Anyone ever built their own soundsystem?
No idea why, but I have the urge to build a decent speaker system - anyone ever done this?
I’ve been looking at http://billfitzmaurice.net/welcome.html for inspiration. Anyone made any of their designs before?
Any other suggestions for where to look for decent plans?
I don’t think I would look much further than bill fitz- apparently they sound pretty good for the money.
There is a whole thread on this somewhere. Someone was making their own last year sometime if I remember right.
I’m not sure what you qualify as " sound system", but I fairly recently built a 4000W “system” (2 speakers) mostly for my own personal use or the occasional high end house party or outside party etc. Basic speaker cabinet construction though, I dont need them to throw sound far distances or anything. Are you trying to design something for a bar or club or something?
Personally, I’ve heard nothing but bad things about BFM cabinets.
I built my own system using BFM designs. I started by building a Titan 48 for a friend. Then I built my own system. I have ten DR200’s and ten Titan 39@14". I also built all the road cases out of the scraps. I am an experienced woodworker, and I already had all the tools necessary for the build.
The full system was sized to handle 2000 people in a 20k+ sqft ballroom. I do two or three events each year at that scale. I have enough amps, electronics, and consoles to allow the system to be divided into three independent systems…4+4 (8k sqft, 750 people), 4+4 (8k sqft, 750 people), and 2+2 (3k sqft, 300 people). Overall, I spent well under $10k on everything (cabinets, electronics, amps, cables, racks, cases, dollies, etc)…and I paid off just over half that by selling off my previous gear. It is unlikely that any commercial system could compete with that level of performance, flexibility, and price point.
The system will run “flat to 40Hz” with moderate EQ. Overall, I am very pleased with my decision to build. However, the real benefit to the BFM designs is the forum. There is more good information about sound & sound systems than any other place I have found. If you can hang onto that fire hose for a few years, there is an enormous amount that can be learned.
Have you personally heard any BFM cabinets?
Well the intention is to have something flexible enough for house parties with a couple of hundred people, to street parties with double that or more. The Engineer in me wants to make something myself (or at least help out) whereas the Scottish blood makes me want a bargain, in terms of audio bang for your buck (hence the BFM designs).
I’m also influenced by the big Jamaican Dub Systems we get being played out around me (I live in St Pauls in Bristol - apparently the highest density of Jamaicans in the world outside the island, all through the summer you get impromptu soundclashes down the park on a summer day … and when Carnival rolls through town 
slight_smile:
I’m a dab hand with electronics, and one of the lads I play with regularly is a cabinet maker/carpenter so between us we’ve got the skills to make them I reckon
I’m always the guy at parties doing the setup and I would just love being able to bring some seriously ace sound to the next gig I play …
l bought the bfm cd. Very detailed plans indeed. I plan on building two dr250’s and two tuba30’s for my mobile rig. If your lucky, you may find someone on the bfm forum in your area that will let you have a listen to theirs.
I don’t know if you have seen this yet, but here is a thread of some finished bfm cabs- http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17753
Yes and I’ve also heard a good amount of the boxes that he claims his product are capable of besting, there is a sucker born every minute.
Ooooh, they’re puuuuuuurdy/
Nice double entendre… 
Unlike some, I don’t claim any “magic sauce” for BFD or for commercial offerings. All sound obeys the laws of physics, and all human ears are subject to bias.
If you have less than about $2500 for a “full PA system”..it would be difficult to build any system…but there is very little in the way of commercial offerings that are worthy of a recommendation in that same price point. At any price point, DIY is not viable if you are dealing with “riders”…but if you are dealing with “riders” chances are you are running a rig full time and can afford to invest in commercial gear. Also, the used value of DIY is sketchy at best. With sites like eBay, the used value of commercial gear is more stable.
After 5 years of being “really” serious about learning about sound, I find that things like cabinet placement, proper gain structure, and having enough “rig for the gig” all play larger roles in the final sound scape than the specifics of the cabinets involved…for any reasonable cabinet.
