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My new BFM Jack 12 cabs....the perfect bass rig?


richrips
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I just finished building a pair of Bill Fitzmaurice Jack 12 cabs and thought i'd share the good news!

They are 12mm birch ply and fitted with Eminence Kappalite 3012HO drivers.

Finished sticking in foam and mounting jacks last night and went to band practice, the sound is incredible.

A lot of the buzz around bills designs revolves around the sesitivity and off axis response. i was blown away by the clarity and volume. i got all the volume i needed from one cab turned up to 3 on my crown xls402 power amp. The tone was really solid. I have been playing my stingray through my peavey stack for a few years now and recently moved to playing heavy flats to try and get maximum punch and depth out of it. I've never noticed much growl using the flats but the new cabs growl as much as you want them to. It's refreshing to not have the clarity from the strings and mudded by cabs that would turn a growl in to a wobble.

I'm really happy with the cabs and will play a few gigs before i consider tweeters (which were optional) i haven't been playing much slap and can't comment as i have a fretless or flats to play at the moment. i can get all the growl and edge i want though and there's always the bright switch on my preamp if needs but i can't see myself needing it. I am a firm believer that a speaker sounds best operating in the middle of it's power handling abilities rather than at max wattage and, thanks to the each cabs 400watts rms handling, i'm harldy likely to push them beyond a point where they don't sound incredible.

Thanks to bill and several fellow builders for tips and supply links. I may be able to make the south wales bass bash so i'll bring these along if i do and all challenges are welcome!

Hope everyone likes white!

cheers,
rich

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At the moment they are coated in 2 coats of ronseal floor paint. This is tough and cheap, my only problem is that being a matt finish (or satiny at best) it seems to attract dirt so i may gloss white over the top and leave the ronseal as the daddy of all undercoats.....

as for weight, Bill quotes 40lbs (19kg) on his site and although i don't have scales, this feels about right.

i'm just trying to find some countersunk chrome corners and leather carry straps if anyone is in the know?

Thanks for the positive responses!

rich

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[quote name='richrips' post='603411' date='Sep 20 2009, 10:52 AM']i'm just trying to find some countersunk chrome corners and leather carry straps if anyone is in the know?[/quote]

you could try [url="http://www.bluearan.co.uk"]blue aran[/url], i got a lot of stuff for my omni10.5s from there.

Nice build too, I'd be interested in finding out how one compared to a 10.5

Edited by steve
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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Have played these for several months now. VERY impressed.

When i first got them finished i was using only one for band practice. we booked a bigger rehearsal space just before a gig and i got the chance to try both. i was totally disappointed as they sounded thin and weak, but then had a brainwave..... it turned out either one of my speaker cables, or one of my speakers in the cabs was wired opposite way round to the other, hence, when i plugged in two cabs stacked one on the other, they were producing equal and opposite sound waves whose interaction caused most of the sound to disappear. so i swapped them round.

BOOM. Easily the loudest, clearest bass rig i have ever had, making my Peavey stack sound like a gentle giant. The sound is very much full-range as described on Bills website. The full spectrum of my bass and amp came through (No marcus/victor high end as i havn't yet felt the need to add the optional tweeters. maybe if i get back in to slap at some point...). They don't sound instantly mid-rangey with heaps of punch like a 4x10 nor do they sound booming and LOOOW like a 1x15, but the beauty is that all these sounds CAN be dialled in with EQ, as the whole spectrum is there. At the moment i am playing a lot of reggae/dub/soul and i have to admit that looking at the size and weight of the Kappalite drivers, i wasn't expecting a ground shaking bottom end.... Wrong! The cabs put out ridiculous subs when you want them. i can easily get too much very low end if i roll off all my tone, boost lows on the amp and play muted flatwounds on the neck pickup of my Ovation Magnum. They sound equally good with my VM fretless jazz, responding just as well to the different EQ.

I like playing live with these because their dispersion pattern means the sound is pretty uniform across the stage. i can hear myself, and my drummer says he can clearly hear what i'm playing too. i've recently sold the rack full of amp pictured above and have gone for an Ashdown Little Giant 1000. This amp is very transparent and honest, which is a good match for the speakers, meaning i never have a problem finding the sound for the song. Also, both speakers, my bass, and my amp now fit under the boot cover in my astra so after the gig i'm not worried about having gear on view.

Weight wise, they are middle of the road. Nothing like my Peavey 1x15, but certainly not a markbass 1x10 either. i havn't got handles on them yet but thanks to the odd shape, they are quite easy to pick up once you know which way round to hold them. They fit through doors and up stairs no problem.

All in all, very impressed. i'm happy with the sound and would have spent another £500 or so had i gone for off-the-shelf cabs of this spec.

Anyone who wants to try them out is welcome to pop over if you're in Cardiff, just PM me.

