DR250: An amateurs opinion.

[Slim]

First, a brief background: I'm a bass player in a pub rock band playing covers in small to medium venues, I have a Samack 4 string and a Fender M-80 combo 1 x 15" rated at 180W into 4, 100 into 8 ohm loads, I run the bass through the PA for gigs. Through running a open mike night at a local bar the band has managed to purchase a Yamaha EMX 88 powered mixer, 400w per channel, and 2 Wharfedale 12" 200w powered wedge monitors. We attempt to mix our own sound. I felt that the bass needed a little something extra and was happy to build it myself, initially I was looking for plans for a 4x10 when I found this site and purchased the plans for a DR250. I purchased a Beta 10" driver but could not find suitable tweeters locally, I plan to install them as soon as I get them from overseas. I used a jigsaw for all cutting, 9mm ply and 6mm bendy ply for materials, and other handtools, (plane, clamps, silicon gun, 2 battery drills etc).

I tried it at the open mike for the first time last night, using the Fender amp with its speaker unplugged. I was amazed at the clarity and volume coming from a single 10", very noticeable difference in quality of sound that seemed to fill the large (empty!) bar right to the back without having the booming type quality the fender has. When plugged into one channel of the PA it sounds fantastic (no highs until I install piezo's of course), clear bass , we didn’t turn it right up to distortion but it can handle the higher volumes easily. The sound has some weird quality where it sounds as good close as it does across a room, it does not seem that it is creating all the noise directly in fount that fades as you walk away.

I have been told that there may be a running in period for the speaker, so its is going to get better! Joy! Its light (compared to the damned combo) but knuckle gashingly wide. It ended up going slightly over budget, I could do it cheaper by getting driver shipped from the US, and changing the covering. Carpet and spray contact adhesive was around 1/5 of the cost. A quick look at a local retailers site has the cheapest 4x10 listed at $899, a Behringer. I reckon I could build two DR250's for that.

So, to sum up: it was worth every cent and late night. In the future I will build another one, I have bought the plans for the T39 and DR200's (I know they're smaller! I'm curious to hear what an 8" will do in a folded horn). The backup service provided here on the forums was excellent. The plans were easy enough for an amateur like me to follow, and the result, brilliant.