BillFitzmaurice.info

Hi All, it's been a while since I've been on here. Hope everyone is well?

Anyway, my opportunities to play out are rare these days. My priorities are on work, and bringing home the $ to get my wife through her Masters Degree. So I'm basically Landscaping 7 days a week (my choice) at least three weeks of the month, 5 or 6days the other week.

Our best nights with our mates, tend to end up me mixing away late into the night, in our moderately sized apartments or in holiday rental houses up the coast with the same group of mates.
It pains me to say it, but my rig is just too big & overkill for my 'personal / hobbyist' needs 85% of the time and mixing through friends Hi-Fi just doesn't do it for me.
Sydney is all close quarters living and I'm getting over paying Noise Abatement Fines on a regular basis from 12:01 midnight.

I've been taking out some reasonably expensive (for me ) 'Orpheus' Dual 6 or 6.5 inch with silk dome ( I think) tweeters, ported floor standing Hi Fi speakers. For all intensive purposes they do a great job for 85% of the time. When I do get the urge to push them just that bit harder I get port chuffing but no other distortion.
I just feel like an amateur (I am anyway) on bloody hi fi speakers.
At our semi-regular Apartment & Terrace parties 20 to 35 peeps. I might mix on and off with a couple of others from 3pm till the sun comes up (True story - although not as often as I'd Like) but my big rig is just too big & too much effort (my shoulder is cactus now from day job)

Sooooooo, I'd like to build something more appropriate. Give the Orpheus to my old man.
A smallish dedicated P.A. Speaker Solution. No subwoofer. I do mostly Tech House, Minimal, Deep House and Techno, so gut wrenching extension is unrealistic and not needed. 45Hz would be perfect. 50Hz Acceptable.

The QSC K8 'looks' as though it would be my perfect solution, followed by the 8 inch Behringer active. Opposed to spending in excess of $1000 / $1400 I'd love to try replicate the K8?
Maybe a dual 6 or 8 inch even SLA like cab?
I've looked over lots of drivers and feel like I may need a 'Lower frequency' driver for 45 to 100Hz duties, and then the rest of construction near enough identical to a half SLA. Modifying cabinet volume and porting as required.

Basically a sealed / ported Direct radiator 8 inch Sub built as the lower driver within a Half SLA cab.

Please folks any ideas or help greatly appreciated.

I'm happy to run mono, and kind of Bi-Amp.
Using Channel 1 and inbuilt DSP of my XTi2000 for daisy chained operation of both the 8 inch sub sections.
Channel 2 with appropriate DSP ie. cut at say 100 or 120hz going through standard SLAo passive crossover to power the alpha mid and tweeter.
Potential then to use 4 pole speakon, 4 core cable at Cabs, split into y utilising, two of standard speakon connectors for channel 1 and 2.

Does anybody think my goals are realistic? Cheers T.H. (and shoulder now I suppose)

SLAPro Mini"s with twin drivers will put out the volume. Paired with a TTLS perhaps or a T45.

Dare I also suggest Simplexx 10 PA cabs mated with a Simplexx 15 Home Theatre sub(ported)?

Consider......since you are willing to run in mono:

1 top and 1 sub.

T24 with a pole mount on it for a Mini SLA.

Shove it in a corner of the room - it will get the whole room and put it on wheels so you can use it anywhere as a self-contained PA.

You can either use processing for the crossover or just build the passive crossover in the T24 plans.

I did this (T24 + Yamaha SM12V) as a drum monitor. However, when not in use - it's my "stereo" in the garage. And next Tuesday, I'll be taking it out for a duo gig....just me and the bass player. It's proven to be a great little combination.

A pole-mounted SLS would be even better - getting the top box a little higher.

Titanium Hand wrote:...mixing through friends Hi-Fi just doesn't do it for me.

Could you elaborate on this?

Anytime I hear stories about pissing off the neighbors the first two things that comes to mind are power and dispersion.
-Keep the power requirements to a minimum by using the highest sensitivity design you can fit, and park as physically close to the system as practical to minimize inverse square law losses.
-Has there been any effort or thought to keep the sound pasted on the intended listener(s)?\

Of all things in our house, the biggest offender in this regard is our bathroom iPod dock. I call it the distortion box. It's got two 3" full range drivers in too small of a box that Sony has EQ'd and boosted to gills in order to get any appreciable bass output from them. When it's turned on, I can hear it from outside of the house. Meanwhile the big ass home theater (at reasonable level) can't be heard from the bedroom through a closed door.

All else fails, how about a really big set of cans to mix on?

TH,
Welcome back and nice to see you around

Mate, I've played full band gigs in some of those tiny Northern Suburbs apartments.
But that was in the 80's lol.
And, back in those days, the police always thought they had better things to do than investigate noise claims, so wouldn't turn up until after midnight anyway.
Don't get me started on people who want to complain about noise nowadays (especially the ones who knowingly buy property next door to live music venues, then get them shut down)...

Seriously though, you want decent response from cabs similar in size to home Hifi gear, but better, and not looking quite like Hifi cabs, in a home Hifi environment.

The design already exists:
Davids.

While building them, dress the box up to have a look like say an SLA (in other words, extend the sides upwards so you can make the fine lines of the MTM section disappear), with grille and foam on the front (but obviously leaving the mouth for the sub horn open).

You'll get much better low end output than ported 8" subs that way, and the MTM section basically duplicates mini SLA's.

Being smaller rooms, you'll also get some (limited) cabin gain, carry 2 boxes, Bob's your Aunty.

Hang onto your other gear.
Once your darlin has her degree out of the way, you will get more time to do the other (bigger) stuff again.
And you'll also happen to have some great sounding floor standers...

Thanks for all of your responses guys.

I do have the T24 plans. . . .Somewhere. I'll hunt them down. Space is a premium 'governing' factor regarding the prospective build.

From memory, T'24' has 610 x 610mm depth and height yeah?

Re; Not liking Hi-Fi to mix on. Predominantly I don't like that they could pretty much blow at any moment I guess. My reference levels are pretty loud for general mixing practice and they are fine for that. I fear that consistent party use will lead to them blowing and me no longer being able to have clean sound.

The T24 option would definitely be the easiest solution. I know that all Bill's plans are epic and save heartache from personal trial and error building. I'm just totally fixated on a twin cab full range option.

The Davids would also do a sterling Job I'm certain. Again I fear size being a potential limiter.

Could anybody direct me to literature online or books that I could read to learn about thielle small parameters and what makes different drivers suitable for different things?

Thanks guys

Titanium Hand wrote:I do have the T24 plans. . . .Somewhere. I'll hunt them down.

Have you checked your email?? You must have received them via email (it's the BFM way!), so are they still in there? I delete nothing from my gmail account, so everything is just a search (or 5) away

Titanium Hand wrote:Could anybody direct me to literature online or books that I could read to learn about thielle small parameters and what makes different drivers suitable for different things?

Dunno how detailed you want, but Eminence has a good general guide here. Also here, here and here. Dunno if that's a bit simple, but it's a start. If you find anything better, let us know - although I think the 'next' step after this is to actually read Nev and Dickie's original papers on the subject here and maybe a bit of extra stuff from the Don here. There are also some amazing resources here (save the best 'till last, right? )