Show your Bill Fitzmaurice cab

[Maurice Carr]

on a similar note, has anyone tried a BFD cab with a tube head. .

My WT550 is of course not a full tube amp, just tube pre-amp but it gets plenty loud, with lot's of that valve warmth.

I'm standing in for bass at a new church tomorrow and I saw there was a tube amp there at practice the other night. If I get a chance, I'll try it out.

Mo

 

[A9X]

Who else is doing the 2x8 crossfire peizo arrays which are cut and glued, series/parallel wired like in the BFD cabs?

Mo

Explain how in the BFD application a number of series/parallel wired pizos is any different from any other S/P piezo array. In this instance it'll make some difference in horizontal dispersion, but that's it. Explain the difference then in say an Omni 10.

You really are clutching at straws, and if you think FR is the total description of a speaker's tonality, you're very wrong.

 

[Rick James]

Explain how in the BFD application a number of series/parallel wired pizos is any different from any other S/P piezo array.

I wish I could explain it, but I'm not an engineer. But I know what sounds good to me, and the piezo array in my 250 sounds better than any other HF horn I've ever heard, including JBL, EV, Radian, and all the other ones you claim to have in your shed.
Now do us all a favor, look at the title of this thread. It's asking for opinions of BF cab owners. You aren't one. Go away.

 

[A9X]

Now do us all a favor, look at the title of this thread. It's asking for opinions of BF cab owners. You aren't one. Go away.

Last time I looked, it was a public board. If you're only interested in the opnions of BF boosters, why don't you simply go to his site?

 

[Maurice Carr]

......and if you think FR is the total description of a speaker's tonality, you're very wrong

.......You really are clutching at straws....

With comments like these, one doesn't have to use too much imagination as to what you are clutching at!

 

[Rick James]

Last time I looked, it was a public board. If you're only interested in the opnions of BF boosters, why don't you simply go to his site?

Show your Bill Fitzmaurice cab is the name of the thread, and you're not here to do that, so that makes you a troll. Please go away.

 

[alexclaber]

Look people, A9X knows what he's talking about! He is not saying piezo arrays are bad, he's just saying that there are better sounding HF units. I'm sure he would agree that for the cost of piezo array you can't do better though!

I'm sure the BFM piezo implementation sounds far better than the compression horns in 99% of bass cabs on the market. But that doesn't make them the be all and end all.

Alex

 

[greenboy]

Thanks, Alex. I wanted to type something along that line but wondered if I'd get lumped on ; }

Actually I've upgraded some products that came with piezos just by putting a well-chosen crossover in, and quality sound is there to be had. And I think it gets better when there are more of them, properly aligned, as well.

And there are a lot of mediocre horn flares on compression horns with poorly chosen crossover designs, as you said just to put that into perspective - on both bass cabs and PA cabs.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Look people, A9X knows what he's talking about! He is not saying piezo arrays are bad, he's just saying that there are better sounding HF units.

I don't think this leaves much room for interpretation:

you want to use piezo's, go ahead. I'm just glad I don't have to listen to them.

Although I do agree wholeheartedly with this:

a couple of people's opinion posted ...on the net isn't going to make much of a difference to me

 

[BBMS]

"people, why can't we all just get along?"

 

[A9X]

Show your Bill Fitzmaurice cab is the name of the thread, and you're not here to do that, so that makes you a troll. Please go away.

I made a comment about a specific technology that I find lacking, based upon my own personal and technical experience. If you don't like that, fine, I don't care.

If peizo's are so great, why don't companies like JBL (and many, many others) with all their decades of experience and technical expertise, as witnessed by the huge number of pro's who use(d) their gear worldwide incorporate them into their designs? I'm pretty sure it's not a royalty or cost issue (peizos, even in multiples are cheap, right?), and they licence technology from other current manufacturers, so it can only be a performance issue.
Bill likes them and chooses to incorporate them into his designs, then so be it. I'm not on the BF forum, but a public bass forum, and I'm commenting within guidelines based upon what I beleive to be correct. No one has offered a good reason for why the peizo's incorporated into these designs are different in application the devices are generic) so I stand by my opinions and experience and attempts to bully won't work.

You like the BF cabs, fine , use them. But whilst this is a public board, I'll comment as I see fit.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

No one has offered a good reason for why the peizo's incorporated into these designs are different in application the devices are generic

Since you insist, I only use piezos vertically arrayed, in cross-fired vertical arrays, and assembled into multiple element/multiple throat/single exit vertically aligned horns. No commercial source does so. Yet. Why doesn't JBL et al use this technology? Because when there's plenty of people ready to pony up $100 and more for compression drivers they're not about to cut their own economic throats by offering products at only 1% of that cost that work just as well. Or better.

 

[greenboy]

I especially hate those digital compression drivers and piezos.

 

[A9X]

Since you insist, I only use piezos vertically arrayed, in cross-fired vertical arrays, and assembled into multiple element/multiple throat/single exit vertically aligned horns.

