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Unconventional modular DIY cabs

Hi all, I'm Thomas from the Netherlands. I'm a beginning bass player and I've never learnt an instrument before so it's going quite slow. I recently got myself a Harley Benton Kahuna ukulele bass and I'm very happy with it! My fretting hand doesn't hurt any more after playing like it did with my dad's jazz bass that I'd been borrowing, so I play it almost every day. Around the same time I got interested in building speakers. I built these three cabs and wanted to show them :)

2x6" top cab
2x Fane Sovereign 6-100, 1x Mivoc XGH 258 ALU
4 ohm, 96 dB/W, 200W RMS, -3dB @ ~75Hz
Passive crossover @ 2550Hz (with switch)
25x35x35cm, 8.4kg


For the 2x6" top cab, I was mainly inspired by Arjank's Piccolo8 horn reflex cab, since I really liked the clarity of bass lines on my small horn reflex bookshelf speakers. I was also inspired by greenboy's cabs that have 6" mids and a tweeter as a vital part of the sound. I was also inspired by Bill Fitzmaurice's XF guitar cabs that mount two speakers in a cross-firing position and with a rear tilted baffle. I designed the cab using Hornresp. When I'd finished it, it was a bit peaky in the 100-300Hz region but after stuffing the driver volume it sounded a lot better.

At practice volume, the 2x6" goes low enough on its own. Over ~40W, I needs a high pass filter >150Hz to keep from farting out (xmax) and I add one or two of the TH cabs.

10" tapped horn "subs"
Mivoc AWM104
4 ohm, 97 dB/W, 200W RMS, 50-175Hz ±3dB
30x45x45cm, 16.3kg


These I did not design myself, they are THAM10 as designed by Anders Martinsson. I did however load them with different woofers after simulation in Hornresp - they are less efficient drivers so they produce less noise outside of the horn bandwidth which hopefully makes the crossover a bit easier. Also, they have 9mm xmax!

I'm not in a band so I don't use the THs for bass guitar often. I did use them as subs at a house party recently, I got compliments about the clear bass even though they don't go very low. Currently, I'm using one as a 2.1 sub to my stereo.

Practice amplifier
I'm using a tpa3116d2 amplifier board from Ebay. I modded it to PBTL and managed to cram it into a 125B size stomp box. It does around 50W/4ohm or 100W/2ohm and the gain is perfect for practising without a preamp. To my surprise, plugging the 2x6" in with a TH in parallel (so without a crossover) sounds really nice with the ukulele bass.

Big amplifier

I bought a Behringer NU1000 amplifier. It's a stereo amplifier, so I can run the 2x6" on one channel and the THs on the other channel. It should do about 2x210W RMS into 4 ohms or 2x380W RMS into 2 ohms. And it weighs only slightly over 3kg!

Although I still have some finishing to do, for a first build (apart from some small bookshelves) I'm really happy with what I've made :)

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Wow, VERY IMPRESSIVE for a newbie speaker builder! I LIKE the crossfiring 6's... great for small acoustic gigs. Nobody takes that much into account on their first build. Nobody. Are you an engineer?

On the tapped horns, I do have a question: How did you install the screws on the far side of the woofer cone?

What tweeter is that, if you don't mind? I was gonna guess Ciare or Beyma, but I'm not sure.
 
Hi tslinkert, nice to see some other Dutch speakerbuilder on TB! Goed gedaan man!
I know those Mivoc drivers, normally not very suitable for bassguitar but in a tapped horn they will shove a lot of air when fed with enough power.
And very cool that you are inspired by my hornreflex cab :thumbsup::bassist:
Where do you live? I'm from Alkmaar
 
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Thanks a lot guys :)

I remember seeing photos of TB'er Passinwind's separate low frequency and mid/tweeter cabinets, might be worth a look. He is a real nice guy and very helpful.
Thanks, I might question him about his crossovers. I think his crossover point is around 500Hz like the greenboy cabs. I want to push the crossover point down to below 200Hz.

Wow, VERY IMPRESSIVE for a newbie speaker builder! I LIKE the crossfiring 6's... great for small acoustic gigs. Nobody takes that much into account on their first build. Nobody. Are you an engineer?
Haha, thanks. I study to be an engineer. I'd been lurking different forums for over a year, gathering ideas. I have problems with overthinking and putting ideas into something practical so this was a big leap for me. :)

On the tapped horns, I do have a question: How did you install the screws on the far side of the woofer cone?
They're hex screws so I used a hex key, but they were indeed a big pain.

What tweeter is that, if you don't mind? I was gonna guess Ciare or Beyma, but I'm not sure.
It's indeed a Mivoc XGH 258 ALU. It was the loudest tweeter I could find that would fit on the baffle and that could still cross over at 2500Hz. That, and the €25 price tag was nice. In fact, all the drivers were quite cheap. I wouldn't have been able to buy a single Kappalite with what I spent on the 5 drivers combined!

Hi tslinkert, nice to see some other Dutch speakerbuilder on TB! Goed gedaan man!
I know those Mivoc drivers, normally not very suitable for bassguitar but in a tapped horn they will shove a lot of air when fed with enough power.
And very cool that you are inspired by my hornreflex cab :thumbsup::bassist:
Where do you live? I'm from Alkmaar
If it wasn't for your cab design, I wouldn't even have tried this. Would love to hear yours some time. I live in Wageningen but I'm originally from near the Hague. And yes, those Mivocs in the THs can really rattle the house when pushed. But I was surprised that they do well at really low volume too! I use one as a 2.1 sub to my stereo set right now.
 
One problem I ran into is feedback; even with the stompbox amp I can easily make my uke bass feedback on any note. At a certain volume it's nice to have infinite sustain but if I want to play louder I suppose I'll have to get further away from the cab. Or better still, get a solid body uke bass.
 
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That´s for sure a great feeling to build you own combo amp or cabinets. Great stuff tslinkert.

Here´s my own built combo:
2x6" JBL speakers driven by a Sony car amp coupled to a little Behringer mixer.
BTW: Don´t know what part of Netherland you live in but in Amsterdam lives one of the best luthiers arround, Nikola Adamovic