funkle

You can also build your own FRFR cab. I did, from a flat pack @stevie sent me.

I’m already enjoying it. Really fun to experiment today. Turns out I like a little bump around 80-100 Hz in there, at least for Fender style basses. Lower than that works but introduces mud into the room I’m trying it out in, much as you might expect. I also really like simulating a B15 through the cab. If that doesn’t give you an ironic laugh, nothing will, lol. Seriously though the Fishman pre built into the Zoom B3 is very good. Adjustable HPF, and an adjustable ‘mid’ control that lets you dial right down to 40Hz...so you can really play around with frequency boosting/cutting very specifically. I ran some distortion into the cab and liked it, although I think compared to other cabs some treble EQ is needed to help manage it down a little. But the B3 again works great for that. I really dig this cab. Every note is clear and EQ is a pleasure to use. It sounds even but still like a bass cab.

It’s done. The badge is the final touch, and the strong double sided (slightly foamy) sticky tape is holding well. (Link for tape at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071ZYRKQS) The angle I took it at makes it look like the badge obstructs the port a little, but it doesn’t. I’ll take some final glamour shots tomorrow in daylight. I’ve been playing it a lot, and although speaker ‘break-in’ is very likely a myth, I played a looped bit of bass from my Zoom B3 looper through it for a few hours as well anyway. I really like the sound of this cabinet. Tomorrow I’m going to try a lot more fx through it. Look ma, I made a black box. 😂

Good point. I’ve edited my post to make sure everyone knows that that is not a good idea.

I had been contemplating that. There’s still a gap between the grille and the front edge of the foam; perhaps I should have said that when I press down hard on the grille, it can touch the front edge of the foam. (That was before I fixed it in with screws.) Hence, additional foam seems unlikely (I hope) to be needed, as well as being unsightly when it is placed. If the driver is regularly hitting the grille, then there’s only one of a few problems it will turn out to be. 1. The grille is too close for ordinary playing. In which case, the battens should be a larger depth, or the baffle depth needs modified, or we need a grille with a slight stand-off, or the front edges of the cab need to be deeper and the design tweaked overall. 2. I’m abusing the woofer by taking it regularly to Xmax and beyond. The problem is the user... If I find the woofer hitting the grille regularly with ordinary playing, then I might add more foam around the edges to the battens, to increase the distance. Hopefully it should not be necessary.

It would work that way if mounted to the rear of the baffle, indeed.

Ok, I managed some bits and bobs today. First of all, I put the woofer foam in. No photos, but it was an easy job now that I know how to handle T-nuts with care 😂 Secondly, fitted the grille foam surround. My tips for this are: cut it long (it’s stretchy so will go even longer than you cut it, but better being safe), and when sticking it down, only peel off the backing for the section you’re working on. It’s very unwieldy and sticky otherwise. Tidy job after though. Whilst I await the badge tape, I decided to screw the grill in. @stevie gave some helpful advice for this: 1. Screw in the four corners first 2. I’d likely need two more screws along the vertical and one more along the horizontal 3. Make sure as much grille material is caught underneath the screws. Relevant here as the open ‘cell’ structure isn’t always completely closed on some sides of the grille. Now, @stevie sent me some more foam to stick on the top of the woofer to support the grille in the middle of it. I tried that, and it poked through and looked unprofessional. I removed it. In this case, with this grille, I think it is not required; it turns out the built-in foam on the front surface edge of the woofer sits proud of it. (There’s also plenty of space between the grille and even the foam edge of the woofer. It’s not a good idea to have the grille supported by the foam edge.) So, after all that, here’s the screwed in grille: I like it. It all blends in. I need to play this more tomorrow. I’m itchy right now to...lol....but kids are asleep. Grille weight by the way was 650g, or 1.433 lbs. Total cab weight is 29.8 lbs. Beautiful. (Nearly the same as a Barefaced BB2, which uses a much more complicated build to get its weight - 29 lbs.) Killer cab.

Hear hear to that!

I need to look at double sided sticky tape as well to get it fixed into place.

Hmm. I had hoped it would be safe there...maybe if I scooted it up an inch above the port?

I still need to finish some bits off, now I know it works. Turns out I forgot to put the woofer foam on: D’oh. Then I’ll need to sort out the grille and badge. It should end up looking like this: That may happen later on today, but I have family stuff to do, so might be next week. I’m satisfied this won’t end up looking like a home build. That has been my main goal.

