Just wanted to post up a couple pictures of my latest venture. I'm continuing development on my S-line line array system (as seen in the review thread by Evan over in product reviews). Part of my vision for this project is to ultimately have a complete system of cabinets that all seamlessly integrate both acoustically and aesthetically. Now that I have a sizable rig of a dozen line array cabinets, I thought a pair of matching front fill cabinets would be an easy project before tackling some of my other concepts for the system. As with the S-line, I can't reveal the brand and model of the drivers, but it is an 8+1" box, the woofer, horn, and comp driver all come from the land of spaghetti and leaning towers, from 3 different manufacturers. The drivers should all be in soon, but here's the completed boxes in the mean time. I'll get some response curves and explain my tuning process once I get them loaded up. The cabinets are made from 1/2" baltic birch with bracing on all sides. The sides of the cabinets have 3/16" x 2" aircraft aluminum recessed into them to match the look of the main cabinets and also for strength and ruggedness.
S-Fill front fill cabinet
- Thread starter Tom Manchester
- Start date
Re: S-Fill front fill cabinet
Tom,
That's cool, I've always liked custom fills because tuning for that specific application you can get a lot more output from smaller drivers. I always envisioned F3 in the 120Hz range, an 8" or 10" and horn. Simple, light, maybe even with a 2nd order passive crossover and EQ in your amp. Looks nice!
Tom,
That's cool, I've always liked custom fills because tuning for that specific application you can get a lot more output from smaller drivers. I always envisioned F3 in the 120Hz range, an 8" or 10" and horn. Simple, light, maybe even with a 2nd order passive crossover and EQ in your amp. Looks nice!
Re: S-Fill front fill cabinet
Higher with that highpass F3, Slick. Think 200 - 250Hz. Helps prevent coupling with stage wedges.
Higher with that highpass F3, Slick. Think 200 - 250Hz. Helps prevent coupling with stage wedges.
Re: S-Fill front fill cabinet
There is so much "low end spillage", that all you really need to do is to give a little "bump" to the mids/highs.
Of course when listening to different speakers-the one with more low freq extension will often "win" even though in a real situation all the extra low freq will (or least SHOULD) be rolled out.
Of course this varies with the particular rest of the system-location of fills and so forth.
If one were to actually measure what is missing-then a higher (300ish even) crossover would be used.
If run full range-then the fill will actually ADD to the problem of mud.
Agreed.
There is so much "low end spillage", that all you really need to do is to give a little "bump" to the mids/highs.
Of course when listening to different speakers-the one with more low freq extension will often "win" even though in a real situation all the extra low freq will (or least SHOULD) be rolled out.
Of course this varies with the particular rest of the system-location of fills and so forth.
If one were to actually measure what is missing-then a higher (300ish even) crossover would be used.
If run full range-then the fill will actually ADD to the problem of mud.
Tim,
Where I place my HPF and what the usable LF limit of the box is are two separate things. IMHO there is not a significant advantage to limiting the box above 160Hz or so with the woofers I imagine might be used, and a 120Hz tuning is still an octave higher than a general purpose box using the same woofer might be tuned. A little excursion is good for driver thermals anyway. That is a reasonable F3 that will allow the box to be used for more than just front fills at rock shows.
Re: S-Fill front fill cabinet
You guys beat me to the punch. It was actually my intention to roll 2 dsp settings for these boxes. One is a full range with an f3 of say 100hz or wherever they end up being usable to. The other I will do a mock stage setup in my shop parking lot and do some experimenting with the summed output of an S-fill and a nearby wedge. Probably add a little HF bump to the second one too to help with stage wash. I'll report back, the HF driver and horn arrived today, will get the LF driver on Sunday.
You guys beat me to the punch. It was actually my intention to roll 2 dsp settings for these boxes. One is a full range with an f3 of say 100hz or wherever they end up being usable to. The other I will do a mock stage setup in my shop parking lot and do some experimenting with the summed output of an S-fill and a nearby wedge. Probably add a little HF bump to the second one too to help with stage wash. I'll report back, the HF driver and horn arrived today, will get the LF driver on Sunday.
Re: S-Fill front fill cabinet
I use a pair of EV ZXA1s in my venue as vocal in-fills under my Rat Traps for the punters that like to belly up to the stage. Folks are just out of the horn pattern of the Traps at the stage lip or all together out of the pattern if they're directly under the hangs. Since there's plenty of a low-mid lobe there from the RT5s, I run the ZX boxes high passed at 250Hz, same as the crossover from the 15" to the 10" drivers in the Rat Traps. Works out very well and the ZXA1s get hella loud to cut through the stage wash. Those little boxes never cease to impress me for the size and price.
I use a pair of EV ZXA1s in my venue as vocal in-fills under my Rat Traps for the punters that like to belly up to the stage. Folks are just out of the horn pattern of the Traps at the stage lip or all together out of the pattern if they're directly under the hangs. Since there's plenty of a low-mid lobe there from the RT5s, I run the ZX boxes high passed at 250Hz, same as the crossover from the 15" to the 10" drivers in the Rat Traps. Works out very well and the ZXA1s get hella loud to cut through the stage wash. Those little boxes never cease to impress me for the size and price.
Re: S-Fill front fill cabinet
90x60. I wish it was wider, but it worked out to be easier to buy an off the shelf horn than to make something with a wider dispersion. I fired it up for the first time and the coverage is pretty reasonable and smooth.
90x60. I wish it was wider, but it worked out to be easier to buy an off the shelf horn than to make something with a wider dispersion. I fired it up for the first time and the coverage is pretty reasonable and smooth.
Re: S-Fill front fill cabinet
I did some preliminary tunings for the S-Fill yesterday. It sounds very good for a "small" box. I'd say it's definitely on par sound wise with the benchmark JF80, but I didn't have a lot of time to really optimize it, so there is room to grow. Right now it measures (and sounds) very flat, less than about 3db deviation from 200-12k, it just needs a little bit of voicing now to work well when put up against monitor wash and backline. They're headed out to a show this weekend so I'll have my laptop on hand to do the necessary tweaks to make it play well with the wedges.
In the interim, I worked on the new mid-size box for the whole S-Line system. This is the flyable outfill / high power frontfill / utility box. It's a 12+2" box utilizing the same drivers as many of the other boxes I have in inventory, which makes it easy to keep spare parts on hand. Here's some pictures after the final paint coat and with the grills installed.
I did some preliminary tunings for the S-Fill yesterday. It sounds very good for a "small" box. I'd say it's definitely on par sound wise with the benchmark JF80, but I didn't have a lot of time to really optimize it, so there is room to grow. Right now it measures (and sounds) very flat, less than about 3db deviation from 200-12k, it just needs a little bit of voicing now to work well when put up against monitor wash and backline. They're headed out to a show this weekend so I'll have my laptop on hand to do the necessary tweaks to make it play well with the wedges.
In the interim, I worked on the new mid-size box for the whole S-Line system. This is the flyable outfill / high power frontfill / utility box. It's a 12+2" box utilizing the same drivers as many of the other boxes I have in inventory, which makes it easy to keep spare parts on hand. Here's some pictures after the final paint coat and with the grills installed.
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