Durability and high pass for tweeters

[gdougherty]

A week ago I had 4 OT12's out and up on sticks, 2 per side. They were up about 6ft and felt stable enough, though there's always a little wiggle in that kind of stand. Anyway, a decent wind came up, got them moving and over they went. They hit and rolled over into a 1ft pool that was part of a larger fountain. Everyone else flipped and ran for the amp before grabbing the speakers afraid of any "electricity" in the pool. There was currently no signal flowing to the amp and if there had been the short through water probably would have thrown my QSC's into protect. Knowing and thinking this, I went for the speakers.
I painted them with Duratex inside and out, waterproofed the tweeters, still need to waterproof the 2512's. The melded arrays fared the worst, with some of the screws breaking chunks out of the horn and popping the arrays lose. I had six screws per array and discovered that the help I had mounting them hadn't followed my directions and in many cases missed the proper screw angle and the mounting brackets altogether. I cut mine with an angle on the back so the alternating tweeter lugs for my 14 element arrays would actually fit through. Instead of being rectangular there's an angle that makes for a straight sided slot between the brackets. Had they been properly secured they possibly would have come through unharmed. Not going to drop another set to find out.
The result, the foam inside was soaked. Stuffed the tweeter arrays back into place and fired them up, I had two speakers with cracked plastic corners still fully functional. At first I thought one of the tweeter arrays was out for some reason, probably a loose cable or something, I figured. On pulling them apart yesterday I discovered that it had been wired incorrectly and one half was out of phase with the other. One week of drying, new corners and they're in perfect condition.
For the curious, they're 1/2" Arauco with Gorilla glue and brads for assembly. Bill designs rock solid little boxes. Major Kudos.

The high pass I installed while checking everything out certainly makes for a brighter cab. I plugged an original in next to a modified one and the difference was clearly noticeable. Before, with no EQ, I would have described my OT12's as a little midsy. That's not the case any more. Now they area bit on the bright side, which is perfectly fine with me since I'd rather pull the tweeters back than push them harder. I'm taking 4 out today so we'll see how they do with vocals and distortion in that 2.5K range.

[Tim A]

Don't know what kind of stands you're using, but I had 2 DR200's/side up in a thunderstorm. An awful lot of wind, rain, etc. No time to get them down before the storm came in, we had just enough time to get the amps, racks, and boards protected. I rotated them so the backs faced the wind and they rode it out. Not once did they wobble enough to worry about.

The stands I'm using are actually light stands with a 59" base spread, far wider than the typical 40-46" spread of a speaker stand. Musician's Friend, $39 apiece on sale. They are identical to speaker stands but have an extra section for getting lights up. I ignore the middle section and extend the top a few notches to get them about 5 1/2'-6' high. The top is 1-3/8", the center section is 1-1/2" (same as the base section on a speaker stand) and the bottom section is 1-5/8". The added diameter also helps make them sturdier.

Glad you made it through with minimal damage.

[gdougherty]

Mine are just standard 3-legged aluminum On-Stage speaker stands. Maybe I should look for something else. Darn, and I just bought another pair.
OTOH, going forward I'll be stacking OT12's on a platform I built that handles 2-3 per side without problems. If I can rig up something to easily hang one or two from the underside as well that'd be ideal. Right now I just run 3 with one or two center fills.

The high pass filters worked well. Response was smoother up to 10K, still gave it a little narrow bump up about 6K but otherwise it worked very well. I wasn't pushing things as hard as I have in the past but vocals seemed smoother in the 2.5K range and I could give a slight boost on a channel without it becoming a problem. All-told, since I won't be biamping anytime soon, I'm happy to have spent the $8/speaker.

[gdougherty]

Pic of the speaker stand. It's 3/8 Arauco sandwiched over a 1x frame. The ends where the top hats come through are 1x6 and four 1x1 strips run side to side. It's lightweight and painted over with Duratex but feels like it must be molded plastic or something. The top hats run through and help position the speakers on center. 3 are stable, 4 up gets a little tippy front to back, mostly because of the stands themselves. First time I used them I put 3 up unstrapped and didn't feel nervous at all. If you built it with a triangular back you could support the platform with 3 stands and then you could easily put 4 or more on it.

[Rick Lee]

Looks good! So if I'm understanding the platform right, it's supported by two speaker stands? We've got 4 stands which we rarely use, so when I build our tops that looks like the way to go! I'm assuming the platform is rectangular- how deep is it?

[gdougherty]

Looks good! So if I'm understanding the platform right, it's supported by two speaker stands? We've got 4 stands which we rarely use, so when I build our tops that looks like the way to go! I'm assuming the platform is rectangular- how deep is it?

All correct. It's just a bit deeper than the OT12's. I think 1" of fudge room front and back. I laid it out so there was about 1/2" either side between speakers and top hats sticking through. That was the major dimensional calc I had to do.

[Tim A]

I know you were around the forum long enough to witness my attempts at multiple stands per side for longer arrays. What I learned was that for 2 cabs per side, two stands is a bit of overkill. One stand with a good wide stance is all you need. This would hold true for any of the DR's and OTops with the excpetion of the 280/90.

This pic is a bit grainy because it was cropped and enlarged from a wider shot. But you can easily see how wide the base is:



This is the direction I'll head in for a 2 per side, maybe even three of the OTop 1-12 or Dr200's. It is short so setting the cabs up is easy, has a wide base, and cranks up high enough to get the cabs where you want. Pricey at $146.00, but a very good solution if you run a one-man operation: