Boneless

I don't think you can really compare Ashdown and Hartke, though. Two different kinds of tone, two different approaches. Whereas Ashdown heads are more, erm, kind of "old school" (to my ears, anyway), the Hartke sound is a more modern one.

But do you actually experience this even when the filters are off? If so, it may be that the LMK is somewhat compressed by nature and eliminates your need for a compressor, although in my experience, Markbass' heads are quite responsive dynamically-wise. Or maybe the filters enhance low frequency and reduce transient response (or whatever) so that your tone seems somewhat more even?

[quote name='Musicman20' post='541466' date='Jul 15 2009, 06:36 PM']Itll sound totally different. You might like more you might not. Years ago I was told the Ampeg 8x10 was one of the best cabs ever. I bought one, and it wasnt. Unless it was really loud it was dull.[/quote] I knew I wasn't deaf. That cab wants massive power pumped into it. I had a gig where I had an 8x10" and a Peavey preamp + power amp rack system. I know that the amplifier wasn't really important in the equation, since I always take my Hartke VXL with me, I also tried getting through the FX loop. Due to issues with the location of the venue, we had to keep the volume quite low. Tone was inexistent. It seemed like the cab couldn't be bothered Muffled, lifeless, boring. Then again, I had the chance of churning out loads of volume out of it once. It was spectacularly good. It really requires massive amount of power with at least a hint of overdrive to shine.

Well, as I stated before, I am not searching for perfection. If I really wanted to build the "perfect" cab, I'd probably enroll at Uni in some subject related to it (I don't know, maybe Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and the sort). Anyway, I have followed most of the advice that has been given to me. I have read countless articles about making speakers. I'm still far from actually knowing even the basics of loudspeaker design, but I'm only doing it as a hobby. One day, perhaps, I will delve more thoroughly into the subject. Keep in mind that my primary concern is that the cab "works" and that it won't break my amp. It is only a personal challenge, to see if I can actually make something usable. If I'm at least partly satisfied with the result, it will be a good reason for me to continue and do something better (say, if I find out that building a cab is too much effort for me, since I don't have any woodworking abilities, and I never attended a shop class in my life, since my school didn't have one ). I don't plan to make profit on my stuff, and I probably never will. I have my studies to care for. BTW, I have examined some designs (the ones I could freely find, generally the ready-made designs by the driver manufacturers, which are pretty "generic" - 4x10", 1x15", 1x12", etc.). I'm not just giving it a shot blindfolded.

Yeah, but since I actually don't know WHY vertical alignment is better, I actually wouldn't know what the benefits are. I might rearrange the drivers, though, no problem in that of course. But my aim is simply building something that works and that may be on par, at most, with most commercially available cabs. Not something BETTER. How could I? Commercial cabs, although they may be ill-designed from a technical point of view, still please most people, and I won't be able to actually do something better (those cabs are still designed by someone who probably knows what he's doing). In due time, I will start experimenting with different driver alignments, with proper crossover design, etc. but for now, I want to opt for a conventional design. Then, I might build another cabinet with other specs and simply reuse the components from this cab, to understand the differences and benefits from a better cab design (even because my somewhat limited experience tells me that better designed isn't necessarily better sounding, if I get my tone from a cab with a huge hole in a certain frequency range, is it really a bad thing? Most people may actually be disappointed by a well-designed cab, just like many people are disappointed by true flat sound. That said, I understand why it's best to have the option to actually choose your own tone, instead of your gear forcing you one). By the way, my next design will probably be a 12"/15" + midrange, but done "properly". I might even buy an electronic crossover to better judge crossover point by ear.

Owned gear: - Laney R2 combo - Markbass Little Mark head - Ashdown ABM414T Gear I've used extensively: - Hartke HA3500 - Hartke 4.5 XL - Fender Rumble 200W 1x15" amp - Marshall 7200 + Marshall 4x10" And loads of pedals. 1. Many low-powered combos have a very nice sound, sometimes better than high-powered rigs, but really can't make it in a mix. I'll buy a small combo for recording. 2. A dry sound, although it may result in a lighter mix, keeps things more defined. 3. You can get a decent sound more easily with a simple bass (passive, one pickup). With more features, you might get a better sound, but you often have to work for it. 4. Much of the tone is actually in the gear you use: it depends of course on your gear, but if you're not sure about your tone, an overdrive sometimes can help you out. 5. A preamp such as the Sansamp is worth much more than its cost, in regard to gigs with a backline, you can get your tone out of really anything, if you don't like the preamp voicing or filters, just plug in the FX return and start gigging. 6. The best tone for recording is generally very different from the best tone for being heard in the way you want through a mix. Sometimes crap tones when heard by themselves really shine in a band setting.

