8*T30 30" dual 12" european

[Marflinger]

:) sooo, i'll try to cover everything; probably gonna take a few lines.

tl;dr: Went well in the end, nothing broken, sound was brilliant :)

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The place :)

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Support when setting it up :D

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The grow up so quick :D this was the morning after...

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The front view.
I know, DR's too low. Audible to low, you all were right. For this, it was super sufficient. Will lift them up a bit further yes.

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The inside view, Top V-Plate not yet aligned.


So from the start, first of all the signal chain:

I run the output from the mixer into the dbx driverack.
In there, i have two stereo outs for the tops, and two mono outs for the subs.

Before splitting to the sep channels, there sits the EQ for straightening the output.

After the X-Over, each channel has the option to add a limiter.

From there, 4 Signals run to the amp for the DRs, Mid and high each left and right.
In there, the DSP from the amp does the Voltage limiting part (and does it inaudible, very convenient. Had a screenshot in the DR-thread). Limited after the driver specs, nothing screeched or broke or distorted, just nice sound :)
Nothing else that dsp does, i thought about doing the EQ-part correcting the DR output to flat here to use the EQ in the dbx for venue and sound adaption. But so far i didn't.

Then i have one mono line to the sub amp, without dsp just a voltage peak limiter. This was set to the 100v, from the theoretically (safely) possible 107,x V. The amp runs two cabs per channel, capacity would allow 4 per channel. Future-proof solution; i think there will be more than 8 at some time :P
Here no EQ, so this will be covered by the driverack.

Did not measure the output voltage, as the output was super sufficient in this assumed super safe way. Had a limiter in the sub channel in the driverack activated, set to be on the same level when the am starts limiting the voltage just to be sure. will do proper voltage measuring once setting the whole thing up, when not running a dancing event by accident but just tweaking it.

So on the night, first everything went wrong and due to peoples lazyness we were sort of late; and in addition this escalated to too many ppl who demanded a dancing event immediatly.
I thought about maybe 10 curious ppl to be there, when 50 came and brought even more. Communicationf ailure somewhere, idk. But we had a funny night for sure :)

So i did not have a lot of time to play around with measuring sweeps, i just measured once to have the levels of each line somewhere close to each other and then i tweaked the cabs during the music playing to my ears.
With a very nice outcome, i love the option to do this wireless standing directly in the sweet spot of the sound and walking around to see what changes in the area.

On the t30's i did a little fckup first, noticed later during the night. One cab sort of "farted" was my first impression; later i found out i had it wired wrong way internal. First i had only three running, when i switched the connectors it sounded way better with 4 running :D (surprise surprise...). My first thought it was leaking somewhere and i just took it off the power, but when running in the right polarity it was not farting anymore so i think it is not about leaks, probably some interferences with the v-plate or i don't know what :D
The V-Plate on top is a little rattling thing when there is no weight on top of it, even when strapped down. Will think about how to make this more sturdy, and maybe more rubber on all connecting sides.

Did improvise the stands for the DRs just out of wooden pallets and strapped them down, a little too far away maybe but it covered the area still fine. Not a real solution, but for the night it went fine. (Additional strap in the back to have it safe)


I ran the volume to the limiter slightly activating on the T30, did not think of spl measurement but it was super sufficient in terms of loudness.
The lower end was really feelable in your body, everybody loved that :)

The height of the tops sitting on Top of the DRs seem quite fine, will extend just around 5 inches when doing the DR-stack-dolly for sitting ontop of it.

The handling of the T30 works quite well; two strapped together here and when on the trailer seperated to put them there individually; works fine and is even manageable alone; when not alone handling is super easy.
To lift it alone, have it on the side and grabbing the handles in the back while the bottom rests on my hip was the way to carry, width not a problem in this way.

Gladly i could drive to the floorspace, so no long way to carry them around. Longer way to carry would trigger me to build a somewhat all-terrain-wheelboard with airfilled tires i think, or have a lot of lemmings to carry them further around. But on short distance, fine as it is. The next space to set it up when all cabs are done is also driveable, so this will come later eventually.

To the measurements: just the one for leveling done within the driverack, not really interesting to see.
The tweaking was just some eq-bands to have it flatter; the X-Over that worked best for the EDM-usage here was cutting the T30 at 30Hz down and 85Hz to the DRs; 24db/oct was better than 12 cutting the top out.
The relation 2 DRs to 4 T30 works for this style, i think it will further smooth out itself when doubled. Had some other styles in the morning, the T30 had to be reduced a bit for "normal" music rock/jazz bc it was just too dominating (by ear, not measured.)

The stacking on the pallet works, but not as ideal as i thought it would. Will need to extend the pallet to the side, so they don't tip out on the sides before strapping them together for a simpler setting up.
I thought about the ground lift of 14 cm (5-6 inches, pallet thickness) and if this does anything to the sound? The half-space-idea has the ground as a boundary, and i lift it off the ground a bit. Should i consider doing a flange, to have the hornmouth "connected" to the ground? Or is this a distance that doesn't matter?

