Just finished the first of two subs I'm building
Just finished the first of two subs I'm building Posted on: 23.02.2010 by Al Henger Well guys, I just finished my first tuba 30. Was a week from start to *finish* (we still need to roll duratex over the latex base coat), but I only did work on the weekends. This is number one of the pair, both being driven on a single channel with a crown xti 2000. I have to say I'm very happy with the build, the plans (http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/) were very good, and the community
over there is very helpful.I can get this sub to a nauseating level in my room at about 40-50% power on the amp, with just a 30hz test tone. The walls start shaking pretty bad. At 90hz, 2-3 out of 20 clicks on the amp its almost unbearable Heres a pic for ya! God I am so stoked. | |
| Al Henger 01.03.2010 | Sounds like a damn good plan. I'm about a day away from finishing the second one, and I've already got offers on the pair.... soooo, who knows how long I'll be hanging on to them. I have a feeling you are going to be very happy with your choice. I've heard lots of good things about the punishers, but many people will argue that after the first 500ish watts, you are just burning watts going up to the 1000 that the ciare can handle (double the watts is a max of 3 db increase, without power compression that will likely happen at those levels). Throw in the fact that you will be hardpressed to power those drivers out of a standard wall outlet (15 amp/120 volt can throw a max of 1800 watts to the amp, although I have a feeling you have access to some extra juice). Get a pair or two of those tuba 30s, 3012 loaded, vplated and corner loaded, and I believe you will be in for a treat. I chose the xti, cause I fit the crowd you mentioned. If you are looking for better amps, and have the cash, check out Ashly. Most sound guys I've talked to swear by them. http://www.ashly.com/ Also, http://www.proaudioparts.co.uk/ciare.asp Theres the ciare for not too bad of a price, but like I said, once you get those tubas done.... I dont believe you be ready to get rid of them too quick hahaha. In case I missed it, how many are you making? And I made mine out of 5 ply aracuo (lowes hardware). Bill states this is a decent substitute for BB, if the BB is not available, or cost prohibitive. Also, if you are going BB, make sure its not the crappy asian import (thin veneer on either side) and is indeed equal thickness ply. |
| robert chanda 01.03.2010 | Oh, I need the low end. Ever heard a TB-303 go direct to a PA? Nothing like it. The XTi is a beautiful thing if you want an all-in-one package, perfect for the house party crew who just want to move out the furniture, plug in a rack and speakers and get going. I'm really not sure what I need right now so I'm probably going for separates to allow for a little more experimentation. Set it up, have some fun, perfect it then sell it off. |
| Al Henger 01.03.2010 | May I recommend the Crown XTI series? With the 2000, you can run 4 tuba 30s loaded with the 3012s on one channel, in parallel, and throw about 300 watts to each driver. Or you can run 2 on each channel, and get near the rms of around 400-450 to each driver. Or you could just upgrade to the 4000. all of the xti have onboard dsp, lets you crossover things where you want, with tons of slope choices. You can also delay channels (if you are not biamping). Mainly, I was asking because I wanted to know if you reallllly needed the low end extension offered by the tuba design (that is the output below 35hz). If you were mod over on the BFM site, any mention of the words dubstep or DnB and you would be like.... shittt not again. The titans can go about 6 db louder above 35 hz than the tubas.... which is a lot haha. As far as college kids looking for legendary houseparties, thats me hahaha. We are going to rock this town. And we will be actually be renting out to some smaller clubs as well! |
| robert chanda 02.03.2010 |
Originally Posted by sine143
My master plan is to make a set of four 1850's or Punisher subs and then get some commercial MidTops. The Punisher uses the 1000watt Ciare 12.00 SW speakers which are made in Italy and are hard to get in the US for under $400 a driver, so I've been looking for substitutes but nothing even comes close to those specs. I had kinda given up and was waiting to get to the point where I had enough saved up to import them myself through my Euro contacts. http://www.speakerplans.com/index.php?id=1850horn http://www.speakerstore.nl/constructions/21 Then along comes your post which got me to believeing, why not make something with easy to source parts just to get things rolling? I can sell them later once I get constrained by them, hand them off to some college kid who will likely use them make some legendary house parties. What's not to like about that. Start with two subs and two tops, add another two subs, play with different staging setups, wall loading, corner loading, different amping layouts, learn as I go.
