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it's possible that the gear for my DJ system and my v2.0 trailer will combine. if so, i'll be building an all new trailer from scratch instead of the 1 x 10" subbed 4 x NHT superzero gear going into my 1st system.

here's a couple pics of the gear i have now not counting my receiver, 4 LED projectors or CD/mixer rig.

here are all of my drivers

the system comprises of
4 hifonics 12" poly woofers @ 88dB with rubber surrounds that will go into sealed cabinets between 1.25 & 2 cubic feet for subs
4 dayton (MB quart) 1" titanium dome tweeters
8 goldwood 6 1/2" poly woofers with rubber surrounds
4 dayton passive 3,500Hz crossovers

here's a mockup of what the mains will look like

they will be covered with black carpet & possibly have rounded edges on the sides of the front baffle for diffraction minimizing & looks and will be rated at about 93dB efficiency. i THOUGHT the goldwoods were going to be metallic silver, but instead they're translucent pearl white. i'm still debating whether or not to illuminate them from inside with LEDs.

the IDEAL plan is to have large 2 cubic foot boxes built for the subs with a "slide in rail" system to firmly mount 6 foot tall speaker stands for the mains with another slide in rail system for the mains themselves too so they don't tip over and to discourage people from sitting on the subs. the stands for the mains will have a wooden I beam frame with color changing LEDs behind a plexiglass window in front with the bulk of the hollow section in back holding speaker & power cables with hooks to wrap them up for easy assembly & break down. i really would like to do custom sub cabinets so i can use the matching chrome horizontal 4 bar grilles i've always wanted to from the beginning (they're too wide for the cheap off the shelf boxes i'm considering) and because 2.2 cubic feet is optimal for "flat" frequency response down to 41Hz as acoustic suspension subs. the subs can hit 33Hz in an optimal ported box.

the power for the mains will be 4 X 100w from my class D panasonic receiver and the subs will wind up as a mono 8 ohm load for a 500w class D "bash" subwoofer amp. i'll build a case for with internal wiring to turn the left & right subwoofer pairs in parallel at 4 ohms into a single 8 ohm series load on the amp. inside their boxes, the subs' 2 4 ohm coils will also be series wired to turn the subs into 8 ohm loads individually. then, i can use them individually with home gear too if the need ever arises.

the plan will be to space the 4 speakers in the corners of rooms or in up to a 20 foot by 20 square dance floor outdoors or in larger spaces for better coverage and left to right separation. of course the two pairs of subs and mains could also be placed on either side of the DJ booth pointing out rock concert style as well. with the 20x20 arrangement though, each speaker only has to project into a 10 foot square which should allow for a decent if not 120dB volume levels. i was amazed at just how loud my tiny 86dB 5 1/4" mission m71s could get driven by my panasonic. they actually sounded like little subwoofers. speakers rated 7dB more efficient with more than twice the cone surface area, higher power handling AND twice the number of speakers & "amps" too should be more than enough for sane volumes at a typical party.

reviews for the 300w rated subs that i've read have stated that one of them can shake a car mirror loose. with 4 of them and 500w of amplification, i expect a very reasonable bass level for parties & raising the mains should help them project better than typical ground level DJ rigs that sound like mush towards the back of a big crowd blocking the tweeters.

my DJ motto will be "the easy on your ears DJ" for not having that typical club style sound as well as refusing to play any kind of angry sounding gangsta rap or heavy metal type music. one local club's system was so muddy sounding, i couldn't even recognize for sure that it was playing "jam on it", one of my favorite songs, during the intro. on the right tunes it DID offer hearty gut massages though.

i've FINALLY been hearing what the bass on all of my CDs sounds like again playing a pair of the subs open air mounted at low volumes at home. i'm trying to break the subs in a little as they really need it from what i've read. sadly i can't give them the full excursion workouts i'd like to really loosen them up.

the first upgrade i'll make to the system will be to add a behringer DEQ2496 digital equalizer so i can tune my rig to within 1/2dB of flat at any location. of course the EQ will change some from setup to when there's a crowd unless i can get everyone to hold still for a sound check, , but i don't expect the changes to be as dramatic as standing waves are in a room. outdoors i bet the change would be hard to hear and i'd only have to calibrate my system once.

