After some shipping snafu, UPS arrived yesterday with a package from the Eminence factory. Thanks to Leland Crooks (http://www.speakerhardware.com/ and Greg Plouvier (http://www.magnumcaseworks.com/), I was able to get just what I needed at a price and service level Parts Express can't match.
I was hoping the purple hue I had seen in pictures of the alpha 8a was due to poor photography, but not the case. I guess I'll be more in touch with my feminine side throughought this build:
This build is so simple I could probably complete it with a rusty hack saw and a broken tape measure; however, I'll be doing the cutting with a CNC router. Far from necessary but where I'll be the one running it I don't have to pay someone else to do it... and I won't complain about the extra precision. On a side note, I'm in the process of building a CNC router to assist in all my DIY projects. The difficultly level of building one of these is a lot less complex than one would think.
Here's my layout, with a few extras of certain pieces to use up some space on the 4x8 sheets:
So, on to the questions. I think I'll highlight my questions in red throughout this thread so they stand apart from the log. As per the plans, "some mid-basses don’t take well to front mounting, and will benefit from a quarter rounded hole when rear mounted." How do I know before finishing my baffle whether the alpha 8a would work better for rear or front mounting? If I wind up doing them front mounted, is there any reason flush (or semi-flush) mounting would cause any problems? I can't say that I completely understand baffle-step compensation yet. I think I'll flush mount the piezo array also, for aesthetics unless someone else recommends otherwise. Here's a side-view of the alpha 8a:
I'm thinking of doing the multi-element single mouth piezo horn using 16 total piezos per cab, which gives a finished length of ~61" for the horn. Would it be beneficial to install a switch that would remove 8 tweeters (4 from each end) from the array in order to give better vertical dispersion in situations where I need it? I'm also considering installing an L-pad so I can attenuate the tweeters if necessary without having to use EQ.
I appreciate the wealth of knowledge here on this forum, contributed by Bill and all of the members here. I'm looking forward to some good feedback along the way.
