced and was crazy light until I added 114,000 coats of paint. (I was trying out various colors and textures and decided not to sand them off).

I finished with multicolor truck bed liner from an autoparts shop, and then covered that with the beige/white color I do all of my cabs in. This time no duratex, instead I used what I had laying around... concrete paint with some sand mixed in for texture. Not something I'd go out of my way to do again.

The grill was stapled to a 3/8" frame and velcro'd on. I didnt use binding, so you can see the gaps along the edges in the photo. I'll add something later.

I added corners and strap from what I had laying around (notice lack of metal brackets on the end of the strap. I lost them!).

She weighed about 19 pounds loaded with an S2010, and sounded nice, even, and vintagey. No tweet. Great little driver if used in its limits.

BUT I recently rebaffled it for the 3012HO it was originally designed for, (and now have a spare S2010 sitting around.)

With the 3012HO in there is a totally different animal... and an animal it is. I know the drver costs a ton, but it steps this up a notch or 2 in volume and changes the tone profile from "smooth vintage" to "aggressive vintage". It might weight all of 22 pounds now. If that.

Anyway, its not a 110 anymore so...

Cool thread anyway!

 

[CosmicRay]

For under $110 plus shipping, screws, and a bit of wire, you can put together a decent little tweeterless 110 practice/coffeehouse cab.

The speaker you'll be using is the Eminence [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], $74.97

The real cost and labor saver is the enclosure, a Parts Express [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] meant for a car, exquisitely finished in classic ratfur, $28.50

Finally you'll need a decent input jack, $1.98, along with a [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] to mount it on, $4.68. No gasket needed; ratfur is self-gasketing.

The total comes to a shade over $110, not counting shipping.

The enclosure is about .9 cubic feet net internal volume with the speaker in place, and the port tunes the box to about 56 Hz (measured, not calculated). This tuning frequency is arguably a bit on the high side for optimum power handling before fartout, but you should be fine on low-E. On low-B you may run into fartout; if so, you can build a simple insert that will reduce the port's cross-sectional area. The port dimensions are at the link provided; if you decrease the width of the port by 4", over its entire 10.25" depth, that will lower the tuning frequency to about 48 Hz which should be fine for low B. High precision isn't required; for example, most "half-inch" plywood these days is actually 12 mm, and you can use a stack consisting of four 12mm plywood boards measuring 4" wide by 10.25" long, painted black, and wrapped on the ends with just enough black electrical tape to give a good friction fit. The stack can be centered in the port or off to one side; the tuning is the same either way, but it looks better centered.

Most 10" woofers will have a somewhat boomy response in that little enclosure, but the Basslite S2010 doesn't. That boomy bass sounds good sometimes, but here's the problem: As you go down the low end of the scale the lowest notes sort of die off. With the Basslite S2010, there is only about 2 dB falloff of that critical first overtone as you go from low E down to low B (with the 48 Hz tuning; the difference is a little greater with the 56 Hz tuning because the low E is louder). So that's why I chose the Basslite S2010.

Use #8 pan-head sheet metal screws, 1" long, to attach the speaker to the cab. Pre-drill 7/64" pilot holes for the screws, using the S2010's 8 screwholes as a template, and kinda hug the outer edge of the holes in the S2010's frame so that you leave lots of "meat" in the wood between the screw and the speaker cut-out. After the pilot holes have been drilled, I recommend using a toothpick to coat the inside of the holes with wood glue; this strengthens the particleboard where it needs it the most (for the screws' threads). Let the glue dry for a couple of hours before adding

On the back of the cabinet is a little push-terminal that can accept bare wires. You might leave that in place, and just cut out an opening for the jack plate with a jigsaw.

If you don't have a jigsaw and/or want to save a few bucks, don't get the jackplate. Instead, you're going to use that input jack as an external adaptor. Solder a couple of speaker wires to it, 18 gauge should be fine. The + wire goes to the the part that contacts the nose of the plug, and the - wire goes to the part that contacts the side of the shaft. Plug your 1/4" plug into the jack, and plug the wires coming off jack into the push-terminals.

