Members les_rokr Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 My friend and I are planning on making our own subs & monitors with plans from Bill Fitzmaurice, but I don't know much about the actual subwoofers and drivers/tweeters. These subs and monitors arn't going to be that big, can anyone recommend any decently priced subwoofers/drivers/tweeters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 6Imzadi Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 Buy the plans. They should indicate the speaker driver needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DJ Swydez Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 If you are looking for driver recommendations, Mark's APX drivers over @ Audiopile.com tend to be very good for the money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 6Imzadi Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 The drivers required for horn loaded speakers are sometimes very particular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 6Imzadi Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 Jeez, I just figured out that this is posted twice. LOL I thought my posts were not registering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members preacherman672 Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 Mark's 1526 and 1206 work very well in Bill's designs. I have four Tuba 36's loaded with a single 1526 apiece. If your are going for light weight the Kappalite 3015lf can't be beat (it's even slightly better than Mark's drivers). It works in the Tuba 36 and the Titan 48. If you give me specifics on what you are building I can get more specific on drivers. Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members milesdf Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 If you need to ask this question perhaps you shouldn't be looking into building your own stuff? from personal expirience I can tell you if your not doing a huge amount of stuff on decent tools your gonna save pennies, if anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 Could be a waste of time, but if your time is valueless then maybe you can learn a thing or two if nothing else. One (good) lesson you might learn is that performance claims are not always quite what they first appear to be. Don't expect them to blow away $4,000 cabinets regardless of the claims. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members session_of_jam Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 If you need to ask this question perhaps you shouldn't be looking into building your own stuff? from personal expirience I can tell you if your not doing a huge amount of stuff on decent tools your gonna save pennies, if anything. There is a lot of negative energy in this forum. Please remember folks, those of us who are not full time, 20 year veteran sound technicians, are in here to learn something. I personally think that one of the best ways to learn about speaker, cabs, crossovers, and all sorts of other things, would be to build a set. So maybe they make a few mistakes and they don't come out perfect. Its their first set of speakers! But imagine how far ahead they will be when they go to make their second set. I too just recently looked into building a bass cab to re-house a little combo that I have. There is a lot to learn/consider when designing these things. And I am going to design it myself, not buy plans. I may end up spending as much as if I had bought a new cab instead. But I think it will be fun. I enjoy woodworking, and speakers and stuff. Don't know to much about speakers, but cab by cab, that will change! My friend and I are planning on making our own subs & monitors with plans from Bill Fitzmaurice, but I don't know much about the actual subwoofers and drivers/tweeters. These subs and monitors arn't going to be that big, can anyone recommend any decently priced subwoofers/drivers/tweeters? ...google things like "building speaker cabs" or "speaker cab designs" and do some research. You'll find what you are looking for. Or at least come up with some more specific questions that some of these guys might feel more excited about answering for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted February 28, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted February 28, 2007 There is a lot of negative energy in this forum. Please remember folks, those of us who are not full time, 20 veteran sound technicians, are in here to learn something. I personally think that one of the best ways to learn about speaker, cabs, crossovers, and all sorts of other things, would be to build a set. So maybe they make a few mistakes and they don't come out perfect. Its their first set of speakers! But imagine how far ahead they will be when they go to make their second set. I too just recently looked into building a bass cab to re-house a little combo that I have. There is a lot to learn/consider when designing these things. And I am going to design it myself, not buy plans. I may end up spending as much as if I had bought a new cab instead. But I think it will be fun. I enjoy woodworking, and speakers and stuff. Don't know to much about speakers, but cab by cab, that will change! ...google things like "building speaker cabs" or "speaker cab designs" and do some research. You'll find what you are looking for. Or at least come up with some more specific questions that some of these guys might feel more excited about answering for you. It's not necessarily negative energy to warn someone with zero experience that DIY rarely saves enough money to justify the work involved. Just a little centering to offset the hype in most of these DIY websites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Preacher Will Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 If you are looking for driver recommendations, Mark's APX drivers over @ Audiopile.com tend to be very good for the money. FWIW, Mark's site is .net not .com www.audiopile.