Bingo328 Posted November 13, 2003 Report Share Posted November 13, 2003 I recently got a Marshall 2x12 combo amp and was thinking about either purchasing or making a 2x12 extension cab to go with it. Has anyone here ever built their own cabinet (either 4x12 or 2x12) or have any plans for one. Does anyone else have any interest in building cabs? might make a good topic if enough people are interested! Scott Quote Link to comment
bluespresence Posted November 13, 2003 Report Share Posted November 13, 2003 YES!!! I'm interested in a 2x10 (bass) cab for myself. I'd really like to find a set of Hartke's aluminum cones and put them in a box, but when I do find the speakers alone the price is so high I may as well just buy a new cab! Even the low end speakers seem to get bid up so high on the 'bay it's not worth it. So, yes I am interested, but is it really worth it? If someone has a source for reasonably priced speakers I think it is. my 2 cents! cha-ching! Quote Link to comment
rob Posted November 13, 2003 Report Share Posted November 13, 2003 I am STILL looking for 8 inch speakers for an 8X8 cab I only got two! but I have made a 2X12 guitar cab though and it sounds very unique. BTW 8's are for bass Quote Link to comment
Drak Posted November 13, 2003 Report Share Posted November 13, 2003 Anyone interested in building cabs should check out this forum. Once here, click on the 'Enclosures' section (one of the blue buttons on the left-hand side). Lots of custom cab builders listed at the top, and a forum devoted to building your own cabs (along with lots of other great forums too). I've rebuilt several old combo cabinets that were hanging by a thread, and done lots of tolex recovers and new baffles and grills and whatnots...this is a -great- place to hang if you need any help with your cab projects. PS, Ted Weber builds the best speakers in the business AFAIC, I have tried probably over 15-17 different Weber speakers and use them in most of my amps (not all) and Ted does all of my re-cones too. Always superb work. He is one of the most stand-up people I have ever run into in this music business, period. Terrific guy, operation, speakers, and BBS 'boards. WeberVST BBS Quote Link to comment
Bingo328 Posted November 14, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2003 Cool, thanks for the link. It was just what I was looking for. Any pics of the ones you made? Scott Quote Link to comment
Drak Posted November 15, 2003 Report Share Posted November 15, 2003 I'm in the process of moving my on-line pics to another provider, and I've been really lazy about getting it done, but give me a week or so, then I should have lots of pics up for viewing. Quote Link to comment
StratDudeDan Posted November 15, 2003 Report Share Posted November 15, 2003 i started studying and reading in on what it takes to build cabinets. guitar cabs are pretty easy compared to bass cabs. there are all sorts of weird *ss measurments and calculations you have to do for separation between the wall and speaker, where to put the input jack, how to mount everything, and then don't get me started on the electronics part of it. i've been wiring crap (including my own FX) for about 5 years now and i was very confused by all of it...i mean...whoa... Quote Link to comment
Speedy McFeely Posted November 15, 2003 Report Share Posted November 15, 2003 i built a cab for an old 15 watt practice amp i had. it had an 8'' speaker in it, but i boght a celestian vintage 30, and built a walnut cab fo it. although the amp was 15 watts, it sounds way better than with the 8. it actually has a cool distortion tone, because of the underpowered speaker. i got the plans off of a website that has info about house speakers, i wanted a closed back cab, for a single speaker quarter stack. it's preatty cool. Quote Link to comment
funkle Posted November 15, 2003 Report Share Posted November 15, 2003 PS, Ted Weber builds the best speakers in the business AFAIC, http://www.jenkinssoundshop.com/ builds custom enclosures loaded with Webers. There are some nice looking cabinets at the site if anyone wants some construction and cosmetic ideas. There are some cabinet parts for sale too. Building your own cabs would be fun. There's a lot that goes into it acoustically. Closed back and open back cabs sound very different, and the size, shape, construction and bracing all have an effect. The Jenkins cabinets have a removable panel that converts them from a closed back to an open back. I think I would like to experiment with that - maybe build a cabinet, then try different size backs until I find the configuration I like. -Sven Quote Link to comment
MikeB Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 yea, me and my dad built my amp from scratch, cab and all, its quite easy to do (the cab bit that is) especially if you leave it untuned, ie open backed (open baffle). i used a vintage 30, which kicks ass, but changed to an Eminence Beta speaker to get more volume, but im changin back i think, the Celestion kicks almighty ass mike Quote Link to comment
sjaguar13 Posted November 21, 2003 Report Share Posted November 21, 2003 I was going to build my own cabs. I started talking to people who were really good at it and they were talking about the 9 or 11 ply wood, and all the other crap that makes it sound good. Then how to build the box with all the fancy things to make it strong. Then they listed all the good speakers, and there was no way I could build my own cab for the price of just buying them and paying $300 in shipping. I even looked at cheap wood, and the cheapest speakers possible buying in bulk to make 12 4-12" cabinets and I still couldn't get the price lower than just buying them. Quote Link to comment
lightbulbjim Posted November 26, 2003 Report Share Posted November 26, 2003 I was looking at building a set of bass cabs for my (future!) stack, but like many others I found it to be more expensive than just buying them. I was looking at building a 2x15 and a 4x10, but it turns out that for not much more than the price of the 2x15 I could just buy 2 4x10s. Yeah, sure they'd be budget ones, but there's no guaruntee that anything I build will sound any good. But if you do want to build cabs, the hardest part is definitely the tuning, and I recommend WinISD to help you with this. It's a small freeware program that is very easy to use, you input the characteristics of the speaker drive you want to use, how many you're using etc and what type of cab it's going to be, and it tells you what sort of volume (speaker box space), port length etc you need for different frequency responses. It also has an excellent help file that explains eveything, and it is worth reading thouroughly because there are some hidden features and stuff. You can download WinISD here. Quote Link to comment