So you're going to want to run wires inside the box from the quarter-inch input jack and/or the little push-terminal to the speaker. You want about 18" or so, to give you a little slack to work with when you connect the speaker.

If you want both the push-terminal and quarter-inch jack to be available, solder on two more wires, one connecting the + on the push-terminal to the + on the jack, and the other connecting -to -.

The speaker has push-on type connectors, which you can probably find at an auto parts store. Maybe Radio Shack still carries them; take the speaker with you to make sure you get the right size. Sometimes they start out a little loose, and you can gently close 'em off just a wee bit with pliars. Overdo it, and you can usually pry 'em back open a bit with the tip of your pocketknife. Or, you can just solder the wires to the tabs on the speaker.

But before you install the speaker, I suggest lining the inside of the cab with some 1" open-cell foam. 75% coverage is good. I think Jo Ann Fabric sells open-cell foam cut to the length you specify, and you won't need much. An 18" by 24" piece should be plenty, and you can get the cheapest the sell. Just make sure you haaaaah your breath through it; if not, it's closed-cell foam. Glue or staple in place, your choice, and keep it an inche or two away from the inner opening of the port.

Now connect the wires to the speaker, double-checking that you're going from + to + and - to -. Install the speaker with the screws, connect your amp, and try it out.

If you think the port-area-reduction woodstack might be a good thing, go ahead and experiment with that as well. You can make it permanent with glue and/or screws, but I suggest taping over the nearby ratfur so you don't mess it up with glue during the process.

If you feel so inclined, you can add corners, feet, grill, and a handle. Note that the edges of the enclosure are not rounded-over, so you'll probably want to get corners that have a sharp angle.

Now if you think you might want to add a second cab in order to have a more gig-worthy little rig, one of the cabs will need two input jacks. Wire them in parallel (like I described for the little push-terminals). The reason I don't suggest installing two jacks on both cabs is, the unused jack will be an air leak and you don't want that. Or you can get fancier air-tight connectors, taking your pick from these pages (if you decide to use Parts Express):

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

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Here are the specs you can expect with the port tuning reduced to 48 Hz:

Impedance: 8 ohms
Power handling: 150 watts thermal
Efficiency: 94.7 dB/1 watt, based on Thiele-Small parameters (which is how I think it should be specified)
Low end response: -2 dB at 100 Hz, and -4.5 dB at 62 Hz (first overtone of low B). No peak in bass region. Crank in 2 dB of bass boost, and now you're -2.5 dB at 62 Hz and still don't have any peaking.
Dimensions: 16" tall by 12" wide by 14.5" deep, not counting grill.
Weight: About 21 pounds, before optional hardware (grill, corners, feet, handle).

* * * *

Take a look at the frequency response curve for the S2010:

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If I were going to use this speaker in a commercial tweeterless cab, I'd probably want to smoothe the frequency response somewhat. If you'd like for me to design a circuit to do so, let me know in a reply.

Finally, don't ask me to sell you any of this stuff and/or do any assembly. If I were to do that, this post becomes an "ad". I'll make my nickels off the guys who can afford my expensive "boutique" cabs, but will probably never have the economies of scale that would allow me to offer competitively-priced entry-level products. Thus something like this is probably the only way I can get involved with bass players on a tight budget.

Thanks for your help and advice. However when I clicked on the link "The speaker you'll be using is the Eminence [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], $74.97" the actual cost of the speaker alone is $140.00....
Am I missing something?

 

[kraigo]

After Duke's post the price of Neodynium went through the roof and the prices skyrocketed. The price is coming back down. BassLite S2010 has it for $120. I'm glad I've got two of the speakers and I like the speaker so much I'm thinking of getting a third.

KO

 

[Turock]

Thanks for your help and advice. However when I clicked on the link "The speaker you'll be using is the Eminence [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], $74.97" the actual cost of the speaker alone is $140.00....
Am I missing something?

Yeah, you're missing that the price of those speakers (along with others) went way up. Actually, I guess that you didn't miss it.