Cheers,
Rich

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Hi Rich, I'm starting a Jack 112 build soon, I have a couple of questions you might be able to help me with

what made you choose the Kappalite over the Delta Lite II?

what kind of band are you playing in, do they play load? I'm wondering whether one Jack112 will cope with a fairly loud rock band?

cheers

Edited by steve
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[quote name='steve' post='797992' date='Apr 6 2010, 08:36 PM']Hi Rich, I'm starting a Jack 112 build soon, I have a couple of questions you might be able to help me with

what made you choose the Kappalite over the Delta Lite II?

what kind of band are you playing in, do they play load? I'm wondering whether one Jack112 will cope with a fairly loud rock band?

cheers[/quote]

Check the comparison graph here:

[url="http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8778"]http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopi...f=12&t=8778[/url]


I opted for the kappalite basically because i could afford it at the time and wanted to build the best cabs i could afford. it will have slightly smoother response through the mids than the deltalite and as it has slightly higher x-max and thermal limits it should be able to go a tad louder if i really push the amp, although i have no way of comparing and the difference may be slight for all i know and if i'd been short of cash would have gone for the deltalite.

One cab may be loud enough for you, depending on what you want. My rig with 2 cabs would be fine in a medium venue with no PA. One cab would be fine for most smaller places. For heavy metal without PA support (or just to be massively loud onstage) i would go with 2 so you get kickass volume. if you play through the PA and your rig is for monitoring only you should be fine with one most of the time. I havn't needed to crank my rig to full power at all yet and we play Loud Reggae/ska/fun.

I know most of this is subjective, but i hope it helps!

Cheers,
Rich

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Interesting... you went for the speaker on cost and then had it tuned or setup for the cab..or was that chassis specs a recommended option by BFM....??

I would just like to know how the cab config was matched to the chassis spec...

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Check out Bills stuff. All the cabs are designed with specific drivers in mind. For example, my cabs could have housed 3 or 4 different drivers and the plans show how to tune the cab perfectly for each recommended driver (this involves one of the small bits of ply in the ports being longer or shorter- easy!). This allows for different people to build cabs tuned to whatever Cost/Spec of driver they feel they need/can afford. Pretty cool!

r

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[quote name='richrips' post='798007' date='Apr 6 2010, 08:50 PM']Check the comparison graph here:

[url="http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8778"]http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopi...f=12&t=8778[/url]


I opted for the kappalite basically because i could afford it at the time and wanted to build the best cabs i could afford. it will have slightly smoother response through the mids than the deltalite and as it has slightly higher x-max and thermal limits it should be able to go a tad louder if i really push the amp, although i have no way of comparing and the difference may be slight for all i know and if i'd been short of cash would have gone for the deltalite.

One cab may be loud enough for you, depending on what you want. My rig with 2 cabs would be fine in a medium venue with no PA. One cab would be fine for most smaller places. For heavy metal without PA support (or just to be massively loud onstage) i would go with 2 so you get kickass volume. if you play through the PA and your rig is for monitoring only you should be fine with one most of the time. I havn't needed to crank my rig to full power at all yet and we play Loud Reggae/ska/fun.

I know most of this is subjective, but i hope it helps!

Cheers,
Rich[/quote]


Thanks for that Rich, I'm currently using 2 x Omni 10.5's with DLII's in and while they sound great, I wonder whether the low B on my TRB1006 could be better. Of course it could be the bass itself or the strings, but I've always wondered how I'd fare with a 12. I think I'll prolly build just the one first to see how i get on, and maybe add a second if I need to, and if a direct comparison between and Omni10.5 and a Jack 112 inclines me that way (which I am expecting it to.) I'll probably go for the Kappa this time round just to try something different.

I'm playing in a loud rock band, and we've just moved to a new rehearsal space where we can store our gear, so both guitards are now threatening to bring their (matching :rolleyes: ) 4x12 extension cabs :) . I'm confident that the omnis will hold their own, I just want to hit those brown notes to teach them a lesson. I may try a 15'' build in the future, but for now I still like the modular, lightweight cab idea.

Have you seen the fEarful cabs over on talkbass?

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[quote name='warwickhunt' post='798178' date='Apr 6 2010, 11:04 PM']Bill's cabs have always intrigued me, I'd love to have heard a pair of these 1x12's next to my pair of Aggie 1x12's.

Did you go for the strap handles in the end? I find them more than adequate on said Aggies.[/quote]

I'd like to compare these to a set of more conventional looking 12's too..... There are so many theories and stats and numbers but the proof of the pudding as always is in the listening.

No handles yet. i got some chrome corners but havn't fitted them yet as it means drilling 32 perfectly measured holes and there always seems to be something more interesting to do! i kind of like the stealth look they have with no corners or handles, kind of star wars meets 70's funk....or do they just look like kitchen appliances lol...

rich

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  • 6 months later...

Like them...they look the part, even if I wouldn't, myself, have gone for the white finish.

At 40lbs, I'd have a little sprung carry handle on one side, ala Ag GS112's as the weight is easy enough.

Good effort and this design often seems to work well in DYI projects as the results end up looking anything but DYI

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