Navigator Jack 10L Build

[AndrewMoore]

Hello All,

Lifelong drummer here having made the leap two years ago
to see what the other half of the rhythm section was all about. Settled on a G&L short scale with flats. Bought a small Markbass Nano amp and got creative salvaging a home stereo Martin Logan subwoofer cube. Pulled out the dead electronics and swapped the metal cone 10" driver for an
Emminence Deltalite 2510 ( 4 ohm darn). Works pretty good as a practice set up. But now time to up the cabinet situation. A 110 Jack lite seems a good starting point. Baltic delivering today.

Of all the questions I could ask, please let me start with this. Knowing some would say forget tweeters, could someone plz describe the audible difference between using the compression horn design vs the piezo melded array? My
instinct is to go with the horn and add an on/off switch. Want to keep options open as this cab might see use beyond just bass.

Thanks Bill & community!

Andrew / navigator stove works

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Playing flats there's no need for tweeters. That said the last time I played flats was circa 1972. When I was touring, playing five nights a week, I changed strings every two weeks.

[AndrewMoore]

Right. Figured that would be the thinking. But when I can't convince anyone to let me play bass live with them but may be able to drum up some percussion gigs featuring a west african clay udu drum mic'd internally, having highs would be nice. Hence wanting to please get a sense of the difference between using the horn vs piezo approach. Making the wood horn from scratch looks fun!

[Bruce Weldy]

Right. Figured that would be the thinking. But when I can't convince anyone to let me play bass live with them but may be able to drum up some percussion gigs featuring a west african clay udu drum mic'd internally, having highs would be nice. Hence wanting to please get a sense of the difference between using the horn vs piezo approach. Making the wood horn from scratch looks fun!

If you are just going to use the cab for bass and miking up an acoustic drum....piezos will be fine. If you are putting vocals through it, the CD will sound better if you go with the lower 1.2khz crossover option. If you use the 2k crossover - then piezos and the CDs probably don't sound all that different.

[AndrewMoore]

Thanks Bruce. I'll take that into consideration.

Thinking about the phase plug this morning and getting my
head around it's function. Wondering if this Wiki description
sums it up well?

"Phase plugs may be placed in front of woofer cones, especially in horn-loaded loudspeaker designs. In the same fashion as compression driver phase plugs, the intent is to minimize higher-frequency wave interference near the driver. In this case, "high frequency" is relative to the intended bandpass; for example, a 12-inch (300 mm) cone woofer might be expected to reproduce 550 Hz energy near the top of its intended range, however, the wavelength of 550 Hz is approximately twice the diameter of the woofer, so wave energy at that frequency traveling laterally from one side to the other will be out of phase and will cancel. With a phase plug in the center, such lateral wave energy bounces off of the obstruction and is reflected outward toward the listener. Phase plugs for woofer cones are typically solid plugs positioned over the woofer's central dust cap, or in the center of the woofer, replacing the dust cap "

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

That's the gist of it.

[AndrewMoore]

Great. Can picture what's happening.

A friend with a wood lathe offered to cut one (which
would be solid) and wanted to see if there was a varriant shape you ever wanted to experiment with Bill that you never got around to testing? Happy to be the guinnea pig if you have anything you'd like to see tried.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I did test various shapes and sizes.

[AndrewMoore]

Hard to decide what wood to make it out of. Sealed mahogany could look sweet in contrast to the black
texture finish? But purists would choose balsa wood in
keeping with the build theme. Overthinking it for sure.
One phase plug tech paper even discussed using dense felt.
Sound is such a deep rabbit hole.....

[Bruce Weldy]

Hard to decide what wood to make it out of. Sealed mahogany could look sweet in contrast to the black
texture finish? But purists would choose balsa wood in
keeping with the build theme. Overthinking it for sure.
One phase plug tech paper even discussed using dense felt.
Sound is such a deep rabbit hole.....

Baltic Birch Ply. Not cabinet birch. Not solid wood, certainly not balsa wood. The cab has to be airtight. This isn't like an open back cab.

Some have used Aruaco. I'm sold on Baltic Birch.....also known as Finnish Birch or Russian Birch....but, NOT the Chinese stuff that masquarades as BB.

[AndrewMoore]

Oh yes Bruce. 1/8 & 1/4 Baltic for the build.
Mahogany, balsa & felt just mentioned for the domed phase plug itself.

[Bruce Weldy]

Oh yes Bruce. 1/8 & 1/4 Baltic for the build.
Mahogany, balsa & felt just mentioned for the domed phase plug itself.

Gotcha'. If you put in a high end section, you won't really see the phase plug very much at all.

[AndrewMoore]

True enough. Might just do a first woofer only cab to get familiar with the system. Then in time maybe make a second one to stack on top and that one could get all the bells & whistles.

Can only be an improvement from my current, sealed 10" micro cab!

[shclark]

My vote is to add the highs. If you put the piezos in to start, you can always eq the high end out, but you wont want to as soon as you hear it. I went with a melded array of 6 and it sounds great. Just put mine on the scale for kicks 22.2 pounds yesssss

[AndrewMoore]

SH,

Thanks for your vote. When folks are considering the high end options, what sort of thinking sequence makes folks choose piezos over the compression driver horn path?