Have some updates. We were gone camping all weekend, but came home early enough Sunday. My son and I schlepped all the gear into the driveway and hooked everything up. Bought a floor model SKB 6u rack with wheels and mounted the amps and Driverack. Picked up an ART power strip, and I'm trying to make a mount in the back of the rack for a small Asus router for tablet control of the DBX.
- BFM rack
I did not check voltage direct from my laptop, but I can attest, sound level-wise, it plays nearly as loud as my external soundcard. So I have to thank the group for pointing out it was my measurement technique more than anything. Sine waves for the win! We set it up with the Focusrite Scarlett Solo and at perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 volume it's LOUD. Anything over half volume is painful within 10 feet of them. I did not put the RTA-M on, since neighbor was mowing, and I'm close to cars and the garage/house. I'll try to get this all out to my friends 40acres in the coming weeks for some graphing.
- BFM stack
I have clean strong bass sitting in the middle of my driveway pointed towards our yard. The tops are crystal clear. For sure the 150w drivers and my ~34v voltage limit there holds back the Titans. The Titans never get close to limit. I may turn them up a bit balance-wise and see what happens. I did play with the subharmonic synthesizer a bit with some AC-CD and Kim Mitchell just to see what it would do. I like it, but I'm not sure where to set things. Maybe that's a 'by ear' setting?
I am still amazed at how loud and clean this gear is. Thanks Bill for some great designs, and fun projects to keep me out of trouble! My neighbors will attest to the volume. I only turned it up for a few seconds here and there to listen from halfway across my yard. My neighbor 3 doors down, across the street messaged me, asking if that was my music. She thought it was kids in a car driving by her house! And my neighbor one house over, and across the street was on his back patio and said it sounded good. He's a classic rock / old vinyl / vintage gear fan, so I know he's not hating it. But I limit my loud runs, as i'm pretty sure neighbors to the east will call 5oh on me in a heartbeat LOL. I've attached a google earth of my hood. For reference, most lots are typical city lots for our area, 60ft wide at the street. I have a double or so, so does neighbor diagonal across, and so does neighbor to east. So you might say 4 houses away for my one neighbor. W is my singe car garage/workshop. Number 1 on far right is first neighbor to post on FB they heard my music indoors, dead of winter, all doors and windows closed. Number 2 is high school classmate / coworker of my wife / neighbor that messaged Sunday, said she could hear it. Not sure if she was on the patio or in house. Number 3 is my closer neighbor that loves the project. My wife said they'll change the noise ordinance and name it after me. Currently we are allowed to be noisy until 10pm.
- lay of the land
The rig will be used in the informal friends wedding/yard party this coming weekend, so I'll report more afterwards. And I'm doing final walk through at my sons wedding venue tonight. I'll probably take few pictures to ask the group where I should set up. They have a balcony/second floor, and I may end up there due to space constraints. But again, this is background music, not loud, so I don't see too much issue if that happens. I point them out the back window of my single car garage (to right out of view, in my picture above) and we listen while working in the yard and it's SUPER fine.