McInnis Posted December 1, 2003 Report Share Posted December 1, 2003 Found this site when considering building a 1X12 "detuned" cabinet extension (see sight for definition of Detuned). Excellent examples of cabinets and construction design. FWIW.... http://www.vintone.com/index.html Quote Link to comment
Saber Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 I two 2x10" cabs out of 3/4" plywood using 50W guitar speakers made for a local electronics surplus store (Beckman or something like that). I added a small removeable panel in the back to switch from sealed to open-back but it didn't make much difference in sound. Maybe the opening is too small. Or maybe it's because I lined it with fiberglass insulation. Insulation is optional in speaker cabs but I wanted to avoid unwanted peaks. Whether this was a good idea or not is debatable. I also put 2 jacks in the back. One connects the 8ohm drivers in parallel to get 4ohms and the other jack connects them in series for 16ohms depending on what's available from the amp. I just painted them with black satin polyurethane paint. So far I've only used them for jamming with friends in my basement but mostly for recording so I don't know how they would sound in a "larger venue". Quote Link to comment
jbkim Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 This is how I sound through these speakers. I hope Satch won't mind me changing his tune a bit: http://www.artoftom.com/GP3/saboogie.mp3 That sounded pretty good. Strange thing is, your rendition reminded me of Rush... it was as if Rush covered the Satch tune . Strange indeed, I probably need sleep . Quote Link to comment
Saber Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 Must be some Canadian connection, eh. Quote Link to comment
jbkim Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 Must be some Canadian connection, eh. Eh, indeed! Quote Link to comment
rob Posted December 6, 2003 Report Share Posted December 6, 2003 Ahh has any one got any clue on where to buy 8" bass speakers, apart from carvin, I had no luck with them! Quote Link to comment
krazyderek Posted April 10, 2004 Report Share Posted April 10, 2004 I'm in the process of moving my on-line pics to another provider, and I've been really lazy about getting it done, but give me a week or so, then I should have lots of pics up for viewing. done yet? Quote Link to comment
scott from _actual time_ Posted April 10, 2004 Report Share Posted April 10, 2004 i've built over a dozen speaker cabs for guitar in the last 10 years or so -- here's a vertical 2x12 i just finished: http://www.his.com/~sha3u/gear/2x12v.jpg (the corners were in the mail!). if you're handy, it's easy to build a detuned cab that is fully functional, and how much money or work you put in beyond that just determines how fancy it is. you'll have several decisions to make before you start -- what size speakers, and do you want them mounted on the back of the baffle board like in marshall or recto cabs, or mounted through the front like the older boogie cabs and many others? a very subtle ear can detect tonal differences between these mounting styles, but i can't remember what they claim the differences are. what cab dimensions, and open back or closed? for this, it's best to copy the general design from a cab you like the sound of. for example, if you want a chunky metal tone, you want a closed back cab like marshall and the rectos. if you want a brighter Fender tone, open back. dimensions aren't so hard and fast, and bigger is always better -- that 2x12 that is 16" deep because that's the height of the trunk of my car! then you can get to construction details like materials -- voidless birch ply makes great cabs, but you can do just as well with regular pine ply, pine shelfboard, or even mdf. you can cover the cab with fuzzy carpet or tolex using contact cement, or for a cheap gigging box you can just paint it black. lots of places sell amp corners and handles and casters. the thing to remember with guitar cabs is that they're way less high-fi than PA cabs or even bass cabs. loose dimensions are important, but you're not tuning the box to bandpass a specific frequency or anything, so you don't need to calculate interior volume and all that stuff they do for PA cabs. Quote Link to comment
krazyderek Posted April 10, 2004 Report Share Posted April 10, 2004 the thing to remember with guitar cabs is that they're way less high-fi than PA cabs or even bass cabs. loose dimensions are important, but you're not tuning the box to bandpass a specific frequency or anything, so you don't need to calculate interior volume and all that stuff they do for PA cabs. what do you mean by loose dimensions? how many people that have built actually spend quite a bit of time calculating all that stuff and tuning the cab? Quote Link to comment
scott from _actual time_ Posted April 10, 2004 Report Share Posted April 10, 2004 what do you mean by loose dimensions? i was saying that dimensions are not totally irrelevant for guitar cabs, but they aren't a big deal. my 2x12 that is 25" W x 14" H x 11" D does not sound as big as that vertical one in the pic that is 30" x 17.5" x 16", but the exact value of the inner volume doesn't matter for the raw frequencies of guitar speakers. even in ported guitar cabs, which are rare but Bogner and other folks make them, you can just build the box and then tune your port by slowly trimming length from the port until it accentuates the frequency you want. you can also stuff a cab with pillow stuffing to slow down the sound waves inside and make it "act" as though it were bigger. how many people that have built actually spend quite a bit of time calculating all that stuff and tuning the cab? i dunno, because i don't! if you want to build a Theile cab or any other specific band-pass (ported) design, you will want to crunch the numbers, but guitar is so raw that the details don't matter as much as the general or "loose" qualities of the cab, IMO. Quote Link to comment
Little Bit Posted April 10, 2004 Report Share Posted April 10, 2004 Post pulled by author. Quote Link to comment
krazyderek Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 hmm.... with my lack of knowledge.. the price of speakers individually... and carvin's prices on cabs... i think i might just order from them.. even with shipping their cabs would be in my hands for under 700$ canadian (that's good around here)... considering they sell marshall 1960 cabs for 1260$ CAN after tax at my local music stores.. Quote Link to comment
whisky182 Posted April 14, 2004 Report Share Posted April 14, 2004 i found out that building my own cab was going to be more expencive then buying one! (£200 for a marshall mg412a ) Quote Link to comment
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