Well, finally, I got to sit down and test it. Thankfully it sounds like everything is hooked up right. Used my GK MB800 head as the amp. One must be careful when describing a cab one has built, because there is going to be some bias. Lol That said, it sounds like this: This is the frequency response chart of the cab that Stevie sent me. It sounds like that - everything is very balanced, top to bottom. (NB: frequency range on chart is 200Hz - 20kHz). The highs are really clear and present without being harsh. Superb. I have a Celinder Update which tests treble perfectly - it has about the most top end I’ve heard out of an instrument. This cab shows one of the delights, and pitfalls, of FRFR cabs. Every single string noise and bit of technique is highlighted - you must be very clean in playing. I elected to turn down a bit of the treble knob on both my Celinder Classic Jazz and the Celinder Update and I still had all I needed treble wise. Yes, I did the Marcus Miller slap thing and it sounded fantastic. The highs here are similar as the very best cabs I have heard in this area - the Fearless F112 and the Barefaced BB2. I’ve always said I liked the BB2 highs just a little better than the F112, but this cab I think pips the BB2. It’s close though. One of the design goals of the cab is that you can be immediately in front of the cab and hear yourself well. It achieves this well. The mids are even and I hear every instrument’s character clearly, mid EQ tweaks are clear. Very smooth. The lows I tried out in a few different ways. Keeping the cab off the floor on my workbench, the lows were even and clear, and you could EQ in a huge amount if desired. I always like to push cabs here and see if I can make them fart out. I maxed out both the bass boost on the amp and the John East J Retro pre - which is a frankly insane amount of boost - before I could get the woofer to distort a little. Took it like a champ. (The only cabs I have never seen distort with that much boost are the Fearless F112, which already has a walloping low end [probably a bit too much, but it is intoxicating], and the Audiokinesis Thunderchild. No coincidence that both share the mighty 3012LF woofer. However I often found myself turning down the low end on those cabs.) Once I put the cab on the floor to get the boundary effect giving a moderate bass boost, the cab sang. Beautifully meaty, tasty tone. Gorgeous. Balanced. Responsive to EQ and hand placement. Insert your favourite hyperbole here. Etc It took the B string well also. An even volume with all the other strings, even when turned up. No issues there at all. I do wonder if the cab will open up even more on the low end as I play through it. Wait and see I guess. Loudness. I haven’t fully tested it - it needs gigged at volume for a period of time to fully judge. That said, in my opinion it is louder than the F112 and equal to what I remember of the BB2. Very, very, very loud with 500W. Windows rattle, the house shakes, and I hadn’t even tried maxing out the gain/volume. I’m going to need to make sure no-one else is in the house before I can do that. For me it is certainly a one cab solution for anything I will play. Take what I say with a pinch of salt. I built it, after all. But in my opinion the nearest cab I can think of to compare it to sonically is the BF BB2. It feels like boutique performance for a lot less money. It’s an FRFR cab without a doubt.

Lol. I have a house with 2 asleep young children and a tired wife. No way I can do anything tonight...the patience is forced, not voluntary...

Ok, good news. I managed to lever up the woofer and, after a lot of fiddling, get the mole pliers locked on, and unscrew the bolt out. When I checked the state of the hole behind, it actually didn’t look too terrible, and a T-nut still fit within it. I didn’t have time to get Araldite, but I did have some Loctite (not the same, but good enough as it turned out). I ran Loctite on to the ‘catching’ surface of the new T-nut, pressed it into place, and when it dried, ran some more around that. Then threaded a bolt in by hand to check it all worked ok. It did. @Phil Starrmade an important point about using T nuts. I unconsciously, I think, was leaning in hard against it when I was trying to thread the bolt in the first time around. So I made it pop out, especially when I cross threaded it by accident at the same time; it made it easy to apply too much force. Having determined that, I was wanting to avoid any issues this time around. So I hand screwed in every single bolt on the woofer to make sure none of them cross-threaded, making sure not to lean or press down when doing so, until they were all about half way in. Only then, did I use the Allen key to tighten them all to the full tightness. So, it’s now all put together. Tomorrow I’ll test it out and see if I’ve wired everything in right. Hopefully so! Then I can look at sorting the grill and badge. By the way, current weight: 28.3 lbs. Nice!!!

I’ll see how it goes when I get home. I have no desire to get a hacksaw anywhere near the driver...or my drill, for that matter...fingers crossed.

Absolutely spot on Stevie. Nice summary. I did try pulling the T-nut back up into the baffle, but I can’t get purchase any more. @stevie I have plenty more T-nuts, should be ok. I’m keen to get the cab going so may just do the BluTac option while I try and get a filler.

