Phil Starr

Rob you might be the first person to try two of these cabs and just stacking them will change the off axis angle between your head and the cab on the top. What you'll gain will be subjectively quite dramatic and most people see it as a big improvement. The most significant is a 6db increase in sound level, even when you turn it down the speakers will be working over the more linear part of their travel so you might hear a reduction in distortion and power compression depending upon what level you were operating at before. Secondly you'll hear a clearer sound as you are closer to being on-axis and you'll also have some mid bass losses from the top cab but reinforcement from the bottom cab. For me a pair of these would be a really viable gigging set up. My current drummer is properly trained and his dynamics control is excellent I was using the 8 last night at rehearsal and it was fine in terms of volume. A pair would have given me plenty of headroom for a noisier gig environment. I'm dying to see what you make of a stacked pair You can already test how the cab will sound on a pole at home. Just stick it on a shelf or a table and sit down with your head/ears at speaker level. One reason I chose the Fane is that the off axis response is better behaved than many speakers of the same size. Speaker cones aren't rigid pistons but flexible bits of paper so off axis response is complicated. In any case the higher frequencies don't disappear off axis, mainly they just fade a little and eventually lobe, this is more of an issue with larger diameter speakers too. Small speakers have an advantage here with the cost being lower output. If you look at the chart below you can see that the reponse dip is dramatic at 60deg but minimal at 10-20deg. Bass guitar doesn't really have much content above 4kHz so the 8k line isn't really relevant.

you'll find that speakers sound very different up on poles. any hard reflective surface will reinforce the bass frequencies in particular and you'll get an extra 6db for each reflective surface. Spacing something away from a surface creates two paths to the ear and you'll get a time delay between the reflected sound and th direct sound from the speaker. That creates points in the frequency response where you get cancellation. I use the same speakers up on poles as PA and on the ground as floor monitors with one of my bands and DI the same bass signal into both. I don't use backline. I have to cut the bass to the monitors by at least 6db or the bass frequencies just drown out everything else on stage, the same signal is crystal clear out in front of the stage. Whether that bass reinforcement is good depends upon what you want to achieve/like. The 8" cab you've built gained a lot of love sitting on the floor but you can experiment with it on a pole. The best stand of course might be your other 8. maybe a stack of four would sound good I've used my 6" cab for open mics. It doesn't have the bass of the 8" cab so I tend to find a corner or a rear wall position for it so I can use the bass reinforcement. It's good to experiment with where you put your cab and you can learn to use the reinforcement as an extra tool. it's free bass boost if you need boost. A real nuisance if you don't. You can also buy tiny speaker stands NJS are one brand currently on offer at UKDJ for £17

How else would a covers band play Sweet Child Of Mine, Jean Genie, Video Killed The Radio Stars!!?? Seriously I've been through rehearsals without touching the G string and even the odd gig but there's an awful lot of times you need an octave in an arpeggio.

I'm with the majority, why would you have two sockets if they aren't left and right. That lead may just be something left by a previous band, who knows. You all use in-ears so it won't affect your performance but it might be worth looking to see if anyone you know has played there and what their experience was. Or ask the venue. It could be a good system if the people who installed it have eq'd for the venue. Good Luck

This is very much John's project and I haven't yet had a chance to listen to his system. Our thought was that at the price he paid the plate amp with a built in crossover was worth the price of the package. We had discussed just about every possibility including my developing a cab and John the amp from scratch and this was cheaper than the parts for the amp. When it turned up it was surprisingly well put together and sounded OK with the original Wharfedales. I did run models to look at using better quality 10's including Fane, Celestion, Beyma and Faital. Most of these gave no increase in output, mainly because they are only available in 8ohms. I did manage to find TS parameters for the fitted drive units as they were being sold as spares at the time. The 120db maximum output checks out as genuine. This compares with RCF/Yamaha and the like who all routinely quote only peak output which is 6db higher than the maximum continuous output they actually develop. The last conversation we had about this was to try the speakers and if they are short of output for John's needs to try some of the drive units I have as replacements. My feeling is that it's not something I would set out to do as a plan and there isn't a speaker for sale at sub £200 that would give you the extra 6db that a second sub would guarantee.

Payment sent, how many more do you need?

My experience is that it is really variable and depends upon who is in charge in individual yards. To be fair the main issues are now in how the wood is grown, slow grown softwood is becoming rare and the species planted have changed. I noticed a steady downhill slope in the 30+ years I was restoring houses and I've a barn full of reclaimed Victorian timber 'just in case'. When I was doing this more regularly I used to check out the timber whenever I was in a yard and bought up the good pieces when I saw them which saved a lot of time compared with having to drive round looking to see who had the best stocks half way through a job. I'm such an old curmudgeon

