nekomatic

O HAI I JUS CHECK OUT NU SCRATCHIN POST

Seeing as I’ve started participating in a few threads round here - and in particular have gained some invaluable knowledge and help on speaker cabinet construction in the Amps and Cabs forum - I should probably say hello. I’ve been playing bass on and off for nearly thirty years, having played piano and classical guitar before that. I’ve dabbled in jazz-funk, folk and blues but my main thing has always been jazz - it was Steve Swallow’s Duets album with Carla Bley that hooked me on bass and Swallow’s style and sound is probably still what I aspire to. I’ll listen to pretty much anything although let’s say I don’t often put thrash metal on for fun. I started listing bass and non-bass favourites but it took too long so for now I’ll namecheck Me’shell Ndegéocello and leave it at that. Scandalously, I’ve only ever owned two basses - a cheap Precision copy I started out on and the American Standard Fender Jazz I upgraded to. I’m pretty sure the Jazz suits me but I really ought to try out alternatives sometime. I’ve also scraped by with practice combos (currently a Marshall MBB15) and borrowed bigger amps as needed, but am now working on sorting out a decent rig as documented on my cab refurb thread. Oh and I recently acquired a Bass Pod XT which feels like cheating but makes some brilliant noises. Other instruments I own but can’t really play include congas, accordion, Turkish baglama, mandolin and theremin 😎

Way back when they first came out, I saw a picture of an Ibanez AFR in a magazine and was intrigued. I've never seen one for real much less played one, what with them making hen's teeth look commonplace. I now see that they've been reissued and even come up secondhand from time to time, so it's conceivable I might actually meet one one day. If so, I'm fully prepared to find it actually does nothing for me.

I've just discovered Snazzback

The crossover for the Beyma is a few posts up on this thread I believe this is technically the Mark 2 version of the cab, while Mark 3 is the one with the Faital Pro LF and a more expensive Celestion HF driver. Stevie has just sorted me out with the components for this crossover at a very reasonable price so if you want to build one too I would highly recommend asking him. The thing you may have an issue with is getting hold of the PH-170 horn - nobody in the UK has them in stock before September...

That's my current approach - the PA power amp being an Inter-M R300 which is linear and fanless and is rated for 2 x 150 W into 4 ohms or 300 W into 8 ohms bridged. I don't know if you can get them new any more but they come up on eBay for a hundred quid or less. There's also an R150 and R500 with 150 and 500 W respectively, I think. Admittedly I haven't battle-tested this yet.

They’re only an engineer if they go on and on and on about ‘requirements’

That would be amazing thanks! I'll send a PM.

Thanks to Phil I have a line on an SM212 and have identified where to get everything else I need… except for the PH-170 horn flare. Blue Aran have confirmed they won't be getting more stock until September(!) and the only place I can find who stock it and will ship to the UK is in Germany. Is there a suitable alternative to the PH-170, or is the match between driver and horn critical enough that I should obtain one at any cost?

Brilliant! Thanks so much. That's plenty clear enough 😁 I feel a plan coming together... eta: What do you suggest for the wire gauge / dc resistance of the inductors? I'd get the Jantzen ones from hificollective unless I hear any better suggestions, and they offer a range of gauges. I assume the 1.15mH should be a meaty one but what about the two on the HF side?

Nice! Great sound, very professional.

Thanks both! I'd forgotten about the new lower-cost Beyma. Would that need a crossover redesign compared to the SM212 though, assuming the SM212/CDX1-1445 crossover circuit turns up? Blue Aran claim to still have two SM212s left in stock... My thinking for what it's worth is two handles on opposite ends would make it easier to lift the thing in and out of a car boot, for example, or to position it on its side (compared to the photo). A vertical brace on the rear panel sounds sensible and should be straightforward to fit - I'm pretty sure I can get a full height piece in through the driver hole. By 'central figure 8 brace' do you mean something like brace K from the Basschat cab diagram? Would you advise cutting it from ply as in that design, or can I assemble it from battens in situ?

I have a 1x12 cabinet that my dad and I (well mostly my dad) built together many (many) years ago. It's made of 18 mm ply with all internal edges battened and all joints screwed and glued. That makes it pretty sturdy but there's no internal bracing and currently no damping except for some bituminised felt stuck to the back panel, for some obscure historical reason. Allowing for the speaker the volume is about 50 L and it has a slot port that tunes it to about 70 Hz. It was always intended for bass but for some further obscure reason ended up with a Fane guitar speaker which is very loud but doesn't sound great. Driving it with a signal generator sine wave it feels like the back panel resonates a little bit at 55 and 110 Hz and it sounds like there's another slight resonance at about 300 Hz. One final bad choice is that I sprayed it with grey Hammerite without adequate priming, so it really needs properly refinishing too. It's time to sort all this out and because the volume is close to the Basschat 12" design, and I reckon the full-range 'hi-fi' approach works for me, my current plan is to: block the slot port by gluing in an 18x18mm softwood strip and fit a 125mm tube port instead as per the Basschat design sand it back to the wood and paint it with Tuff Cab replace the existing handle with inset handles top and bottom, so it can easily be placed upright or sideways line the inside with acoustic wadding replace the Fane driver with either a Beyma SM212 or a Faital Pro 12PR320 probably, fit a P Audio PH-170 horn, Celestion compression driver and crossover as per the Basschat design depending on cost, get a grille made to cover the whole front face. Have I missed anything? Is it likely to be worthwhile trying to add any bracing and if so where? The back panel is glued, so the only access to the inside is through the driver hole...

Ooh, sorry I haven't checked in here in a while so I didn't see this. Yes please, if you or @Chienmortbb has this circuit diagram I would be very interested in seeing it (I don't mind if it's scruffy, you should see some of mine...)

Fair enough!

No luck with Wayback Machine, but in the meantime I thought to actually take measurements from my cab, and the T-nut holes already there are correctly spaced for the Faital Pro but not the Beyma - which suggests less hassle going with the former. One option I'm wondering about though (and I guess this is relevant to BCCab builders too, so still on topic) is using an electronic crossover and bi-amping, rather than building the passive crossover - any thoughts? Would you expect any decent HF unit to give good results in that case, or would you stick with the Celestion?

Ooh, yes please.

This thread (and its ancestors and offspring) have been really helpful for me in planning how to refit this 60 litre 1x12 cab I've got - thanks very much to all concerned! Maybe I missed this or maybe it was in an image link that no longer works, but were the crossover details ever shared for the Beyma woofer, and/or for the Faital with the P-Audio HF unit? Could anyone point me at them and/or repost them please?