Originally Posted by sine143
One day at a time. Next up, order the drivers and go visit that source of 7-ply Baltic Birch... |
| Johnny Achziger 01.03.2010 | Those are Slamming designs That Bill has... the folded horn is a well tried and tru design that has been used for years... I have the plans for Tuba24 / Tuba 30 / Omnitop 12's As a reference Bill's designs are Tight. the man knows his shit when it comes to acoustics and sound reinforcement engineering. Just one word of advise if you decide to build folded horn sub woofers, don't mix those cabs with the typical ported designs or large sealed sub woofers.... actually goes with any Subwoofer design, it all comes down to the Phasing and Summing of all the cabs. Unless you got tons of Sound gear that can time delay the different cabs to ensure all the low freq exits all the cabs at the same phase and such. |
| Al Henger 28.02.2010 | hahahaha. The DRs are ungodly. I'm opting for the much simpler Omnitops, cause they offer good output in an easier package. This is coming from someone who builds electric guitars, ukes, and violins in his spare time. Now, it might be a bit late for this, but what type of music are you looking to throw through these subs limey? If you dont need the low extension offered by the tuba designs, Go for either the titan 39 or the titan 48, as they offer more output, in a better from factor, but cant go quite as low. Now, if you are looking for dubstep or DnB, you will be grinning from ear to ear when you fire up the tuba 30. What drivers are you planning to go with? If you are going with some slims, go for the bp102. If you want a 12 inch driver, trust me, go with the 3012, not the delta 12lf (thats what I got). The 3012 is about 5 pounds *LIGHTER* (edit) , eats less power, and has almost twice as much Vd, which means it can push about twice as much sound, for the same number of drivers than the delta 12. Only downside is they cost about twice as much as the delta 12 haha. Speakerhardware.com has great deals on pretty much everything you need for BFM cabs (I've talked to the owner a ton on bills community ). He also has kits that cover mostly everything you need at a nice little discount. |
| robert chanda 28.02.2010 | Now you went and made me buy the designs and a circular saw (Milwakee 6394-21, tool fans). Came to the conclusion that I should stop failing to source those impossible-to-buy-in-the-US Ciare 12.00SW drivers and build something smaller than the dream subs I want in the future (Punisher). The Tuba30's look straightforward to construct once you have the necessary Panel jig for the table saw and a few Angle jigs for the circular. The final paragraphs about adding foam and batting to dampen certain sections but not others lost me a bit but I'm sure it'll all come clear. The design for the DR200s is *MENTAL* hard to construct. Many, many steps to do including cutting 4inch PVC pipes in half and bending curves in 1/8th inch plywood by curling it with webbing clamps overevening . And then there's the tweeter arrays that involves cutting the frames off perfectly good tweeters with your table saw, sawing off one side at a 45 degree angle and gluing them together into an angled grid using a jig you put together yourself taking care to keep the whole construction airtight. Mod extreme! The best part about paying for the design and build instructions is that there's no trawling through newgroups trying to find tips and help, it's all right there in the instructions. $25 for two designs very well spent. I'll do the Tuba30s first. I'm aiming to get those together before the Makers Faire... |
| Al Henger 24.02.2010 | I have to say... that running a 15hz test tone might be driving me insane. I forgot to break in the driver before mounting it in the enclosure.... and I reallllly dont want to take it out, so I've been breaking it in for the last couple hours. I cant hear anything, but its there. If I crank it up a bit shit starts shaking in my room. I keep it low (about 1/4" of play in the cone") cause It doesnt have to be too heavy to get that driver where it needs to be. |
