Blusey... other musical/hifi types!

A shout goes out to you peoples!

I've thought that it might be cheaper to make my own monitors for on-stage use.. than shell out for powered monitors which seem to cost a fortune (but, I do agree they would be a lot more useful as you can run as many as you like from the same line-level signal, just daisy chain them around).

But yeah... I lost my train of thought... no, wait, speakers! There we go! Yes... I found a web page which had a few basic methods for making a speaker cabinet. It was all a bit informal and not entirley useful, but it looks like there are some decent tips in there ...

http://www.dancetech.com/aa_dt_new/pa/construction.CFM

What I've done is go to maplins and have a look at some of their drivers which they sell. They seem to be alright, as far as I can tell... I have seen them in action and frankly it was dissapointing.

Basically what I'm asking is what would I want to look for in a monitor cabinet, and its driver... and how can I get this without breaking the bank! I'm planning to make a wedge shaped box to put them in, so they sit at about a 50 degree angle to the floor... I'm thinking about putting a port in it but not sure whether I'd need it.

Of course my step dad (who's a sound engineer) thinks I'm completley mad trying to make my own speakers... and that I should go out and buy some decent monitors off the shef (so to speak). Yes, he's proabably right, they're never gunna be as good as a production line speaker but I dont have the money to spend on a monitor which probably doesnt cost that much to make.

These would be used primarily for live use as monitors... so the performers can hear what they're singing!!

Thanks for any help anyone can give me

 

That article gives a VERY brief tutorial on cabinet building, but no information at all on drivers, or on driver/cabinet interaction, or how to match drivers and crossovers to get a well balanced system. Useless.

A stage monitor doesn't need to be full range, deep bass isn't needed, but should be reasonably accurate (or at least one musician/singer will gripe that they're lost in the mix), and fairly tightly focused. You want as much of the sound as possible to be focused directly at the musicians. Horn tweeters are a must, and each driver and the crossover must match in performance and output pretty closely, and the cabinet volume, and port or lack of same, will be determined by the low frequency driver. They interact... a lot...

Good pro level drivers and crossovers aren't cheap, and you'll likely spend about as much DIYing as you'd pay for decent pre-built ones. Cheap consumer drivers will die an ugly death on stage, and won't give you what you want. And dying during a performance won't make either the band or the audience happy. Your dad's right.

 

Well I was of course going to get pro drivers (which they sell at maplins, under sound/vision, loudspeakers and sounders, pa/power drivers, i would give a link but their website makes it impossible they are generic, but maplins generic gear isn't too bad).

I was thinking about horn loaded tweeters... now I'll definatley take that into account. I'm basically going to make a design spec for one of these things, get some prices for the build and see how it equals to a pre-built passive monitor system. Obviously if its not significantly less then I'll get get a pre-built system.

It's all rather hard, the fact that I'm one of the only people around here in my age group that knows how to operate all this gear, yet I don't actually own any myself! It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in my skills in other people.

Oh yes, and slightly off topic, i found this book in my study

 

Hmm, just worked out, using generic maplins components, with a pro driver "suited to sound reenforcement" and a KSN1141 horn tweeter, I'm looking at about £162 for the pair (including ply, mastic and internal and external covering, and terminals), and then add onto that the poweramp nearly £300 (including the cables)

Now I've got to look for some pre-built monitors and see how that compares. I've got a feeling it wont be much more...

 

You won't save any money DIY for monitors. It will take time and testing to get them tuned right. Unless you have the tools, time , and money to experiment save yourself the hassle. You know as well as I do, stage monitors need to be spot on or they are worthless.

But , you could try building the boxes out of 13 layer birch ply roughly the same dimensions as the name brand ones you are looking at. Cover them in roll on truck bedliner and see how it goes. They would be bulletproof but I couldn't tell you how they would sound. I can tell you this, if you front mount the speakers they should fill the room better, if you rear mount the speakers they will be more directional.

Not that this helped ya any, but there ya go

 

Hmm... I checked it out... for a simelar pre-built system... its about £40 more.. but then its made of ABS and you could probably throw it off the stage and it would still work, lol!

One of my "colleagues" who is more or a knowlageable guitarist than a soundie made his own monitors from ply boxes with stuff from maplins... and to be quite honest, they suck. None of the power with none of the sound. You'd be hard pressed to hear them over a croud of people just sitting there. But then, they dont have tweeters (at ALL...) and theyre being underpowered.

Crossovers seem supprisinly expensive for what they are (rather simple electronics) but then, they are very important parts of the speaker.

I spect I have access to the right tools, but its the money that I'm lacking in. I am quite interested in speakers so I might give it a go one day if ive got some spare cash just floating about, but for the time being I'll be saving up for a pre-built rig.

 

GOD! That's an oldie. Everest did a lot of audio related books for Tab. All good, sound (no pun intended) stuff, too.

 

GT you never fail to supprise me! hubby is a sound engineer and i was gonna ask him when he came in but i think you got it covered.

 

Didn't mean to surprise you. I'll be more quiet next time.

I've been an audiophile since around '72, and played sound engineer for a couple of churches over the years. I've been a voracious reader since 3rd grade, and generally soak up just about anything in print for anything I get interrested in. It accumulates over the years.

 

sooo....hubby sez its all about the numbers. you need aprox 1/3 the power fold back that you have on the p.a.. eg: if you have 1000wt system, then you need 300 wts fold back. its not the volume its the power that counts. reflex speakers work better in a fold back situ, but u loose 'top end' so incorperate a good tweeter and crossover network. ps. mdf is way better to work with than any kind of ply (and cheeper). hope all that made sense to someone! aloha from us both

 

Yep, that made sense to me

Reflex speakers don't so good for top end, especially at high levels, so yeah that makes sense. a hornloaded tweeter should fix that, along with a decent crossover. Right now I dont have a main PA or a foldback system.. so I'll be that in mind. Most people use 1kW systems for small gigs around here anyway, and a 400W poweramp is fairly cheap (I say fairly cheap... still more than I can afford at the moment).

Now I've got the opinion of several knowlegable people from around the world I love the internet

BTW my step dad works for Autograph in London, he's going to japan fairly soon to do some weird version of Les Miserables with J-Pop stars... weirdness!