Back in the saddle

I have time to post, unbelievable.  

I've had a project on the burner for quite a while.  BFM cabs are astounding performers,  requiring time and skill to execute well.  There's some folks out there who just will not or cannot do horn loaded cabs.  For whatever reason, I'm not getting into that debate.  So after some discussions with Eminence, they gave me approval to design cabinets based on Jerry McNutt's design parameters posted on the Eminence website. 

I started with the 18's. Everybody seems to love 18" subwoofers.  My personal preference is 15"s, but hey, the market is never wrong, right?  I screwed around with sizes for a very long time, looking for ergonomics and consistency across the cabs.  I engaged my brother who's also a woodworker and he did the same.  Between the two of us we came up with some basic design criteria, then he built the first prototype.  From that one I built 5 different cab sizes that will accommodate  every 18" woofer Eminence builds.  I spent 5 days living with my Dad, and it just so happens the shop is at his house.  Cut some wood, check on Dad, cut some more wood, check on Dad.  But it was really enjoyable to just get buried in the process, and hang around with Dad. 

Interchangeable ports for differing tube lengths, internal baffles to change volume as needed, commonality across the designs to make production easier.  Here's a couple of horrible cell phone pics showing the 4, 5, 7, and 9 cu ft boxes.

Testing begins in earnest pretty soon.  Although it's probably unnecessary, Jerry is the chief speaker designer for Eminence, he knows what the hell he's doing.  An added bonus is all of these also work for the 15's. 

They'll be available in 2 ways.  Plans with measured drawings and all the parts, and as flat pack precut kits.  I literally can assemble one from the flat pack in 5 minutes with a brad nailer. I bet with a screw gun it wouldn't take more than 15 minutes. Custom bent grilles will be available.  Dado's and rabbet construction make assembly like a tinkertoy.  I spent a lot of time thinking about the avg guy with a minimal amount of tools assembling these.  There will be a video for construction posted up before too long. 

After perusing the sub world out there, most of the under $500 stuff is particle board, mdf, or some similar crap wood.  With who knows what kind of driver.  These are auraco, my first time with it and I like it very much.  It will be a quality sub that anybody can build, and pick their price point by choosing whatever driver suits their fancy. 

Will it be equal of a titan or a tuba?  Probably not, but it will be a good box that should compete with any direct radiator out there. 

To Whom It May Concern

You got me twice before I saw the pattern.  At least I limited the loss to a couple of hundred bucks.  You won't get me again, so stop sending orders.  There's nothing worse than a thief, and considering some of the people I called to confirm the orders, you are scraping shit from a thief's combinet.

1 lady was obviously elderly and in ill health, the other was a card for the man's deceased wife.  The cc companies won't do squat, tried that, but I have every piece of data you've sent me, isp's, the works.  So quit trying.  Ain't happening anymore.  My orders all pass by my eyes before they're processed.  Fuck with me some more at your peril.  I have friends and relatives that are white hat hackers in the corporate world that will track you down in no time. 

Clones

Been a while since I posted a new blog.  This one isn't audio related per se.  Waaaay too much stuff going on right now.  Business has exploded, work on my house has exploded, one crisis after another, doesn't leave much time for musings on audio. There are at least 3 audio projects I need to finish very badly.   I need a clone.  Maybe 2 or 3.
 
The biggest crisis has been that two weeks ago my father broke his hip.  He's 88, tough as old shoe leather.  Plays golf every day, still works in the shop, pretty much does what he pleases.  We've been pretty busy with that.

All of my mechanical skills, all of my curiosity about how things work, how to fix things, the drive to be an entrepreneur is all owed to him  So it's payback time.  It might be a while again before I get back to the real purpose of this blog.  Right now life intrudes.  

The new Crown Amplifiers

So I got the new drivecore XLS amps in.  They are pretty sweet.  8-10 lbs for serious power.  Cheap per watt, and the drivecore technology is amazing.  Voltage tolerant, they don't care if your 110 is nasty, or swings from 90-125.  I don't think Crown is putting enough emphasis on that aspect of these amps.  There's a proprietary chip built by TI that monitors all aspects of the amplifier.  Impedance, output, supply voltage, temperature, everything.  They are bulletproof, literally.  I got sold on them at NAMM, where an old school salesman who believed only in big iron was totally sold on them.  Because of the drivecore chip.  It is a revolution in amplifier control, and overcomes all the objections to switch mode amplifiers, because it responds and corrects any changing conditions.  None of the other new amps on the market have anything like it. 

They did, however, make 1 mistake.  You can only run a high pass or a low pass on a channel.  Not both.  Which for direct radiator boxes is no big deal.  For horn loaded subs, it's problematic.  You need both.  So my suggestion is still to run outboard crossovers.  Use the internal limiters, (which are very very good) and all the other powerful dsp available.  You can set the crossovers in the amp to steepen the slope for extra protection. For tops you don't need any outboard processing.  I think the best setup for the bucks would be an xTI for subs, XLS for tops. Then all you'd need are the amps and their built in dsp. 

I think it was a conscious decision on Crown's part, otherwise XLS would have killed the xTI line.

DIY in general

If there's one thing I've noticed that real DIY'ers will tackle about anything.  It's not so much the end result I think that gets our juices running,  it's the process, the work it self, the planning, overcoming obstacles, just getting it done.  We like making ourselves into quivering wrecks over some project that is just kicking our ass.  Whether it's speaker building, fixing a car (I don't do cars anymore, at all), working on a house, building a pc, it doesn't matter what the project, we just like the work. 

So at my place, cabs and audio have taken a back seat for a while.  Unless somebody orders some boxes ;-)  Here's the current project, and it's a doozy.  We're 2 weeks in just scraping and prepping the porch. 
House Paint Album

But I'm an anal bastard when it comes to paint.  If you do it right, it will last 10 or 15 years.   Do it fast and cheap, you're lucky to get 5.  But isn't that true about everything.  Doing anything right is hard, slow and wears you out.  Quick and dirty never gets it right. 

It takes a deadline

I just got done with a pair of t39's.  Including the new self powered amp.  I finished impedance testing and setting the dsp about an hour before the show I wanted to use them for.  They'd been under construction off and on for a couple of months, I dithered around on them. Only when the time was getting close I knew I needed them did I bear down, every evening after work, every day off, just about every spare minute to get them done.  There was quite a bit of custom work to do on them, so they took a while.  Plus I experimented with a few new techniques on these for proof of concept. 

Why does it always take a deadline?  I just don't get it done unless I have one, either manufactured or real. 

Oh yeah, 4 DR250's, 4 t39's, completely self powered system.  2 DDC520's running the whole show.  Sweet.  Pics before long on Bill's forum and my site. 

Better than I ever could have said

what really defines good bass in sound_reinforcement/