i think i've decided what speaker boxes i'm going with. the 1.5 cubic foot sealed boxes at the same place i bought my subs, sonicelectronix, just started offering free shipping on boxes! that almost cuts the price in half. i was looking at slightly more expensive cabinets at parts express, but would have to have settled for a tiny grey wedge or a tiny black slot loaded one too narrow to mount the grilles i want to use. they're 14"H x 16"W x 17"D and can handle 13 3/4" grilles easily. i won't have to plug the slots up like i intended with the parts express cabinets and these boxes have more internal volume. the only thing i'm not keen on is the terminal cups being on the side instead of in back where they belong, but it wouldn't be hard to patch the old cups and cut new ones. i wouldn't even have to re-carpet the sides as i could just as easily put custom graphics in the spaces. the only thing that kept me from ordering them to begin with was they cost almost as much to ship as to buy. here's to hoping shipping stays free until i order.

having my mains custom built will actually cost more than my sub boxes. oh well.

here's what the 1st color changing LED string looks like behind one of the lids for the hobo speakers i was planning and behind one of the goldwood drivers. the photos don't really do the colors justice. they look more intense in person with more variety eg. you can't really see the purple's & yellows or even the greens well. each string is made up of 30 RGB bulbs that all start out in sync with their patterns but have already drifted into a random look in just one minute. the reds seem to be the most saturated especially the further away from the surface they're projecting on is.

here's what the LEDs look like about 1 inch behind plastic

i like the loose cloud like PATTERNS the lights project further away, but the bulbs seperate into RGB as each color projects at a slightly different angle and brightness & saturation suffer too. i HAVE gotten more colors with far spacing when various bulbs' lights overlap and optically color mix. these pics were taken soon after i turned the string on too, so the patterns hadn't randomized enough yet.

here's what they look like about 1/4 inch back. the colors are a little clearer and saturated like that. i'm thinking this is the look i'll use for the stands even if it will require more lights to fill the space

you can better see the magenta/purples and the orange of the very bottom right bulb. i'll experiment more with spacing & depth as well as diffusion materials to see what works best.

here's what a quick mockup of the lights simply taped to the edges of the goldwood's baskets sideways looks like.

i'd take more time to point the LEDs in at the cone & diffuse the light with glue too if i did light the cones. i'm thinking i probably will as it won't be difficult or expensive to do and is a nice little detail. i wanted to mount the LEDs inside those square grid light diffusers that used to be seen in office flourescent light fixtures, but now the only screens i can find are only 1/2" thick if that with tiny squares unlike the larger roughly 1" square old school ones.

i remembered where i saved the original mockup i did for my DJ system and it turns out that i WILL be going with almost the same exact thing, only i was looking at grey carpeted enclosures at the time i pieced these 3 elements together.



the grilles are actually larger than they look in the mockup. i just did a face on mockup of the subs today now that i know the divers are 12 1/8" in diameter & the grilles are 13 3/4" wide. there will be a gap between the subs and the grill almost the width of the grille's back plate in this mockup. the grille's look better proportioned to scale & fill the empty space on the sides of the front baffle better.

here's what the subs will REALLY look like from the front

i don't have the grilles yet.

i like the minimal look of the grille bars and that the design is less resonant than cheaper stamped steel waffle grilles. more than that though, i think they add a little extra class to the subs by matching the chrome trim rings. the gear is as cheap as it gets, but looks substantial. i'm hoping not to hear a "flopping plastic" sound like i did watching a demo video with extreme excursions.

when i first used the pair i'm breaking it, it had a really plastic sound but after a few hours of full range use, they've relaxed some and now just sound rolled off in the treble. it's not so much a muffled sound as it is a forward midrange. i really liked the buzz they created for a nice sax solo listening in another room. i didn't hear the speed or snap of planars, but there's something to be said about moving more air even if it's slower than a 4 1/2" woofer, the 12" woofers give a "body" to sounds you can't get from minimonitors. i don't hear the top octave details, but i feel the sound more. i bet something in favor of this setup (got to take a pic) is that there's no crossover of any kind. it's like dabbling in lofi full range. surprisingly, the subs don't image too bad for such large speakers. i can get a pretty solid center image out of them at conversational levels.

i bet these subs really bump when they get some back wave cancellation and air spring. i'll be lining the boxes with egg crate foam mattress liners to lessen standing waves. that's cheaper than using acoustic foam. i ended up paying more in service charges & shipping than i did the 4x3" & 1x4" acoustic wedges themselves in my 1st 12" sub. i also lined most of the sub's 5/8" MDF with another layer glued inside in tiles for that army tank build. it was a heavy sub and didn't quite put out earthquake SPL, but it put out some really nice clean bass with a very small internal volume with the tiles installed. with it tuned by ear, i had a fairly decent full range system with that sub. it was a paper cone with rubber surround and was branded by dayton i think.