My rubber mats i put inbetween the cabs: I think i will sand on the edges of the T30's and glue them there fixed, a little annoying when loose and have to be placed manually in every spot. Also easyer for stacking them on the two cab dolly, as there placing the rubber before strapping is kind of annoying.

Will think about a stand solution for the DRs when standing seperated; probably this will be used from time to time. I think about a Frame i will just put under the Dolly where the two DRs sit fixed and angled, strapped to the dolly and then strapped the whole thing to the ground or just put some weight down in the bottom of the frame.

In terms of the signal chain, i think i will move the EQ for the DR to the Amp's dsp, to have this fixed and use the dbx just to adapt it to the venue and for the subs.
Real measuring has to wait until i am fully done with all cabs, setting it up is kind of a hassle just for measuring so i will do that when i finally have to do double the work :D

But so far so lovely, i really like it and the others liked it as well :)
Curious how the full idea will sound, i think the stacked DRs will do it even better.

[Tom Smit]

Good to hear!
As long as the T30 are within a foot of the ground/floor, you should be okay.

[Seth]

What a great post. Seems like you didn't leave a single detail out. I like it.

Once you get the EQ dialed in, you should notice that you're able to play pretty much any genre without having to make level adjustments in the system itself... just on the DJ controller to taste. Although, some of the older stuff (anything pre-1985) that hasn't been remastered yet may sound like it's lacking the bottom end that you're used to hearing in modern tracks or modern remastered tracks.

I'll re-read your post again later and offer any other thoughts that come up.

Great job!

[Marflinger]

Yeah @eg, wu just drove the t30 to the max; as the edm listend to even somewhat profits from the unbalanced/overpowered bass.
For rock music this just sounds unnatural.

Another thing to add, the thermal situation i had in mind: the amp kept its temperature, the cabs as well. But i think in a warm summer night, the cabs will be the first to start getting thermal issues with these 12s pumping in the chamber, the black cabs in the sun.
I touched them from time to time, nothing warmed up but the night was quite cold still. But would a sunshade do anything good?
I don't really see any cooling options...maybe just overthinking this?

[Seth]

Yeah @eg, wu just drove the t30 to the max; as the edm listend to even somewhat profits from the unbalanced/overpowered bass.
For rock music this just sounds unnatural.

Another thing to add, the thermal situation i had in mind: the amp kept its temperature, the cabs as well. But i think in a warm summer night, the cabs will be the first to start getting thermal issues with these 12s pumping in the chamber, the black cabs in the sun.
I touched them from time to time, nothing warmed up but the night was quite cold still. But would a sunshade do anything good?
I don't really see any cooling options...maybe just overthinking this?

You've already constructed a system capable of top tier professional level performance and sound quality. Matter of fact, in terms of sound quality, top of the top, among the best available at any price. When you're done with the next round of cabs, you'll have the output to go with it too. Not stadium level, but small festival main stage level.

I promise you, when you take the time to put a professional level tune on the system, pushing the bass will just be a knob twist on the mixer/DJ controller and it will be song dependent, not genre dependent.
Not to say that you have to tune your system to a professional level.
If you like the sound you're getting now and are satisfied, that's all you really need.

So on the night, first everything went wrong... we were sort of late... i did not have a lot of time to play around with measuring sweeps

Well, that settles it... you're one of us now. Not a member on this forum who hasn't had that exact experience. Welcome to the club!

On the t30's i did a little fckup first, noticed later during the night. One cab sort of "farted" was my first impression; later i found out i had it wired wrong way internal. First i had only three running, when i switched the connectors it sounded way better with 4 running (surprise surprise...). My first thought it was leaking somewhere and i just took it off the power, but when running in the right polarity it was not farting anymore so i think it is not about leaks, probably some interferences with the v-plate or i don't know what

Excellent job getting that sorted out on the spot. If it was an awful sound, my guess is the sound you heard was the voice coil hitting the backing plate. Three cabs pushing a pressure wave one direction and one cab doing the opposite, seems logical that it would unload the one and cause the excursion to skyrocket. Not many people would have the wherewithal during their first public deployment to sort that mistake out on the spot. I'm impressed!

Curious how the full idea will sound, i think the stacked DRs will do it even better.

I can't wait!

[Marflinger]

I will tune it as professional as i can, i just didn't have the time for that that night. But it sounded super nice already that way :)
But i'll try to get the most out of it for sure.

Well public deployment, rather far extended circle of friends and (felt) family...but just all in the mood to have a party right now, including me.
Next time without party, to get the real work done :)

@the wrong polarity t30: i think it was just the air inside the v-plated horn moving in different directions, not that awful like hitting the coil on the drivers.
But i will set them all up, plug them one after another and check on all of them to cooperate. Also i thought about checking the chambers on all to see if inside anything got loose or some way altered; will keep you updated on what i find out about this :)

The whole building process just led to the point that i wanted to use the built new toys, without the work part just the fun one :D
But the work part will come as well. Gotta shovel the reallife workload a bit down and then check the built cabs, build the new cabs and do that work :)