| Efrain Scharr 24.02.2010 | looks nice!! |
| Al Henger 24.02.2010 | Definitely. Should finish the second one in about a week. Have a little bit of a party we hope to test them out at (100-200 people outside), so I'll definitely tell how that goes as well. |
| Sheba Rostas 24.02.2010 | nice, will you post pictures on here when you finish? im super intrigued. |
| Al Henger 24.02.2010 |
Originally Posted by lola
I know! I'm considering building one in the style of the second picture on this page http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/ Its totally sexy. I cant wait till I finish the second one, and get it finished with duratex, so It will be nice and textured. |
| Sheba Rostas 24.02.2010 | WOW that is so sexy. i didnt even know it is possible to construct ones own subs. what about combining some of these plans with a furniture designer = lucrative business? i mean who wouldn't buy a sleek ass table that also doubles as a party machine |
| Al Henger 23.02.2010 | Their tuba home theatre and Table tuba both look great. The David looks sick as well I must say. Granted, your mileage may vary... I doubt if I built them they would look as sexy as the ones on the site hahaha. |
| Doug Bieling 23.02.2010 | ahh i see, i'm looking at it more for the home theatre stuff |
| Al Henger 23.02.2010 | I've not built anything other than this sub. But I plan on doing it. I'll be building either omnitops or DR200s. To be honest, I'm sure they are legit. The community is awesomely helpful. Bill (the guy who designed the cabs) answers just about every question himself (he has 14k posts on the community s). I was turned on to the site by the djcommunity s thread (over 5k responses). Only good thing I got out of that website. |
| Doug Bieling 23.02.2010 | OOwwhh i'm lovin this site. Has anyone built anythin other than a sub from here. Those floor standers look amaaazin!!! Don't believe i could slip them past the wife though hahaa |
| robert chanda 23.02.2010 | *applause* A weekend well spent. |
| Harold Jaras 23.02.2010 | dope man, let us know how it goes definitely! really would rather make my own than pay out the ass for one |
| Al Henger 23.02.2010 | No problem. I'm pretty confident in the design, although this is my first sub of any decent power or size. I am so ready to build the second one and v couple them. We will be giving them the first real test on thursday (gotta go pick up the tops/get to a place where my neighbors wont kill me). We'll run it wall loaded with the tops in a fairly large semi circle shaped room (radius of the semicircle is ~ 30 feet). Can. Not. Wait. |
| Harold Jaras 23.02.2010 | word, thanks for the link man! |
| Al Henger 23.02.2010 | Have an spl meter to test db with, at home (not at my apt). I'll get it mailed to me I guess. My multimeter is messed up (measures 150 volts from all the wall outlets in my house) so I cant even accurately gauge what I'm putting into it for wattage. Thankfully, I'll probably have my fluke mailed to me with the spl meter =] If you want to know more about the design itself, you can check out their website. They have like a ton of frequency response graphs and comparisons. |
| Harold Jaras 23.02.2010 | damn, not bad at all. you had a chance to get an RMS level on it? |
| Al Henger 23.02.2010 | ~99 for the driver (delta 12lf. Should have gone with the 3012.... but it was double), this is after shipping (15 dollars) ~75 for the wood, and we have about half a tuba left over ~10 dollars for pl glue (stuff of the gods) ~15 dollars for plans ~15 for the corners, speakon jacks, screws and casters ~8 bucks for a quart of black matte latex, still 3/4 full after 2 coats here. Then of course we spent about 40 bucks on cables. Bleh. and we already had the necessary tools (handheld circular saw, Drill, Jigsaw, clamps) It brings the sub itself to around 215ish dollars, but since we have glue, and screws, and wood left over, I anticipate the next to come in at around 150. |
| Harold Jaras 23.02.2010 | that looks like a beast. total cost? |
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