BillFitzmaurice.info

have them work double as the feet, with brakes. then it shouldnt move or rattle

Sorry late with the updates. We had a recent building session in which we completed all the horn assembly except for the final panel and reflector panel. I have another building session today and I will update y'all afterwards. Thanks for tuning in!

On a random note, here's a catchphrase for BFM I just thought of.

BFM- the pleasure comes in waves.

By the way, follow the plans and break in the drivers before they are in the cab, even if the final side is not on yet. I did not follow the plans here, and it sounds like an airplane is idling in my garage and will until 3 am tomorrow.

bassmonster wrote:By the way, follow the plans and break in the drivers before they are in the cab, even if the final side is not on yet. I did not follow the plans here, and it sounds like an airplane is idling in my garage and will until 3 am tomorrow.

I could hear a Tangband 8 in free air, two flights of stairs down, brick walls and 1ft concrete floors. I can imagine your drivers must make quite a bit more noise. Thanks for the colorful discription

AntonZ wrote:

bassmonster wrote:By the way, follow the plans and break in the drivers before they are in the cab, even if the final side is not on yet. I did not follow the plans here, and it sounds like an airplane is idling in my garage and will until 3 am tomorrow.

I could hear a Tangband 8 in free air, two flights of stairs down, brick walls and 1ft concrete floors. I can imagine your drivers must make quite a bit more noise. Thanks for the colorful discription

I have 30Hz at 10V into 4 3012LF in free air and I can hear almost nothing. Sounds like a giant low pitched aquarium pump. On the other side of the door, nothing.

Of course 2 drivers are going in opposite polarity. I don't want my sleazy lowclass downstairs neighbors twigging to the fact that I have 3 or 4 thousand in pro audio gear lying around.

The JBL's in my dual TT made almost no noise when breaking in, just a slight humming noise. I think the reason breaking in was so noisy this time was the slight vibration of the entire cabinet.

I ran a 30Hz tone through a pair of 3012LFs last night. One is sitting bare on the carpet, the other was in a T30 baffle to test for clearance. The 30Hz tone was nearly silent, but the overtones got quite loud as I got up to 10, 20 volts. Not to mention the air puffing out of the vented pole, and what sounded like debris or loose bits of glue from behind the dust cap. Drivers are noisy! Makes you appreciate the natural lowpass you get from the horn.

SirNickity wrote:I ran a 30Hz tone through a pair of 3012LFs last night. One is sitting bare on the carpet, the other was in a T30 baffle to test for clearance. The 30Hz tone was nearly silent, but the overtones got quite loud as I got up to 10, 20 volts. Not to mention the air puffing out of the vented pole, and what sounded like debris or loose bits of glue from behind the dust cap. Drivers are noisy! Makes you appreciate the natural lowpass you get from the horn.

Wth the 30Hz tone, there's no need to go past 10V. Except for testing clearance of course. But if you followed the plans, why would you need to check clearance?

Make sure you don't have any signal processing qoing. I forgot that I usually run a bunch of DSP filters on my music player for DJing tango (EQ, stereo to mono, tube sim, compressor, crystallizer, etc) and 30Hz sounded pretty loud. With all of it it offline, you could barely hear 4 3012LF.

I cut an 11" hole for the 3012LF. I wanted to make sure the surround was well clear of the edges at full excursion. By the looks, the angle of excursion clears the edges by a good 1/2". No worries at all. The Tuba 30s have nothing protruding even remotely close to the cone (other than at the edges) so it was a quick test, but as the plans do recommend checking for baffle slap, I had to get the cones moving a little.

You make a good point about DSP though... I think I still had the subharmonic synth enabled on the DriveRack. Didn't even think about that.

Hi all,

This build is finished as of now, but I haven't had time to update on all the pictures and build days yet, I have been at camp. I will be at camp for another 2 weeks and I will update afterwards.

Sorry guys, guess I never got around to finishing this thread.

Here's how I solved the pole mount sticking through, with a small wooden "pressure chamber house". Ghetto, but it works.







Pole mount installed:



Duratex texture:



Yes, the inside of the mouth was sort of dirty and dusty. The paint is even and good. I later painted the inside face of the mouth with Duratex for durability.




Sorry, no pics of the access panel. We used a 1/8" aluminum panel instead of the wooden flange. (flame suit donned) It too works fine, doesn't flex at the volume we use the sub at.

They sound great and are plenty loud. As of now my church is only using one sub, and it easily supplements two 12" loaded DAS tops. More pics later, when I'm not feeling too lazy.

BTW those aren't the complete finished pictures, they look great completely finished.

bassmonster wrote:BTW those aren't the complete finished pictures, they look great completely finished.

Well get some photos then!

Here's some more pics:

Other side of the mouth needs painting. The angle of the pic makes the mouth brace look messed up, but the brace is actually in there good and square.



Here's one of the plaques. This is my name and Troop number and declares that it is an Eagle Project. The shiny grey stuff is drying JB Weld, I cleaned it up and touched up paint after it fully cured.



Here's the technical info plaque I put on, right above the Speakon jack. Without it this sub would be pretty much unidentifiable and an unknown quantity in terms of power handling, HPF info, etc. I really like this plaque, gives the sub a little bit more professional look:



Here they are in their final resting place; I hadn't added the plaques yet. Those are some active DAS 12" loaded tops sitting on the poles...pretty lightweight for powered cabinets but still heavy suckers. Yes, one of them is dangerously leaning left. As I said earlier, not my decision to pole mount.



PS: Later on, they decided they wanted the speakers "invisible", so they hid the whole setup behind the black curtains. I wanted to see them! On the plus side, I got to wall load them once they were behind the curtain.



Impressions: They sound great. They sound much much cleaner than comparable direct radiators of course, and hit lower. They don't sound quite as clean or hit as low as my dual TT, but then again the TT is said to be the cleanest sounding sub in the BFM lineup. When testing in the garage, it sounded like my dual TT might be a bit louder than a single T24 but my ears are no dB meter.

My youth pastor gave them a solid road test as soon as they were set up and in position and highpassed. He put on some LeCrae (Christian rap artist) and gave em' a rip of what I estimate around 15v. After nearly popping some of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling he turned it down and grinned, the same stupid grin I get when I crank the dual TT in my car.

That green chair certainly looks like he enjoys having those monsters in the room.