At the moment, I’m after building something useable, that I can build on in future. Start with a couple of tops and a sub an go from there.
Not intending to deal with gigs that involve riders, more something to roll out at a house/street party or reasonably sized bar gig with friends that can pack a well balanced punch.
Compact is good
VFM is good
Flexible is good
I mostly play hip-hop, funk, soul, reggae, nufunk, ghetto funk, and I’m not quite sure where to begin
Thats cool man. That was kinda my reasons/goals when I built mine. Mine is just a straight up 2 speaker 3-way system ( 2 - 15" subs / 2 6.5" mids/ 2 3" titanium tweeters in each speaker). If I had to do it over again I woulda spent a little more on the mids, but I’m still very happy w/ the outcome and really cant complain at all. If your not looking to throw sound a crazy distance I would suggest just building a regular enclosed speaker design. I was able to find a pretty cool somewhat inexpensive sub that really sounds good and hits very very low and that didnt require a huge sealed box so I could consildate everything into one speaker per L/R channel without the size of the cabinet being overwhelming and thus keeping things fairly simple. You can obviously seperate the subs from the tops and make things lighter to carry and also do a ported cab to keep the box size down on your sub cabinet. As it is, I’m very confident my speakers could easily fill pretty much any bar w/ a ton of sound and probably even handle a small club, but I havent tried them out on a huge space as of yet. Let me know if you need any help or if you need some reference material and what not.
I’m not going to deny that BFM cabs have output, nobody in they’re right mind is going to try to deny that. My issue is with the quality of that output, performance under stress, transportation and - yes, this is important to me - rider acceptability.
I don’t think that BFM cabs sound good, they don’t sound terrible, but they sure don’t sound too good after listening to a deployment of 4889s, or even 725s for that matter. Piezo’s sound terrible to me, and low end eminence horn drivers aren’t that much better imo.
I constantly hear stories of guys blowing drivers in BFM subs, this is unacceptable to me at any level. The worst part is when they turn to the forum for help, they get chastised and told that they’re construction is not up to par. All of this is unacceptable, when I set up a rig with 728s, I do so knowing that no matter what I throw at it, it’s going to eat it up and ask for more. I’ had bridged MA2400s running full out into 728s when I provided audio for Karl Wolfe, the subs just wanted more, I don’t know if I would feel that confident with a Titan cab.
A 728 is imo, one of the most easily transportable subwoofers in the industry. I can put a 725 on top of a 728 by myself.
If someone wants to use BFM cabs for their own personal use, or any other cab for that matter, I say power to you. I’ve got a pair of Behringer 1031 monitors on either side of me at this very moment, I would never recommend them for professional applications, but they beat the hell out the speakers built into my iMac.
BFM to me parallels that, I’m sure it far exceeds the offerings of Yorkville’s Elite line, or Peavey’s… any line. But it’s a little insulting to my intelligence and my own personal experience when I read some of the crap Bill says on his site.
FFS, I might just have to build a Titan of my own now.
Edit: If you are looking for the “dub sound”, why don’t you build (or even buy) some old scoops. Easy to build, sound like balls for everything else, but they are the “dub sound”.
6.5" speakers are not mids, they are useless in a pro setting imo. A proper mid range driver is typically 10-12", coupled with a nice woofer, a quality HF and proper amps and processing. Personally I’d rather see a beefy 15" mid range with a nice 2" HF, a good two way box usually blows away it’s equivalent 3 way box.
They are Mid-hi’s, but wasnt really asking for your opinion anyways. Thanks for your input.
Sorry for reading mids and assuming that you actually meant mids… My bad…
Guess I shoulda known to make sure to specify everything including what they are crossed at, cause there is bound to be a know it all to second guess everything even though it’s not really relevant . Like I even said before, woulda done things a little differently w/ my mids anyways if I decide to do it over. Thanks for your input, but def wasnt asking for it