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 There is a lot of negative energy in this forum. Please remember folks, those of us who are not full time, 20 year veteran sound technicians, are in here to learn something. I personally think that one of the best ways to learn about speaker, cabs, crossovers, and all sorts of other things, would be to build a set. So maybe they make a few mistakes and they don't come out perfect. Its their first set of speakers! But imagine how far ahead they will be when they go to make their second set.. It's not negative energy at all, it's REALITY. The speaker business is so competative that it's tough to build a speaker with really good performance (and finish it respectably) for the cost of buying a commercially built product new. Even cheaper to by a speaker used. They shouldn't have to make a second set of speakers if they buy something that really fits their needs (and try it out FIRST). Imagine the resale value of the home-built project when it comes time to "upgrade". You can learn plenty without building something, and you can also learn how the economics work on building versus buying. We jhad a really good thread on this a while back, worth searching for IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members prosigna Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 I wonder how many people warning him "don't do it" have built there own cabinets before? It is difficult, time consuming, and difficult to do well. Most of us that know this found out first hand. Some people learn by reading, some by watching, some by doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members milesdf Posted February 28, 2007 Members Share Posted February 28, 2007 There is a lot of negative energy in this forum. Please remember folks, those of us who are not full time, 20 year veteran sound technicians, are in here to learn something. I personally think that one of the best ways to learn about speaker, cabs, crossovers, and all sorts of other things, would be to build a set. So maybe they make a few mistakes and they don't come out perfect. Its their first set of speakers! But imagine how far ahead they will be when they go to make their second set. Well I really don't know what to tell you here, perhaps I'm just a negative person. I can tell you that I am not a veteran nor even a proffesional, just a college student. My time isn't worth hardly anything and I've built a ton of stuff accordingly. I've built tons of cable and even some electronics, but the one thing that after all my calculations aren't feasible to build at all, are speakers. On paper you'll rarely beat something off the shelf. In reality cabinetry is a skill that if you have the level of proficiency to build anything that will hold up, well you don't need to worry about saving money by rolling your own. Manufacturers have volume buying and assembly lines on thier sides, you'll never meet thier pricing, usally in parts alone. If you really want to do this for the expirience and learning, go for it. But please don't talk about saving money. How about finding some used unloaded cabs and adding drivers? you'll probablly be able to get decent results here, have to do a little work and learning, and come out about the same moneywise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted March 1, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted March 1, 2007 The plans I got from that site were not for a beginner, even though they seem to be aimed there. They lacked the types of detail and explanation that a beginner would need in order to make a cabinet that meets the hype of being competitive with say, JBL, whom they love to make performance comparisons against. Perhaps since I got them they've been improved. I won't pay to find out. And regarding those comparisons, I still see "this beats...." claims pointing to graphs. Greater but spikey output does not mean you "beat" the competition, it means you're louder and spikey. Anyone who's had to EQ a cheap speaker can attest to the pleasure of smooth response. And obviously in the case of the wedgehorn, please, please please don't try to convince me your half dozen piezo's are better than a JBL compression driver and horn. As Andy says, "good grief". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dark Ice Posted March 1, 2007 Members Share Posted March 1, 2007 http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Wedgehorn.htmlF**k me! I dunno...whenever I see a piezo I run away and hide, but you guys are the experts...can this thing actually sound decent? And is that a...10dB swing I see between 3k and 10k? Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted March 1, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted March 1, 2007 http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Wedgehorn.html F**k me! I dunno...whenever I see a piezo I run away and hide, but you guys are the experts...can this thing actually sound decent? And is that a...10dB swing I see between 3k and 10k? Steve. Hey, they state it beats a JBL, and if it's in print on the internet, it must be true. FWIW, and take it with a grain of salt, but we (Andy provided drivers, another forumite bought the plans) built a pair of Tuba 24's a couple years ago, simply to see if the claims were legit. They are not. It's exactly what you expect a small horn-loaded sub to be...small and peaky. Nothing was shaking off the walls, not by a long shot. I found the plans to be unworthy of charging a customer....they should be freeware, so that someone with real skill and time could improve them. There in fact wasn't even a real plan with dimensions, cut angles, etc, as you would see in say a woodworking mag. Only a view of a side panel with expected horn widths shown at unspecific intervals, and pics of a unit under construction. Even though this was a horn with lots of pieces joining at odd angles, not one angle was given, and in fact it was recommended you build with 90-degree butt joints, filling the gaps with polyurethane adhesive. Nice. I put in the extra time to figure the angles, used rabbett and dado construction, and put the cabinet together properly with wood glue. As I wrote previously, this was a couple of years ago, and it appears prices may have gone up from the $9 I remember, so maybe they have indeed been improved. What I also see is the recommended driver has changed for the Tuba 24...from a Beta10a to an MCM 55-1740 (?). The response curve appears to be just as peaky as it was before, and that's with the more-expensive HL-10a driver. Comparing it against a JBL SRX is ludicrous. I've got SRX, and I compared. It's laughable. Or maybe that's because I used the Beta 10a?? As I wrote before, piezo's vs a JBL compression horn? You figure it out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members preacherman672 Posted March 1, 2007 Members Share Posted March 1, 2007 Hey, they state it beats a JBL, and if it's in print