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Show your Bill Fitzmaurice cab

#661
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Done except I need advice on attaching a nameplate. Wouldn't it screw up the grill cloth?
 
#664
tdogg said:
grill looks good! what did you use to make the frame? im debating on making my grill frames (for jacks) out of pieces of square pine stock or just cutting it out of one piece of plywood.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I used some left over 1/2" BB from my cab build, measured inside the cab, cut the pieces and tested each side with a double layer of scrap grill cloth to make sure there would be room. I trimmed as necessary. For the sides I drilled some pocket screw holes. put a little gorilla glue on the ends, and put some screws into hold it while the glue dried. It was quite the undertaking. I aslo noticed that the middle had a little bow, so I installed a middle strip to keep it sturdy. After it was all dried up, I took a piece of 120 sand paper to smooth the corners a little so the cloth wouldn't rip while I tried to stretch it over the frame. After sanding, I painted it flat black to match the "baffle" of the cab. The rest was stretching and stapling. I love how it turned out. It's got an almost commercial cab look with the ancient secrets of super efficiency.
 
#673
Any BFD users out there who use two ported DR 250's as their rig? I've become quite curious about these cabs. I'd love to have two of the same cab, so I could use one for small gigs, and two for bigger gigs. I almost always have PA support, so anything bigger than that would not be necessary. The biggest factor for me is low end response. I'm sure that they have more than enough highs, mids, and lows, but I do a lot of sub-octave playing synth lines with a massive pedal board.

I currently use two Accugroove Tri112l's, which I love, but I'm always curious to try to find something better.

Along with lows though, I play a lot of slap, tapping, high effects (higher than my guitar player many times), etc...so the full range response of these really appeals. It seems from Bill's website that his DR line cabs are the creme de la creme of his folded horn cabs. That is why these interest me so much. I've heard great things about the Jack cabs as well, but the DR's are different enough that they are sparking my curiosity the most.

The Omni cabs seem like a great idea as well, but I prefer two small cabs over one bigger one.

Obviously I know that I could add one of his subs for lows, but I really don't want to do that. Like I said before, I like having two of the same cabs for a modular purpose. Plus the Titan cabs are just too large for me. But I suppose a DR 250 plus Tuba 24 might work since they are about the same size.

So what do you guys think? Would two DR 250's ported work as a rig? I am using them for my monitors, practicing at home, band practice, and the very rare gigs without PA support. Other than that, the front of house is taking care of the true subs.

How low do these babies go? The SPL chart is so small, it is hard to read on Bill's sight, but it looks like they go down to around 60hz with a usable amount of volume. How much of a difference does the porting make?
 
#674
Proton Lenny said:
Any BFD users out there who use two ported DR 250's as their rig? I've become quite curious about these cabs. I'd love to have two of the same cab, so I could use one for small gigs, and two for bigger gigs. I almost always have PA support, so anything bigger than that would not be necessary. The biggest factor for me is low end response. I'm sure that they have more than enough highs, mids, and lows, but I do a lot of sub-octave playing synth lines with a massive pedal board.

I currently use two Accugroove Tri112l's, which I love, but I'm always curious to try to find something better.

Along with lows though, I play a lot of slap, tapping, high effects (higher than my guitar player many times), etc...so the full range response of these really appeals. It seems from Bill's website that his DR line cabs are the creme de la creme of his folded horn cabs. That is why these interest me so much. I've heard great things about the Jack cabs as well, but the DR's are different enough that they are sparking my curiosity the most.

The Omni cabs seem like a great idea as well, but I prefer two small cabs over one bigger one.

Obviously I know that I could add one of his subs for lows, but I really don't want to do that. Like I said before, I like having two of the same cabs for a modular purpose. Plus the Titan cabs are just too large for me. But I suppose a DR 250 plus Tuba 24 might work since they are about the same size.

So what do you guys think? Would two DR 250's ported work as a rig? I am using them for my monitors, practicing at home, band practice, and the very rare gigs without PA support. Other than that, the front of house is taking care of the true subs.

How low do these babies go? The SPL chart is so small, it is hard to read on Bill's sight, but it looks like they go down to around 60hz with a usable amount of volume. How much of a difference does the porting make?
Click to expand...

Having built DR250's, I wouldn't use them exclusively without subwoofer support as a bass cab, especially considering that you indicate you have a need for subsynth type output. Don't get me wrong, they sound fantastic. You do get a little more bass output when ported, with the plans giving you the various tuning options, but the fact remains that DR250's were designed as PA tops for use with subs. Will they work without subs, yes. Would I use them as my bass backline? Perhaps in a pinch, but not exclusively. Ported, they go lower and overall tonal quality is better than the majority of bass cabs available on the market. The porting/tuning options are really there so that you could use the DR250's without subs in an appropriate application, say as a bluegrass band PA or a vocal only PA with no bass or kick in the mains.