Thanks Phil Sounds like some helpful stuff to try. I’ll see what I can do. I was a bit iffy on the T-nuts holding perfectly with just hammering them in, so just before I tried installing the woofer, I did in fact take a washer and bolt and then tighten a bolt in each hole, and make sure the T-nuts were firmly held into the wood. This one came out anyway. I have heard it said T-nuts can have a little glue on them to help them stay in. I may try that if I can rescue this one. I have read @Bill Fitzmaurice on another forum say that he thought T-nuts were more hassle than they were worth. I only read that now after Googling for solutions, though, lol...

I just borrowed a mole grip from my father in law. Looks useful; I’ll try it when I get back home. I don’t have a right angled plate and I’m finding it hard to follow those written instructions, @Phil Starr, apologies. However they may not be needed anyway, I hope; I’m going to see if I can lever the woofer out enough to allow me to work in the mole grip. Anyone have thoughts on what I do with this particular hole afterwards? Assuming success with the bolt.

I can’t get a grip on it from the rear with pliers, gave that a shot already. I don’t know what mole grips are but will find out. Another tool to buy, perhaps. I’ll see if I can enlist my wife’s aid. I’m not keen on repeating this experience with another T-nut. Also, even if I can get this bolt out, I’m not sure what to do with this particular hole. Another T-nut doesn’t seem like it will work at the moment...rotating the woofer a little and just screwing it in with wood screws seems a lot safer...

Well, all had been going swimmingly...now I’m stuck. However, first, the good. Speakons went in nicely. Worked out how to wire everything up with Stevie. Hooked the wires up to the crossover and installed it. Hooked up the Speakon connectors. Hooked up the horn, then the woofer. Looking great...but then I had a T-nut problem. And I’m stuck for a bit, though I think I have a solution. I was screwing a bolt into one of the woofer screw holes, and then felt something give in the baffle - felt like the T-nut had unseated/loosened. A quick feel behind by reaching in through the horn hole confirmed that. Problem is, in trying to unscrew the bolt from the T-nut, I determined that the bolt is clearly stuck into the T-nut and will not loosen. Furthermore the T-nut has now stripped out the hole it was in on the rear of the baffle and I can’t get it to grip back in. (So now I have one bolt at the right side of the photo that I can’t screw in any further or screw out.) I suspect I know why manufacturers might avoid T-nuts now... I have been thinking on solutions, and I have only one so far: try to drill into the head of the bolt and see if I can remove it. Once removed, I can then consider my options. I’m going to take a break from this for a bit and return later on, when I’ve let my frustration ease a bit. When I can remove the bolt, I might consider rotating the woofer a little to give me new baffle space to work on and simply using screws to fix it in place; I could simply fill the T-nut holes with wood filler/glue/dowels/etc. I’m suddenly out of love with T-nuts, lol.

Almost there. I felt the foam on the horn was a bit thick for a nice level fit, so I replaced it with foam for the grille (which is narrower and thinner). The foam on the handle works out fine with the pressure from bolts/T-nuts, but I did consider replacing it as well. Finished texturing the edges, so fitted the handle, feet, corners, and label to the cab. The textured finish is showing better in these photos as well. Need to do a test wiring up and get Stevie to check it. Current weight of unloaded cab: 19 lbs. I think we’re on track for a cab at or just under 30 lbs. Sweet.

Ooh that grill is tempting. However I already own mine, lol, so I need to use that first.

Nice! A great start. Hard to photograph finishes, isn’t it? Lol

Ok. Some feedback, now that I’ve nearly finished painting and what is on is dry. (Still need to texture the front edges of the cab around baffle later today). I did 3 base layers and 2 texture layers, and potentially it might benefit from another texture layer. However too many layers make the finish shinier, so I’m stopping here. Plus I want to wire everything up and play, dammit, lol. In retrospect probably only 1 base layer needed. I probably over-egged it in my enthusiasm/desire for safety of finish. Then I could have layered more texture layers on top. Nonetheless, I have a very nice (if subtle) faux leather effect, and now that it’s on all surfaces, I really like how it looks. The photographs are not as clear as I want, but it is tricky to photograph. I tried the honeycomb roller from Tuffcab but it didn’t want to turn/roll correctly on my paint roller handle. It kept sticking/stopping. Weird. So I abandoned that. Now, I want to finish this cab this weekend.

Glad to help. Tuffcab don’t give a lot of instructions, although they have a helpful blog post about using their product. https://blog.bluearan.co.uk/tuff-cab-loudspeaker-paint/