Correct, it's part of a tuned system and the dimensions have to be calculated

Finger joints are great if you have the machinery. They more than double the glued area and they help hold the cab together and square, just like the reinforced butt joints used in the 'easy build' method. Many commercial cabs use finger joints which are a lot quicker to fabricate than a reinforced joint. You will be changing the volume by removing the battens from my design so you would be best to calculate the volume of the wood you are missing and reduce the cab size by an equvalent volume. "If you have a hammer everything looks like a nail" For a keen woodworker wood is all, and plywood the devil's invention. He's probably envisaging using something with a lovely grain and making a feature of the beautiful finger joints. He's possibly seeing your cab as a furniture making project. I suspect that if you asked him about the Young's modulus, density and internal damping properties of the wood he won't know. Engineered woods are the best material for speaker cabs, tough, stable, easy to finish and the best combination of physical properties. It's kind of your friend to help and it is possible to build a solid wood cab. Some exotic hi fi goes this route and you could end up with something beautiful. I'm not saying dont do it but there are potential issues to think about and if you want the most practical cab then insist on using ply, MDF or high density Chipboard, probably in that order unless you are completely on board with the beauty of wood. As a woodworker I know the allure of a lovely bit of timber but it needs a bit of thought and planning. If this is going to be used for gigging then ply is best if it is going to sit at home then the right wood is going to look stunning. I really wouldn't use pine. I've struggled to get decent knot free dry timber from any of the builders merchants and only by being prepared to go in and personally select timbers. I've not found ayone at Jewsons, Travis Perkins and the like who know anything about timber and frequently it is poorly stored, left out in the rain before stacking and mauled by builders who don't know redwood frome white wood. I make doors and windows and sourcing genuinely joinery grade timber needs a great timber merchant. Your friend may have those skills of course but I think I'd go hardwood for something like this, but what a waste, I'd be looking at that timber and thinking it would make a great body for bass.

These look really great, thanks for the tip.

My coffee time teaser for today (mainly because I'm not 'allowed' to do Wordle) So the first thing to understand is that balanced line signals have an earth that is at 0V and two other signals +ve and -ve. The two signals go up and down at the same time but when + is going up - is going down. When the signal gets to the amp a transformer or a bit of electronics turns this back to an unbalanced signal. In a jack the tip should be +ve and the sleeve is the earth the ring should be -ve and inside the jack socket there are three sprung contacts that touch the plug when it is connected. Many jack sockets also have switches built in operated whenever a plug is inserted, so this can complicate the wiring. If you use the mono jack (the bottom one) then the - and the earth connectors in the socket are both touching the sleeve and are short circuited. What happens next depends upon the grounding arrangements. Since it is working for you then there are no issues. It doesn't work on my Flow 8 for example unless I only insert the plug halfway.

I possibly didn't think this one through did I? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. So could you drive headphones with the line output from a mixer? Well yes, what I didn't say was if I thought it was a good idea and the answer is probably not, most of the time. The outputs are almost always balanced mono so you'd need to wire a connector specifically to take that to your headphones and drive both sides. Secondly not all headphones have the same impedance so the mis-match may be serious enoughthat you'd lose a lot of output. I'd be checking the manual before starting this. If a new lead is going to cost you £10 then you are well on the way to a simple beltpack headphone amp. The Behringer P2 is £23. Ali Express are doing one for £13 that looks very like The Behringer and a passive one for <£10 I'm not really sure why you wouldn't go that route. As you were

There is no mystery about headphones and line outputs. Just looking at the Sennheiser IEM100 because that's waht I have to hand they are a 20ohm load and produce 115db for a 1V rms output or 0dbV. Line level is usually quoted as 0.7746V into 600ohms. In practice the output is often fine up to +10dbu and almost always +4dbu or 1.228V rms. So whilst there may be an impedance mis match (leading to a lack of current) a line output from most mixers will go well above 1V and deliver 115db right in your ears, plenty enough to cause you permanent tinnitus and with a good seal able to hear yourself. The headphone amp just gives you a better impedance match between mixer and phones, with a bit of extra gain with and a volume control. Correction: I was just musing about how levels here. I don't think this is a practical or sensible way to go when headphone amps are so cheap. Please don't do this at a gig and read my next post

Hi @scrumpymike can you send me details for payment please

I suppose I'm saying there is something in between. which is probably not particularly helpful The main thing that you want from a bass cab is that it is rigid and strong and as airtight as you can get it. In this case the cab is going to be portable so it would ideally be lightweight and tough enough to take knocks along the way. Already you have to compromise, lightweight timbers are almost always softer than those with more densely packed fibres so even in an ideal world there are choices to be made and probably no simple 'right' answer. Plywood is a man made material, there are lots of variables in it's manufacture. The species you use for the plies can vary and wood itself is a variable product between trees and even within a single tree there can be variation in the wood. Then you have variations in how the wood is handled and the resins and glues used to bind the plies together. There are British standards for the glues used and the resistance of the cores (based upon European Standards) and grading for the quality of the face veneers A-D commonly B-BB where B is the best face but not perfect and BB is meant for the inner surface often with small patches but still good enough to take a paint finish. The last ply I bought from B&Q was graded B-BB. The thing is there is such variation most of us won't try to specify. Often the better grades are only available in large qualtities so you aren't going to be able to specify. I have some block board in front of me with tropical hardwood (FSC) outer veneers 1.8mm thick. Three 8x4 sheets cost me an arm and a leg and had to be supplied by my timber merchant as part of a much larger order. These were for some furniture btw not for cabs. The reality is that unless you want to spend a fortune and hours searching you are pretty much stuck with the ply supplied by the big sheds. If you buy hardwood ply which is grede 2 or 3 (exterior grades) then you are going to get a reasonable quality product. I've got mine from Wickes over the years as I can go in and sort out the best sheets in the pile. If you look along the cut edges you can see if there are a lot of voids and if the edges are separating or splintering. Honestly I doubt if you would really hear much difference in the completed cab. I know a couple of people here who have made a cab with softwood ply I shudder to think about it, but they built a cab that worked. So my advice is to buy the best ply you can find, be aware of the gradings but don't agonise if the choice is down to take it or leave it, you can still build a great cab. Probably the lower grade is ging to affect the finish more than the sound of the cab.