my 10" goldwood wedge box combo with egg crate foam that i'll use in my trailer system doesn't have the authority of the 12", but maybe it has more speed. i've only used it a few hours and that was over a year ago. it will put some bass out for sure though. it's hard to test subs indoors with neighbors sharing walls & floors. i also don't have the bass eager high current "25wpc" NAD receiver i used to though. even if i like the treble speed and detail (with a little bit of grain) of my 50wpc onkyo HT receiver, the 2 channel NAD totally owned it in he bass department. shaking walls a little with an amp that's rated at just 25wpc isn't shabby, especially pushing a lightweight magnet/ driver combo. i wonder how much more oomph the sub would have had with a true 100w.

i think i'm going to take my subs for a ride with my trailer gear, one at a time, to give them each some real excursion break in. it's too bad that i can't just drop them in the space for my 10" sub in the frame rails of my trailer rig. i'm pretty sure the 12" hifonics can spank my 10" goldwood with their "competition" surrounds and more than double power rating. i think the goldwood is so lacking in bass is that they're lighter high efficiency designs vs the heavy brute force magnets of the hifonics. i found out in my subs' literature that they're a sister company to crunch & MB quart. it's kind of fitting as my tweeters are dayton rebranded MB quarts.

the titanum MB quart tweeters used to be a mainstay of competition car systems. they have a high FS though and have heard they do have a metallic sound. i went with them to match the higher efficiency of two 4 ohm goldwoods. there aren't a lot of 90dB+ tweeters out there at 8 ohms. another reason i went with the daytons was that they were less than half the price of the peerless "27" aluminum domes considered as top values.

the ball is rolling now regarding moving to a new apartment that will let me get my trailer system rolling, but before that, i might build a "little red wagon" system for my DJ subs so i can break them in. i could make that work where i am right now even if i have to lug subs & my battery etc. down a couple flights of stairs. i really want my subs to be broken in before i do a DJ gig. it's even possible that i'll turn the wagon into a rolling DJ system & use my CD/mixer for live DJing. i might end up getting another battery to power the rig separately from my speakers.

i originally bought the wagon on sale last summer with the plan of using it to haul my DJ gear across lawns etc. anyways. i could do something similar to what i planned for my bike trailer with high posts in the 4 corners to raise speakers and mount my lights on. my first priority now though is saving up for a new security deposit & then going on a spending spree when i get this one back.

by june, i should have SOME kind of mobile system & probably a wagon system first. i'll tear it down to mount the amps in the trailer rig after i break my subs in. i'm also eventually going to hotrod the wagon to be wider, longer & lower for hauling more gear & better with less likelyhood of tipping over.

my trailer's FIRST real duty will be hauling everything i can to my new apartment. i'll be building a lowered wooden box inside the metal frame.

here's a rough mockup of what i want my speakers to look like. the speaker stands will be 4 feet tall.



the towers look really top heavy once i see them to scale. the subs look tinier in relation to the speaker stands than i imagined. i think i'll end up resting the subs on wider pedistals for stability which will be really important on soft lawns which might not be level.

i'm not lowering the mains. they WILL at the very least have their tweeters above an average person's ears. looking at the LEDs patterns too, looks a little busy. i think i'll go with the more diffused patterns even if saturation suffers.

i got my 4 speaker boxes today and they're nice. unlike my cheesy goldwood 10" wedge and the oak veneered 12" home sub box i used to own, they are 3/4" MDF all around. the other two boxes were 3/4" for the front baffle only. there's a possibility that i might line them all with another 1/2" of MDF, but that would make them really heavy & they are going to be used as portables.

i'm rethinking my trailer system too. i think i'll start from scratch and build a lighter frame without using the old steel frame except for the hitch arm. that would give me freedom to build a lighter trailer that's lower to the ground to boot and space to use my better 12" subs as well as break them in. i could also use a lighter wooden frame for the fabric with yardstick type wood and a modular plan so i can break everything down to get it out the door and down & back up stars. working around the old frame made for a clunkier design, but i think i'll still use it after i move as it will be able to support the light tower i want to build.

if i don't build a trailer from scratch, i can fit both of my amps, my battery and one sub pointing up inside my 14" wide trailer. i'd have to build posts to mount speakers on and to make the amps stand upright, but if i'm going to be building anyways, it makes more sense to build an easier to haul trailer.

i might be rolling VERY SOON with a new variation on my old design that will be lighter and lower with more of a slab shape. i'm sure a 300w high excursion 12" will thump harder than a 120w standard 10". i'll probably aim the sub foreward instead of down to lower height to a minimum.

back to the drawing board... LITERALLY.

oh! i got it! i got it! this will be your sort of visual style sam.