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So true. An obvious tell is when a manufacturer manufactures both active and passive PA cabinets. For some mysterious reason, their active speakers' amps are dispensing watts that their passive lines aren't rated for. QSC K12: 2000W QSC E112: 400W continuous, 1600W peak.

Shout out to Mark at speakergrills.co.uk, two grills arrived very quickly and at a reasonable price (£110 for the pair, with all the trimmings like boxing and powder coating). The quality is good, as is the fit. I'm in no doubt they will protect the speakers very well. Will take these for a gig in a week. I'm sure they'll be great.

The voltage drop you need to worry about is from one end of the cable to the other. Tauzero's power equation is what you need, and you need to measure the resistence of the wire but trust me 13A is plenty, the resistence of the wire will be tiny, orders of magnitude lower than the resistence of the cabinet.

On a practical level, mains cable will not be as flexible as dedicated speaker cable but if treated right I would happily use repurposed mains cable (and I have done, albeit internal to a cabinet). It's not going to be melting the wire. For reference, a 13A mains cable will happily take multiple kW of power. Using the cable as a guitar lead will not work out so well as the cable will be unshielded so you'll get a lot of unwanted interference added to your signal so bear that in mind if you want the cable for double duty.

Update: I have two more cabinets in the stables. These have been a few years in the making: Deviations from the standard build: 12mm marine ply instead of 15mm. This is very high quality wood and feels like it would withstand quite a beating, but is significantly denser than baltic birch. Compared with my original 15mm cabinet, it's roughly equivalent weight so hoping the damping is similar at gigging volumes. The horn has been changed to the Celestion, but this time the crossover has accommodated it (many thanks @stevie!). You can hear how it sounds in an untreated room but in summary this is the real deal. My go-to genre to expose imperfections is classical and this pair delivers the goods! I'm extremely pleased with how it sounds, and can happily listen to music through these for extended periods. Things I learnt on this build: Routers are vicious! Maybe the blade was old, but it was ripping wood all over the place and so much patching was required. Also, I thought a 6mm radius was what was required for the edges. It isn't, it should have been closer to 3mm. That'll teach me to do a test run on scrap wood first. I used an adjustable hole saw for the handle at the top and the port. The ports turned out fine, but you need to be careful with getting everything screwed firmly into the drill and the adjustable section is screwed very tight. Having such high torque is scary, and for the handle things came loose and the circle diameter changed mid-cut. That black flange of the handle is covering up considerable damage. I didn't have a pillar drill and if I were to do this again I'd get a pillar drill. All in all, I'm very happy with how these turned out. I will probably be going to speakergrills.co.uk to get some protection. My only hesitation is that it will add weight to an already meaty box. So, how would this stack up to an LfSys? Sonically I don't know as I've never had them side by side. However, visually, mine has some real amateur parts in comparison. For example, the port isn't painted (that's a messy job), the handle isn't recessed (that's a router too far), and there is wood filler around the edging from where the router did its thing. Does it work economically? Wood was ~£80, Speakers ~£500, wadding ~£15, wires etc ~£30, Crossovers £80. Looking at it by parts alone the Silverstone is very competitively priced. Would I recommend building one above buying one from LfSys? That depends on what you want. I wanted to learn about speaker design and woodworking so the experience was fantastic and I absolutely would recommend doing something like this, but if you're hoping to save money or build a more luxurious system then, particularly if you're a beginner like me, an endeavour like this will be a non-starter.

My guess is they're trying to fill the void in the market created by the sad passing of Rick Jones, the founder and owner of Acoustic Image. I own two Acoustic Image combos that have literally been around the world with me. They share a down firing 10" woofer design with the Upton. Dispersion on the AI is absolutely fantastic.

Don't do yourself down, I'm sure it's that your gear still needs upgrading

I own two Aston Elements, and they're absolutely amazing. Wouldn't say they'd replace a small condenser mic though. If you're after bargainous, the Behringer B-5s are reasonably priced and offer multiple pickup patterns via interchangeable capsules. I own a pair of those as well. To be perfectly honest, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to make a choice between them I'd pick the Elements as their noise floor is incredibly low and the vocal sound is superb, but horses for courses and all that: the different pickup patterns on the B-5s can come in real handy.

Sounds like the PJB earbox https://pjbgear.com/product/ear-box/ Never tried one myself, but I saw a comment flash past on this forum that they're very good at solving the problem they're trying to solve. This is for personal monitoring, not for adding highs to your stage sound.

EQUALISATION Shape (Push Flat) +8dB @ 50Hz & 4kHz, -8dB @ 400Hz, filter slope - 6dB/octave Bass +/-15dB @ 45Hz Middle +/-15dB @ 660Hz Treble +/-15dB @ 7kHz shelving Slider1 +/-15dB @ 100Hz Slider 2 +/-15dB @ 180Hz Slider 3 +/-15dB @ 340Hz Slider 4 +/-15dB @ 1.3kHz Slider 5 +/-15dB @ 2.6kHz Slider 6 +/-15dB @ 5kHz Taken from https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2397/1117/files/ABM-EVO-IV-USER_MANUAL_ENG_FRE_GER_SPA_IT.pdf?v=1669639182 Hope that helps

Can't remember the name of it, but it's where you pop G, slap E, pop G, slap E using index, thumb, index, thumb respectively. Mute all the strings with your left hand and you should get the sound in the recording. Strings can be different depending on the exact tone you're after, but hopefully you get the idea. Hope that helps.

Not everyone can do this, but I've never bought an instrument I've not played beforehand. Does that mean I've passed up the opportunity to find my ultimate bass? Maybe, but on the flipside I've never bought a bass that's anything less than great, let alone owned a bass I've hated.

Just to echo everyone else by saying it was a fabulous day, and thank you all those who helped make it happen. I thought I saw a double bass case, but never saw a second (double?) double bass. Whose was it? It's a shame I never got a chance trace the owner to see that. Other than that a perfect day☺️. That BC 108 cab was delicious, as was the food. Thanks all!

Anyone with recommendations for a place to stay Sunday->Monday? Cheap is my top priority, then proximity to any post-bash pub session (if it happens).