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NCD! - Home-made portable 1x10


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IMG_20240729_183737063.thumb.jpg.cc61835dc4ae4ef9c1989528324110f3.jpg

 

It's finished!

 

Mug for scale. It's 42 cm high, 30 cm wide and 34 cm deep. Weight is 11 kg, though I think about a kilo of that is the weight of the (removable) luggage handle and the heavy-duty flightcase wheels. I don't drive, so my aim was to make a speaker cab that's small enough to be wheeled around like a carry-on suitcase on public transit, and light enough to not cause me grief when going up stairs. I've covered it with some luxurious brown faux-leather (left over from reupholstering some dining chairs), but I'll probably make a weatherproof cover once I've had more practice with my wife's sewing machine.

 

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The main speaker is a Faital Pro 10PR320 (300 watts RMS), while the mid-ish tweeter is a Faital Pro 4FE42. It's got a hand-wired 4th order crossover that splits the signal at about 1.8 khz.

 

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It sounds really great to my ears, though I admit I'm not the most experienced judge of these things. The response seems pretty even, sounding like a DI'ed bass when everything's set flat on the amp, but it responds well to any adjustments to the eq or pickup balance changes. It's also noticeably louder than my old cab, and reaches "shaking the walls and annoying the neighbors" levels with my amp's gain and volume at about 3 out of 10. Considering I only use a Little Mark 250, and this is an 8 ohm cab, that's impressive, I think.

 

Many thanks to @Bill Fitzmaurice and @Phil Starr for answering questions about the elements of the design I got stuck on, and for generally dispensing wisdom essential to this build in various threads.

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Cab looks great, but it was the Flints mug that caught my eye. Their warehouse is three doors down from where I lived as a kid! I'm taking it that you work in the world of theatre tech?

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That does look lovely and I'm sure lot's of people are going to pinch the luggage handle idea. I do love a successful build.

 

How about a bit of a review when you've gigged it a few times. I'm interested in how you get on with the 4" tweeter

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Mykesbass said:

Cab looks great, but it was the Flints mug that caught my eye. Their warehouse is three doors down from where I lived as a kid! I'm taking it that you work in the world of theatre tech?

The theatre techie would be my wife, she's been running theatre workshops for long enough that she's on first name terms with everyone there. They've left their old warehouse (the one in Deptford, yes?) and gone out to Dartford now.

Edited by Mediocre Polymath
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29 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Yep I think it looks great and similarly love the luggage handle idea. If it’s not been done before see if you can patent it @Mediocre Polymath?

I'm sure I've seen another bass player with a wheely extendo handle on their amp. I was looking at folding trolleys for a while and then thought I'd simplify things. I'm a little worried that the internals of the extension mechanism might rattle at volume, but it's easy enough to put on and take off with a flat-head screwdriver (it's attached with M6 bolts that connects to blind T-nuts on the inside of the enclosure).

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As another bassist who doesn't drive, that looks like a fantastic solution. Personally, I'd need a powered version with something like a Quilter Bass Block docked into a recess, as I currently use a powered frfr speaker.

 

I know you're planning on making your own cover, but IIRC Roqsolid can make custom covers if you send them the measurements.

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59 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

That does look lovely and I'm sure lot's of people are going to pinch the luggage handle idea. I do love a successful build.

 

How about a bit of a review when you've gigged it a few times. I'm interested in how you get on with the 4" tweeter

I'll definitely report back when I've had a chance to properly turn it up. Not sure when that will be though, as both my bands have gone a bit quiet lately.

 

That's actually sorta the reason why I decided to make this thing, in a roundabout way – I've had a bunch of projects fall apart because of difficulties finding rehearsal spaces that everyone can get to without hours of travel. I made this so that I, at least, can be a lot more flexible about where we play.

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47 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Yep I think it looks great and similarly love the luggage handle idea. If it’s not been done before see if you can patent it @Mediocre Polymath?

Phil Jones amongst others have this luggage handle on a few cabs, so no it can't be patented. 😉

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1 hour ago, Mediocre Polymath said:

The theatre techie would be my wife, she's been running theatre workshops for long enough that she's on first name terms with everyone there. They've left their old warehouse (the one in Deptford, yes?) and gone out to Dartford now.

They have (or had up until fairly recently) a place in Walworth. It was a theatrical scenery warehouse when I lived there. Probably turned into flats now...

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 30/07/2024 at 09:08, Lozz196 said:

Yep I think it looks great and similarly love the luggage handle idea. If it’s not been done before see if you can patent it @Mediocre Polymath?


I’m sure a good patent agent could draft something that would cover your design without infringing on or being invalidated by whatever PJB have done, but it’d cost you significant money so there’d be no point unless you were planning to sell this on a commercial scale (and willing to defend your patent against any big companies with big lawyers who took a fancy to it). 
 

So now we know you probably won’t sue us for copying it, can you tell us where you got the luggage handle from?

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