If you consider going the DR250+sub route, a single DR250 is almost twice as sensitive as one Tuba 24, so you may have to consider either building a dual loaded Tuba 24 (dual BP102's) or a pair of single loaded T24s. Bill states in the T24 plans that they are designed to be use in no less than a pair at a time. However, you could probably get away with one Titan, such as the Titan 39, as they are a bit more sensitive but don't go as low as the Tubas. Main difference between Tuba's and Titan's - Tuba's go lower, Titans go louder. You could wire up a DR250 and Titan 39 with the passive crossover option for the sub (HPF) and not require anything other than your bass amp to power them.

If you are looking for something that is comparable to the Accugroove cab, that would be something like the Omni 12 or Omni 15; they are three way cabs with dedicated subwoofer, mid and tweeter all in the same cab. Very similar in design and spirit the fEarful cabs, but with horn loading for additional efficiency. The Omni's are true full range cabs.

All that being said, the DR250(DLII2510)/Titan 39 (3012LF), or an Omni 12 with dual BP102 or 3012LF for sub, or a pair of Jack 12's loaded with the 3012HO driver would be my choice for bass backline from Bill's available options. All would work very well. A stack of Jack 10's isn't too bad either, but you'll get more output out of the Jack 12 with fewer cabs. A Wedgehorn 10 can also be used as a personal bass monitoring rig, something you may not have considered.

Hope this helps! If you want to get into more specifics or details of discussion, I suggest heading over to Bill's forum and asking the helpful folks there.
 
#675
Thanks for the detailed response bassBrock! What you said makes sense. The Omni 12's look intriguing to me. They are almost small enough that I could build two, mirrored, and stack them for a modular rig. The Omni 15TB also looks neat, but it is a little heavy for my tastes. In the Omni's are the horns folded? Or are they just straight/reflex horns? And the tweeter arrays are the crazy looking crossfired ones. It seems that those are supposed to sound great, why not throw those on the omni design? Do they just not work with that box dimension?

The Jack 112's seem like a great, light weight, cheap, and very modular rig. However, people seem to claim that they are really loud in the mids, which doesn't give them a very perceived flat sound without a lot of EQ. My Thunderfunk could handle the EQ I'm sure, but I'm not too hot about having to do really extensive EQing to get a "flat" sound. Could be wrong about this, but I definitely like a cab to be as uncolored as possible. Also, two stacked would be a little low in height for my preference, I like to get cabs a little closer to my ears.

The fEarful's seem like a great cab design, but if I was gonna build those, it would be the 12/6/1 design, and that is so similar to my current Accugrooves, I'm not sure it would be worth the effort. But I could be wrong about that. Maybe someone who has had experience with both the Accu's and the fEarful's could chime in.

If only there was a way to lighten the Omni 12's about 10 to 15 pounds.
 
#676
Proton Lenny said:
The fEarful's seem like a great cab design, but if I was gonna build those, it would be the 12/6/1 design, and that is so similar to my current Accugrooves, I'm not sure it would be worth the effort. But I could be wrong about that. Maybe someone who has had experience with both the Accu's and the fEarful's could chime in.
Click to expand...

PM incoming. I've owned both, but I don't think this belongs in a BFM cab thread. ;)
 
#678
Proton Lenny said:
The Jack 112's seem like a great, light weight, cheap, and very modular rig. However, people seem to claim that they are really loud in the mids, which doesn't give them a very perceived flat sound without a lot of EQ. My Thunderfunk could handle the EQ I'm sure, but I'm not too hot about having to do really extensive EQing to get a "flat" sound. Could be wrong about this, but I definitely like a cab to be as uncolored as possible. Also, two stacked would be a little low in height for my preference, I like to get cabs a little closer to my ears.
Click to expand...

The Jack cabs are full range and to my ear are quite even sounding, but I wouldnt use them without some corrective EQ for PA. For bass, most heads have sufficient EQ to make a Jack 10 or 12 sound pretty balanced.

I wouldnt call the Jacks mid heavy. Some people consider horn loaded cabs to be mid heavy. This could be due to the fact that you can simply hear them better. Your ear is most sensitive to midrange.
 
#679
True. What is the difference between the vertical compression driver and the 120 degree melded array? Sonically I mean. Obviously the melded array has wider dispersion, but besides that? I have a lot of high end in my sound, but I'm trying to figure out what kind of tweeter would work best for me. I like a well balanced sound, but I also don't like the highs to be piercing. I like them as warm as possible. I've read that the recent addition of the diffuser helps "soften" the melded array. And if the melded array was the way to go, how many tweets would I want?

For instance if I built the Jack 112's, the kits come with anywhere from 4 to 16 piezo's. How many would give me a balanced amount of highs compared to the mids and lows?
 
#680
Also, can you build the Omni 12's with a Melded Array? And can you build the Omni with neo speakers (2512's and LA8-CNMB's) to drop a few pounds? Sorry if these are obvious questions, but after reading through this whole thread and few others, I've started to forget what I've read! ;)

What would roughly be the lightest Omni 12 you could build (normal size, not tall boy). I need to just buy the plans, but until I'm sure I want to build one, I'd rather not buy the plans. Also, I tried registering over at Bill's forum, but it would not accept about five attempts at the security code. So I'll have to try again later I guess...
 

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