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Howie, the white driver chambers are really starting to grow on me. I liked it on the DR's and I like it here too. Just makes it... I don't know... more appealing somehow. Like a nice, clean, bright, environment to look at and work in. I might have to adopt the idea for my future builds.

Seth wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 6:40 pm Howie, the white driver chambers are really starting to grow on me. I liked it on the DR's and I like it here too. Just makes it... I don't know... more appealing somehow.

How about some glow in the dark white paint in there, some small (near) blacklight LEDs, and a thick plexiglass access panel?

Seth wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 6:40 pm Howie, the white driver chambers are really starting to grow on me. I liked it on the DR's and I like it here too. Just makes it... I don't know... more appealing somehow.

yeah, i love black primer/sealer for my Duratex stage. BUT, white insides makes it easy on my old eyes!

Rich4349 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 13, 2022 3:48 pm How about some glow in the dark white paint in there, some small (near) blacklight LEDs, and a thick plexiglass access panel?

That would be slick!

Really dig your idea of the 2x4 assembly platform. That's a great one right there!

Radian wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:50 pm Really dig your idea of the 2x4 assembly platform. That's a great one right there!

+1

It's in the panel jig plans.

That all looks really good!

Radian wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:50 pm Really dig your idea of the 2x4 assembly platform. That's a great one right there!

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 11:15 pm It's in the panel jig plans.

Yup, can't take any credit, Bill had it all in the plans!
I just took his panel jig plans build platform section and stretched or shrunk to what room I had. I'm still salty over my first THT being a bit warped from building just on sawhorses.

In a perfect world, I'd build a couple of these, one for each major cab group size/shape. This 4x4ft was maybe a little large for a THT, but I figured a T48 would work on there fine too. Or a guy could make one 3x5ft to accommodate a THT, a T60, and any sub in between. We just pulled the sub nearer to one corner or side to get more clamps in where we needed and make it easier to reach things.

*edit: forgot to mention, next one i plan to buy laminated 2x4's. They are a bit more expensive, but oh so straight and warp resistant. Our local big box store doesn't carry them but can order them. Now to figure out how many I have to buy! Oh, and I used PL and screws to build that platform, so it's probably never coming apart...

You could make your own laminated 2x4s from 3/4" plywood. Use a circular saw sled to insure straight cuts.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: ↑Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:55 pm You could make your own laminated 2x4s from 3/4" plywood. Use a circular saw sled to insure straight cuts.

Good point Bill. I had done actually that for some 'bars' for lack of a better term, for clamping across the side of my THT. One about 2ft long and one closer to 3. They take a lot of clamp load and don't flex!

Small update, finally got back to this after a long winter lull. I have the driver mounted and gasket leak detected. I have the leads tinned on one end and soldered female spades on the other for the Speakon. Have the speakon jack in the access cover and latex/silicone caulked. Have the access cover mounted and leak tested. I did some preliminary listening still on sawhorses and my platform (see the 3rd picture). Amazing sound even 3 feet off the floor and basically in the middle of a single car garage with cinder block walls. It is un-equalized, running off a 300w BASH amp fed from LFE out of my garage Onkyo receiver. The tops are my DR200's also run off L/R channels LOL. Those I have a little EQ on, just a dual 11 band hooked to my Zune for garage tunes. So no real bass equalization. My Brother has an Emotiva setup so we should be able to dial in there nicely. I'm sure he'll be blown away as he's replacing a Klipsch 12" sub similar to what I replaced with my THT.

Now to deliver to my brothers house for some testing while he ponders what finish he wants. I have not filled any nail holes or cleaned up any rough edges yet. He may be veneering the whole box with foam to make a prop. His home theater/bar area has a lot of movie props and such so we'll see. The plan was maybe to glue 1 or 2" thick rigid foam shapes on the outside and paint it to look like a crate from Star Wars. See the last two pictures. I snagged someones bench version for ideas, and the last picture is my CAD mockup to try and figure out how to best do it and leave driver access.

Iconic howiez's signature white driver chamber

THT was delivered last weekend, I forgot to post. We struggled a little bit with setup. My brother has an Emotiva XMC-2 (i think) and dedicated XMC amps for his 7.3.5.2.whatever. Pretty sure he's 7.4.1, but I lost interest at 7.x! He decided to buy a Behringer NX3000 for sub duty, since he was using a Klipsch 12" sub before. Emotiva has all balanced outputs, and Behringer has Balanced inputs. Shouldn't be a problem. He was running a Balanced to RCA for his Klipsch. I have no idea if that turns down the pre-amp output level. He's run that Klipsch in this setup for about a year and a half since the home theater was finished. Sounded fine, I had the exact same one in my 17x22 living room. I'd say his living room is maybe 14w x 30ish long, a bit open in the back where bar area is.

We played about 10min of an action flick and it sounded as I expected. Then we plugged in and repeated, trying to bring gain up similar. This is zero EQ, he has some fancy (DIRAC?) thing that uses a Raspberry PI to calibrate and EQ, that is not even run yet. We were underwhelmed, zero bottom end, or really, it sounded just like the Klipsch. My wife was along for ride, sitting in front row of theater. She knew something was off, and she is not into sound. She said she remembers our switchover from Klipsch to THT and it was night and day (it was). She remembered all the sub 20hz stuff rattling the whole dang house, and feeling every explosion like real life. So we kept turning levels up, he does not have a VMM so I could help him set limiter in the Berry.

Well, we finally got to a place where it sounded decent. He tends to play older movies, early Dolby flicks that don't have a lot of bottom end perhaps. We finally hit on something with some oomph and it was better. IIRC, he turned up preamp output to +6dB to get us to that point. Gain on Berry was set about halfway. I'm sure more is there, but I warned him not to overdo it until we get a limiter on. Hopefully it's getting calibrated today, and we set the limiter, because I think he's having a May the 4th party. He plans to play every Star Wars movie through the month.

Anyway, a few pictures of delivery and its first resting place. I did do a subwoofer walk, one dead area near basement stairs where nobody sits. Otherwise decent coverage in entire room. And it barely fit in the back of my Equinox. I was pretty tempted to put it in my son's Pilot, since he has the Truck Tuba in there, and use his connection to try it in vehicle LOL.

It can't reproduce content that isn't there. Testing and calibration should be done with pink noise as the source, confirming the signal content going into the sub. One problem with very complex electronics is that there's a lot of things to go wrong if you aren't expert in their use. I get results that are better than what I hear in IMAX theaters with a $250 5.1 receiver and a 75 watt plate amp for my TT.

howiez wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 7:53 am He was running a Balanced to RCA for his Klipsch. I have no idea if that turns down the pre-amp output level.

Balanced line is +4db. Unbalanced RCA is -10db. So yeah, there's a definite loss in signal strength.