Dual Loaded Table Tuba by a Teenager

[Titanium Hand]

You're almost there now B.M.! You mentioned Duratex being in a bag? How industrious.

Will you be putting corners on your cab?

[LelandCrooks]

Pints come in bags.

[bassmonster]

Will you be putting corners on your cab?

Yes.

Leland, what size of Chevron corner do you think would do well on this cab? (I don't know if this cab would count as a "small cab" or not.)

[bassmonster]

Applied a second coat of Duratex today. Duratex is interesting stuff, it's almost like that Magic Shell chocolate sauce that sort of crusts on top of your ice cream. I got a little layer of Duratex on my hand from the light mist off the roller when I got a little too fast.

[LelandCrooks]

http://www.speakerhardware.com/penn_elc ... wc1405.php
or
http://www.speakerhardware.com/metal_ca ... wc1824.php

[bassmonster]

I used the TT for band practice today. I didn't get the sound I had gotten previously in the big church sanctuary.

So I wall loaded the thing in the hallway outside the band practice room because there was no space for it inside the small practice room. I noticed a problem when I started playing. I had the amp at 2/3 volume and nothing was vibrating off the walls or even resonating in my chest, and this was with a very small room, small enough that I would think cabin gain would be very relevant. I figured the lack of bass where I was standing was a room mode or something, but I couldn't experiment with placement because the current position was the only place to fit my sub. So I basically went the whole band practice with less than adequate performance. It was loud enough, but at the high amp setting, I felt it should have been louder. I checked, and it wasn't a weak line in signal. It was only after band practice ended that I figured out what had happened. When I had set my amp down while setting up my stuff at the beginning of band practice, I had accidentally hit the phase switch on my amp to fire in reverse phase. So I had gone the entire practice with the sub misconfigured.

Is this a problem? Could I have potentially damaged my drivers in any way? There were no problems other than a significant reduction in volume.

[Gregory East]

The TT is crossed over? What is this bass guitar system?

Phase shouldn't matter a whole lot for overall volume, just a hiccup in the crossover region that would sound bad.

[bassmonster]

The TT is crossed over? What is this bass guitar system?

Phase shouldn't matter a whole lot for overall volume, just a hiccup in the crossover region that would sound bad.

Well, it's about as ghetto as they get. I run my bass guitar through my processor into the Bash amp, and I have it crossed at about 120hz. No other cab for the above 120hz part, so I only get about half the range of my bass guitar coming out of the TT. No worries cause I don't use those last two strings that much anyway.

I fully intend on building a J12 this summer to remedy this.

[Drey Chennells]

The drivers and cab aren't (obviously) for this use, be careful.

[Gregory East]

Oh dear.

[Gregory East]

The good news is the reverse phase doesn't matter in the slightest, about the rest of the news, that's dire.

[bassmonster]

I take all responsibility for blown drivers. Normally I run about one third to half volume at most at practice to keep up with the drummer and guitarist. I run a clean bass tone through it, no distortion setting, and even on low E there's only 1/8" of excursion that I remarked at the beginning of practice. I'm not too worried about the drivers, but I am always careful not to pop or slap when playing. I don't think there's any way the Bash is going to be putting out 800w peaks into 6 ohms anytime soon, but once the Eminence D-Fend comes out I might wire one up just in case.

[bassmonster]

So I did my first TT demo today for my friend with the TT in the back of the Forester. The TT technically isn't allowed to be used in the car till next year but I needed to transport it to and from band practice so... . My friend saw the size and went like : and chuckled to himself. "Duuuuuude!" So we hopped in the front and turned on the song "Decibel" by Original Sin, the one with the 36hz bassline. This one always brings my "patients" close to cardiac arrest. Now keep in mind the only thing playing was the TT, which was hooked up to the Bash running off the weak DC converter. Note that this setup really couldn't push over 12v since it was limited by the battery and everything else. Turning on the car seemed to give it a little more strength for pushing the low notes. Also keep in mind I don't have a proper car audio setup yet and the music wasn't hooked up to anything other than the TT, so only the bass could be heard. IMO it makes the whole thing less impressive, but in this case it didn't matter if anything else was playing or not...

So I turned up to about 2/5 volume, turned on the Decibel song, the long intro (with no bass at all) started playing, and my friend got this bored look on his face. I calmly waited for the intro to end and I knew the exact timing. I smirked slightly at my bored friend, then the bass hit. And it hit like a sledgehammer too. My friend jumped up in surprise and doubled over, and when he recovered he had this stricken look on his face like He started to speak and when he spoke the bass made his voice oscillate like he was speaking into a fan. So then we got out of the car and walked around while the song was playing. Everything was rattling on the car. The license plate, the mirrors, the windshield wipers, the windows, the works. We went around to the back and the windshield wipers were dancing so much we started giggling like schoolgirls. Afterwards my friend remarked about how he'd never heard bass like that in his life. And guess what? That was less than 1/3 power.

Which brings me to this:

So later at home I decided I'd had enough of this DC converter joke. I plugged the Bash into an extension cord which ran from a wall outlet outside the car and put on some bass-heavy tunes. I then turned it up to a solid 1/2 volume and prepared for a nuclear blast.



I thought I'd heard plenty of bass with the weak DC converter. The TT at half volume in the car is insane! I doubled over myself and started cackling like an evil genius. With every beat it felt like all the hairs on my head had been charged with static electricity, and some of the beats with today's house music could have defibrillated the dead. The whole inside of the car was alive with movement. Stuff resting on the top of the dashboard was falling off, and the rattling was almost as loud as the bass. I went outside and went around the car. The windshield wipers were bouncing off the car, and the hatch door was visibly shaking like a beach boy in the arctic. Folks, it needs no further explanation.

I can't wait till my SPL meter comes in and I can finally measure this. For all you extreme bassheads out there, this design is it. And I know how some bassheads think they're a special case (me included). They say "Oh yeah you might think 120dB is loud enough, but not for me! I'm different. You can't possibly understand the crazy bass I want!"
This is more than enough. This absolutely crushes of any other options I could have gone with for a car audio system, including but not limited to...dual Kicker Comp 15s in a 40hz ported box, dual bandpass 12s tuned at 45hz, and four tens in sealed boxes. Not to mention, I am saving hundreds on a less powerful amp because the TT is so efficient. This subwoofer has given me everything I could have wanted in a car audio subwoofer- hits clean, low, and LOUD. Know and understand your goal before you make with the sawdust.
For average people I'm sure an MCM AT would be more than enough. For skull crushing performance with music below 30hz, the TT is where it's at for me. But be prepared to sacrifice your entire trunk and a couple of windows for it. Keep in mind even the TT is a little big for the car. Mine was louder with the doors or windows open. This is where the AT comes in as a more practical design for car subwoofers.

I still haven't done a full volume test yet. Guess I'll have to wait on that one.

Edit: I apologize for the long post, but I had to provide the all the details. I will be copying this post into a review thread later on.

[Tom Smit]

Absolutely nuts, id-n-it?

[AntonZ]

For shits n giggles you should try some classical pipe organ music. You bass nuts would appreciate that. I remember it once came on the radio back when I had the AT in the trunk of my previous car. It was sick