The O10 example I asked about above isn't a crossfire and it's only mentioned at the end of the plans that it can be dome this way.
http://billfitzmaurice.com/images/cabs/O10.jpg
I'm also very skeptical about the claimed 90* horizontal dispersion claimed for the array in the photo above as the shape of the flare suggests 90x40 and you have them flipped 90*. I'll see if I can dig up my Motorola KSN1016 dtasheets to confirm. Hence the need to crossfire them and use them in arrays to get the sensitivity to a usable level (about 14dB less on average than a CD)

No commercial source does so. Yet. Why doesn't JBL et al use this technology? Because when there's plenty of people ready to pony up $100 and more for compression drivers they're not about to cut their own economic throats by offering products at only 1% of that cost that work just as well. Or better.

Right. No one else is going to seize the commercial advantages possible by this technology (which is hardly new) by offering a cheaper design in what it a highly competetive market. Rather, they'll offer complex, difficult to machine and build (good accurate phase plugs etc), and therefore expensive from a cost POV CD drivers. Don't you think they would have learn't from the marketing success of Bose, who offer cheap drivers, often in multiple arrays and charge the earth for them? Wouldn't the shareholders of these public companies like the profit benefits that would ensue? That is if it were at least an equal technology and offered such cost savings.

 

[CelinderMotoMan]

I have one question...Why fuzzy gray carpet? Nothing screams quality like fuzzy gray carpet.
The black cabs look good though.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

as the shape of the flare suggests 90x40 and you have them flipped 90*.

Surely you are aware that the shape of the flare or for that matter orientation of the mouth is not the determining factor in the radiation pattern of a horn, which is primarily controlled by the shape of the throat. Since the throat of the 1016 is round the radiation pattern of a single unit is nearly symmetic. I don't rely on data sheets, I measure.

Hence the need to crossfire them

I use that to obtain 120 degree dispersion. Crossfiring does not give an increase in axial sensitivity.

and use them in arrays to get the sensitivity to a usable level

They are vertically arrayed to obtain the superior pattern control and dispersion of vertically arrayed HF sources, and to allow multiple cabinets to be used in vertical arrays.

Right. No one else is going to seize the commercial advantages possible by this technology (which is hardly new) by offering a cheaper design in what it a highly competetive market.

So long as people embrace antiquated technology, and are willing to pay the piper, manufacturers will continue to offer what sells at the highest possible margin of profit. That's called 'business'. But OTOH, cross-fired midrange drivers and multiple driver/multiple throat/single exit vertically arrayed HF horns are used in a number of top of the line PA cabs from JBL and a number of other companies. When these companies do introduce state of the art concepts (which, BTW, generally lags the DIY field by ten years) they do so starting at the top of the line, not the bottom. Should JBL ever decide it wants to market a cab using sixteen HF drivers in a vertical crossfiring array you can rest safe in the assurance that they won' t sell it for $995.

 

[Maurice Carr]

on a similar note, has anyone tried a BFD cab with a tube head. .

I'm standing in for bass at a new church tomorrow and I saw there was a tube amp there at practice the other night. If I get a chance, I'll try it out.

Ok, it wasn't a bass tube amp when I got a closer look - it was a guitar head stacked away in the corner.

I did see though that the resident bass player uses a big Trace Elliot combo with a Jansen ( NZ ) sub underneath ( not crossed over though by the look of it )

I used my O10 - 2 DLII2510 and 4 piezos.

All the other musos there plus quite a few of the congregation came up afterwards saying "we have not heard bass so nice, clear, and authoritive like that before - great sound, I hope you come and play here again"

Of course if you are to believe some comments made by a member here that there's nothing special about BFD cabs and his use of piezo arrays, you'd wonder why all these people would go out of their way and come up and compliment me in that manner right!!!

They could have said "Nice to have you well played bla bla".....but no, they specifically mentioned the quality of tone........funny that. Which proves the designer, Bill, knows what he's talking about!!!

Mo

 

[A9X]

Of course if you are to believe some comments made by a member here that there's nothing special about BFD cabs and his use of piezo arrays, you'd wonder why all these people would go out of their way and come up and compliment me in that manner right!!!

What a load of disingenuous crap. I've only ever stated that the application of peizo's in these cabs was nothing special, unique or unusual, and even your comment re the crossfiring array was shown by Bill's own comments to be nothing unusual.

As for the "people came up to me...." stuff, it sounds like what you read ceaslessly on the audiphile boards and on Invalid Link Removed and has no value except as hype. It's especially tasteless as it's by a user trying to boost a product that he's commercially involved with.

 

[Plain Old Me]

nothing special, unique or unusual

Dunno about the special part, but I must comment that the cabs are fairly unusual- I havn't seen much (if anything) resembling Bill's cabs at music stores, nor have I seen much similar looking gear live...

 

[Maurice Carr]

..... and has no value except as hype. It's especially tasteless as it's by a user trying to boost a product that he's commercially involved with.

So you consider truth is hype then? What I related was what actually happened. If you can't stand the truth, then don't make it someone else's problem

Get your atlas out and look where I live. You'll see that on a forum where probably 99.5% of the bass players live thousands of miles away from me, I stand to gain little by relating what my experiences and those are who have have heard my BFD cabs.

The original title of this thread was "Show your Bill Fitzmaurice Cab" That's the motive of my posting BFD cab experiences here. I don't need to boost the product, as you can tell by those who have built one to the specs and used it, the result speaks for itself.

A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

That's my last word on your posts