Thanks for the help. Actually, the midrange is more aimed towards the upper mids and treble, in other words, a smoother tweeter. I'd actually rely on the woofers for true midrange (and, according to the charts, I should have plenty of it). Anyway, I thought active crossovers worked BEFORE the power amp, not after it. For the crossover, I'd ask an electrical engineer, a friend of mine, who has already told me that he can give me some advice here and there. I might just disconnect the midrange for the time being for now, anyway. I'll install it, try it out, see if it works correctly (my head has built-in protection, so I'm really not bothered, if it doesn't work, it will just switch off). According to my calculations, impedance will only go below 4 ohms (at about 3 ohms) between 200 and 500Hz, and everyone has assured me that it's perfectly normal. In regard to the woofers, I'd have preferred using Italian drivers for various reasons, but there simply wasn't a 12" driver in my price bracket (100-150€) that would satisfy my needs. Many people are very happy with Ciare, 18Sound, RCF, FaitalPro, etc. but they all seemed good for midbass applications (they simply didn't go down very low), while I was looking for a more fullrange speaker. SICA seemed to have some good choices, but they either had low power ratings or low Xmax. I'm OK with an European driver, though. I chose the SM212 instead of the 12MWNd just because of price. I was actually leaning towards the latter, which seems to be a superior driver in everything, but then I didn't want to risk potentially wasting more money than I'd want. I agree though that neo drivers will probably be the standard in a few years. They are already starting to be, by the way, most of the big names have a neo line in their offerings. I'm installing 4 3" ports in a 120 lt cabinet. According to the simulations, I should be really safe, considering that Xmax is reached at 400W (but in a simulation, which considers sinewaves) and port velocity is below 17 m/s over 38Hz at 400W. Driver alignment isn't vertical just because I wanted to fit the both the woofers and the midrange in a compact box, while keeping a 60cm width which is standard - many heads are built according to this standard, I don't want heads larger than the box, and I want to keep my box in a vertical position. Many boxes have a similar alignment, so I guess it can't be too bad Plus, I want the midrange as close as possible to my ears.

Same here. Ashdown Dual Band Compressor, when engaged, 90% of the time the LED would switch on but with a very weak and distorted sound coming through. I went to the shop, they sent it to the Ashdown centre, after 3 months (3 months!) they gave me a new one. At least, they gave me the Mark II comp, since I had the first version which would be unusable with many basses.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='204677' date='May 23 2008, 12:40 AM']I think you need to re-read my posts above, you've missed quite a few critical points and thus are pretty much incorrect on all counts. Alex[/quote] But aren't drivers supposed to sound better if feeded an amount of power closer to their RMS rating? In other words, if you have a 4x10" with 150W RMS drivers (600W total), wouldn't they respond better with 200W instead of 50W? Or does it depend on the driver? I find that my Ashdown 4x10" needs to be kind of cranked to start sounding "alive". Same thing for the Ampeg 8x10", there was a gig where I had a Peavey head + Ampeg 8x10" as a backline, and I had to keep the volume really down for several reasons (but REALLY low, most probably under 50W), and my tone was extremely dull. And trying to compensate with EQ was useless, since the cab seemed not to budge from that lifeless tone.

[quote]This doesn't really matter because the driver impedances are not ideal to get a usable speaker configuration below 12ohms. Personally I would look for 16ohm woofers or a 4ohm midrange or use a 2-way crossover.[/quote] But generally the impedance of the cabinet is given by the woofers. If you have a 4x10" cabinet with a tweeter, the tweeter is generally overlooked since it shouldn't have any influence on the total impedance. I'm only substituting the tweeter with a midrange, so things shouldn't change

No, no, I actually DON'T know It's just that I tried choosing an adequate driver, keeping in mind power, frequency range and cost, and these three are satisfied by this choice of drivers. The point is now, impedance-wise, will I get a 4+ ohm cab? If I don't, I have to plan everything from scratch again... (f***! )

Anyway, I actually made a mistake about the crossover. It's actually a 4th order Butterworth filter centered at 1000Hz.

OK, I have chosen the drivers and everything, here is a (very rough) blueprint made with MS Paint And here is the project file for the 2 12"s (WinISD): [url="http://www.gospel.bo.it/albums/userpics/10222/beyma_2xsm212_wpr.zip"]http://www.gospel.bo.it/albums/userpics/10...2xsm212_wpr.zip[/url] I have planned a 122 litre cabinet for the two twelves, and a 5-6 litre sealed cabinet for the midrange. Adding driver volume, the sealed midrange section, and overestimating the end results for safety, I have ended with a 142 litre cabinet. The cab won't probably be terribly loud, since the drivers aren't really very sensitive (96dB for the 12" drivers, 98dB for the midrange but the cabinet will probably have a final sensibility of 98-100dB, which isn't TOO bad, I suppose I wasn't after loudness, actually, since I rarely pump up the volume. And this is only an experiment. The best crossover for this project, probably, is a 4th order Linkwitz-Riley centered at 800Hz. By entering the data in WinISD, it shows a F3 point at 1000Hz, a -6dB at 800Hz, so it's probably not too bad. But I'm open to suggestions. Now, the big dilemma: impedance. Is it going to be a 4 ohm cab, an 8 ohm cab, or a @#?!£ cab? All I want to know if impedance is going to be lower than 4 ohms. I can't have impedance lower than 4 ohms, since my Little Mark can't handle them. And I'd like it to be under 6 ohms at least for more power. This is the impedance graph for the two 12": And this is the midrange driver: [url="http://profesional.beyma.com/ingles/pdf/6MI90.pdf"]http://profesional.beyma.com/ingles/pdf/6MI90.pdf[/url] Can you help me out here?

Bump!

Yeah, as I said, I'd filter the midrange* (I was thinking of that, really, a -12 or -24dB highpass filter with cutoff centered at around 700-1000Hz). But is the 18Sound I'm considering actually up to the job? I know that Xmax is just a mathematical value, and that, in reality, maximum excursion is actually a bit higher than that, but seeing the Maximum Power graph, I'd have 180W maximum between 50 and 100+Hz, is it actually reasonable? I can always compromise, if you tell me that I can actually easily get away with it, I'll stick with this idea. * : BTW, what would an adequate power rating be for a midrange? Assuming I'm looking at high sensibility, I was thinking at something in the region of 100-150W RMS, is this OK?