on the internet, it must be true. FWIW, and take it with a grain of salt, but we (Andy provided drivers, another forumite bought the plans) built a pair of Tuba 24's a couple years ago, simply to see if the claims were legit. They are not. It's exactly what you expect a small horn-loaded sub to be...small and peaky. Nothing was shaking off the walls, not by a long shot. I found the plans to be unworthy of charging a customer....they should be freeware, so that someone with real skill and time could improve them. There in fact wasn't even a real plan with dimensions, cut angles, etc, as you would see in say a woodworking mag. Only a view of a side panel with expected horn widths shown at unspecific intervals, and pics of a unit under construction. Even though this was a horn with lots of pieces joining at odd angles, not one angle was given, and in fact it was recommended you build with 90-degree butt joints, filling the gaps with polyurethane adhesive. Nice. I put in the extra time to figure the angles, used rabbett and dado construction, and put the cabinet together properly with wood glue. As I wrote previously, this was a couple of years ago, and it appears prices may have gone up from the $9 I remember, so maybe they have indeed been improved. What I also see is the recommended driver has changed for the Tuba 24...from a Beta10a to an MCM 55-1740 (?). The response curve appears to be just as peaky as it was before, and that's with the more-expensive HL-10a driver. Comparing it against a JBL SRX is ludicrous. I've got SRX, and I compared. It's laughable. Or maybe that's because I used the Beta 10a?? As I wrote before, piezo's vs a JBL compression horn? You figure it out... And repeatedly people have offered to help you because you obviously screwed things up and you deny any offers and still spout this rhetoric. I have asked you to post pics, people have offered to help, and you refuse. If you are going to badmouth the design, at least have the guts to admit you might have made a mistake. Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members preacherman672 Posted March 1, 2007 Members Share Posted March 1, 2007 http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Wedgehorn.htmlF**k me!I dunno...whenever I see a piezo I run away and hide, but you guys are the experts...can this thing actually sound decent?And is that a...10dB swing I see between 3k and 10k?Steve. The wedghorn was not designed for fidelity. It was designed to get loud and be portable. That's what it does. There are options in the plans for higher fidelity. FWIW piezo tweeter arrays have been used by EAW and Meyer with varying degrees of success. Piezos in singles or horizontally arrayed sound like crap. A proper vertical strainght or crossfiring array can sound extremely well. David Perry built the DR290 and compared the piezo array to an array of JBL compression drivers. Read the entire saga here: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/prosoundhire/dr290%20review.htm Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members preacherman672 Posted March 1, 2007 Members Share Posted March 1, 2007 Could be a waste of time, but if your time is valueless then maybe you can learn a thing or two if nothing else.One (good) lesson you might learn is that performance claims are not always quite what they first appear to be. Don't expect them to blow away $4,000 cabinets regardless of the claims. And regardless of how many times you say this you still have not tested a BFD cab. Claims from commercial cabinets are way more misleading than you seem to want to believe. One good lesson you might learn from all this is to test something before you make claims. All claims on Bill's sight are backed up with response charts. Go find a commercial manufacturer who lists response charts. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members preacherman672 Posted March 1, 2007 Members Share Posted March 1, 2007 If you need to ask this question perhaps you shouldn't be looking into building your own stuff? from personal expirience I can tell you if your not doing a huge amount of stuff on decent tools your gonna save pennies, if anything. FWIW a Tuba 36 can be built for $300 plus labor with a circular saw, a screw gun, tape measure, and caulk gun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DJ Swydez Posted March 1, 2007 Members Share Posted March 1, 2007 We had a really good thread on this a while back, worth searching for IMO. I believe that was the thread I started, if I am not mistaken... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DJ Swydez Posted March 1, 2007 Members Share Posted March 1, 2007 FWIW, Mark's site is .net not .com www.audiopile.net Oops... sorry about that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted March 1, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted March 1, 2007 And repeatedly people have offered to help you because you obviously screwed things up and you deny any offers and still spout this rhetoric. I have asked you to post pics, people have offered to help, and you refuse. If you are going to badmouth the design, at least have the guts to admit you might have made a mistake. Les The original thread went 13 pages, and had pictures taken during construction. Did you read it? So I "obviously" screwed up. Okay, how? Explain how, exactly. If it's obvious, that should be easy. And what's this bull{censored} about me refusing "repeated" offers of help? To do what? You asked me if there were leaks, there aren't any. You asked if I had pics, I don't have the originals and the ones uploaded to HC for the thread are scrambled. But that's my fault, huh? Here are pics of the completed project. So, what's obviously screwed up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted March 1, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted March 1, 2007 FWIW a Tuba 36 can be built for $300 plus labor with a circular saw, a screw gun, tape measure, and caulk gun. Okay Macguyver, how do you cut the multiple sizes of holes in the braces? Or for that matter, the SPEAKER? You're going to compare a gig-ready JBL with a box put together with expanding polyurethane adhesive to compensate for angled joints butted with 90-degree cut plywood? Yeah, that's some good woodworking. Anyone can do the job half-assed, but it takes a real idiot to pay for plans that actually tell you to do it that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.