T48 Build Thread

[Charles Jenkinson]

Well, I'm having fun imagining the lay of the land round your place.

You don't live in a castle do you?

[frpcraig]

Build a little bridge..........

[frpcraig]

or fill the ditch with water and build a raft...........

[miked]

LOL! A moat! I've always wanted a moat. And if you have a moat, you MUST have alligators in it...or pihranna (sp?) But I'm getting ahead of myself. No; I live in suburbia, in a corner house surrounded by other identical houses. But b/c of the topography...or more probable, the way the land settled after they turned these cow fields into housing developments, the 8-foot wide x 30-foot long strip of grass b/t my house and my neighbors, that goes to our backyards, has become a u-shaped ditch. I'd take a pic, but you'll have to take my word for it.

The cabs are DONE. Fini. Complete. I have to wait for the all-important group picture, b/c the sun's right in my driveway right now. Tried this before and any pic taken outside ATM will not look good at all. But there ARE pics to prove they exist. Read on, please.

Step by step, as it were. Here's a terminal cup with the gasket tape on it. That's 1/2" wide PartsExpress gasket tape that I bought 10 years ago, and it was still perfectly sticky. I'm amazed, frankly, but since I never throw anything away, and it was the perfect size, I used it, along with the new, 3/8" wide gasket tape I bought for this build.


All four cups labeled. I think you can make out the bottom line of text. Note I have them labeled "T48-01, 02, etc". That way I can keep track of which cab is which. The top line of text says "Property of......." My company name is there, but I blurred it out b/c I've not legally started it yet. Don't wanna give too much away.


Pigtails wired up, (with OCD-approved heatshrink) along with a service loop in the wire in case future service is needed. Note the mounting holes for the cup are pre-drilled. One of the many lessons learned over the years. Predrill EVERY FREAKING THING b/c split plywood SUCKS.


Wired up cup. Sorry for the blurry pic.


Gasket-taped flange. The small gap around the perimeter is where the mounting screw holes are predrilled. I have zero leaks. Tested with ye'olde trusty hose-to-the-ear tester apparatus.


So nice to finally see these LAST cab panels INSTALLED instead of staring at me from some corner of the garage! They stand about 1/16" proud. I knew this would happen. If I had access to a planer, I'd have planed the covers down 1/16". But I don't. So it is what it is, folks.


See the corner protector in relation to the access cover cutout? I wish I could say "Yeah, I planned it that way." But I didn't. Just stupid luck. Worked in my favor for once! Last night when I put the corners on I said "Holy crap...lookit that! *whew!*" LOL!


Lovely terminal cups istalled.


And finally, we have four T48s! I hooked up two of my OTops so I could at least get an idea of what I have.



There will be a few group pics very soon, for sure! This is not my official review but I'll say this much:

All I did was setup the crossover and limiter on the Driverack and play back some music. NO tuning of any kind was done, aside from turning up the 80Hz EQ knob on the mixer about two notches. It sounds GREAT! It's difficult to get more specific than that b/c they were playing back in my open garage, and to step 20 feet out, means that you're down in teh street and mouth of the subs are now at ear level, but it sure sounded damn good from across the street...even w/the vicious slapback. I have run all four of them to test them out for leaks, but there is not enough room in my garage to run all four together...either side by side or ground-stacked. That will have to wait. But so far, so DAMN GOOD. Oh, the cheap casters rattle like Texas Sidewinders during the annual snake roundup, but that's nothing Bruce's most excellent Caster Anti-Rattle Devices won't fix. Or some wadded-up newspaper until I can build the things.

What I do want to do next is get weight on these things. I'm going to say 90 pounds even, so we'll see how much I'm off.

Thanks very much for all the advice and encouragement, and a special thanks to BRUCE for helping me overcome a bad case of Brace-Shove-Itis.

More to follow, for sure.

[Bruce Weldy]

Great build Mike.

Now go get a job....you've been retired long enough!

[miked]

LOL! You are not the first person to get tired of me being home. The little lady has also been hinting. Sheesh. Only been home 10 days!

Bruce: One day soon I will set the whole shebang up in teh backyard, tune it, and let it rip. I'd like you to stop by...and bring a CD of your favorite tunes. I'll supply the Dos Equix.

[miked]

Holy smokes, was I OFF about the weight.

111.7 pounds (50.7 Kilos for my friends across the pond) Per Cab.

That's complete and finished with a 3015LF driver. Two primer coats, two heavy coats of DTex, screws, jacks, corners, feet, etc, etc. Still for a cab of this performance level, it's a lightweight. It would weigh 175 pounds easily if built with 3/4" ply. Thanks for the great, lightweight design, Bill!

[Grant Bunter]

Yes sir, great build and build thread!

Congratulations on your new PA

Re the access covers, play the cabs a few times and see if the screws will tweak down a little more after that. 1/16" isn't a lot and you might find with a little bit of time they will settle in some more...

[Radian]

Rock on! Awesome build thread.

Subs look great!

[miked]

Thanks guys! I will post a set of "full system" pics very soon when I get the whole thing setup in the backyard. I gave a demo for my wife and she was impressed...at least she said she was. Everything is too loud for her. So with the very bottom signal light (-22dB) barely blinking on the mixer, I played some Madonna and some other dancey-type music. She danced around a little so that's sort of the "I'm happy" sign. I think. Where'd I put her instruction manual, anyway? Oh, that's right. There isn't one. Someone needs to supply an instruction manual for these here women!

After she went in I played around a little more until it got dark then I shut it down. Don't want to tick the neighbors off too badly, just yet. I'm really looking forward to hearing the subs once they are fully broken in. After playing real music instead of tones through two of the subs for a few hours, they seemed to sound a bit more relaxed, if that makes sense. I definitely have to make some "caster sticks" and soon. The casters sound more like castenets when the volume gets crankin'.

[sine143]

told ya on the casters congrats. a system that looks as pretty as it will sound.

[Bruce Weldy]

these here women!

The "Yankee" is draining out of him right before our eyes. Once he moves up to the HOT salsa - we're gonna' have ourselves another Texan!

[Titanium Hand]

That there is one nice looking fleet miked

[PulseMan]

Well done Miked they look awesome.

The build stress is finally over for you.

PulseMan

[Tom Smit]

Nice build thread. Nice looking cabs. Congrats, Mike.





Something tells me that this is not the end.