Howdy all! I've finished my 4x12+tweeter cabinet.. roughly modeled after the Aguilar Papa 412 It's loud and low - not rock club loud but more than loud enough for the music I play out(either swing or Pat Methany style jazz - no active rock band atm ) I built it to play down to a low F# (normal jazz/performance volumes, not club volumes) and it's tuned as such (slot port at the bottom). 11?-15? birch plywood: front baffle is 15 I guesstimate, never bothered to count. Pine butt joints (I was concerned about the strength of pine - worked wonderfully). It's also extremely lightweight (yet solid) - right around 70lbs. My last speaker project 6x10 was ~ 140lbs and. I'm still working on the front speaker grill. 8ohm 12s are some older Madison Knights (http://www.madisonspeakers.com) 4" tweeter also by Madison all electronics from PartsExpress 2 speakon connections, 14ga(iirc) speaker cable tilt-back castors, handles are located on the top/bottom of the cabinet (not visible) ~ 10lbs of poly/fiber-fil (local craft store) pleather wrap around covering total height ~ 52" tall, 21" wide, 16" deep I absolutely love the sound. I'll be taking it with me tonight to band practice so I'll report on it's performance.
The specs on Madison's site aren't the same for the drivers I'm using (they're about a year and a half old if not more - the Nippon 1250 style that Madison used to resell(?)). The Fs is 33hz vs 50hz, spl 97db as opposed to the new model 100db, 200w vs 300w. They're labeled as Knights, but not the same Knights they sell now.
I see... I presume even then you'll struggle to get a useful amount of fundamental from a low F# but that probably doesn't matter - how much sub 30Hz output can a 35" scale instrument have? Alex P.S. Nice job with the cab - very imposing!
Thanks! I'm a little tall (6'6"), so the height is more natural for me. It plays the fundamental of a low B quite nicely (30.87? hz.. I forget) - generated tones in an editing proggy on my mac as all the signal sweep generators mentioned in this forum are PC/XP only. It rolls off a bit below the low B, but notes are still decently defined (as much as anything below 30 hz can be considered 'defined'). I'm not an audiophile type and I tend to lean towards 'how it sounds' vs. 'what the charts say'. I don't consider myself as expert as Joris/Bgavin/etc regarding cabinet design, but this being my 4th (and most complex) cabinet (out of 4 total) that sounds quite unlike really poorly tuned/designed cabinets I've seen and heard, I think I've got a pretty good understanding on how everything works now. I've been able to put to use some of the maths I took in college finally, so I consider it a success. I have an 8 string WishBass (woohoo extreme DIY!) on the way and I wanted this to work well with it.
That is one impressive 4x12! It's cool that you build it yourself, finally putting to use all those boring ours of math. I intend to put some of my theoretical knowledge to practice on a cabinet, but I first need some books on it. I've found them on the internet, but I need a creditcard to buy them off course ("No sir, first you get a job, then you get a creditcard..."). But I sure showed that a-hole of a bank employee by getting a job! So now I will have my creditcard (and I will no longer have time to build my cabinet ).
Good work man...looks awesome I hope to make my own cab one day...have to get a head first Also its would be really cool if you like documented how you did (go through step by step) just for people like me that one day want to make a cab...well you dont have to do this but it would be cool
excellent work.....70lbs isn't bad for something that big. post a pic when you get the grill on it, please! so how was she at practice?
Thanks again for the comments! I still haven't taken it out yet, but I will this Monday night. updated pic w/ speaker grill
How efficient is the cab? Looks great, and from everything you say I bet it sounds great too! Can't wait until the update after your gig. Peace -Ben
looks great patrick! I was expecting a "leopard-print" grill or something exotic....didn't you have one like that before that you built?? or is my memory gone.... bet its got the guitar players reassessing their rigs...
<img src="http://patrick.sunscapeweb.com/1.jpg" width=640> I still have this cab, but I'm going to break it down & reuse the 10s (thinking about 2 2x10s, 2 1x10s for my EUB, etc).
