Some pictures of my cab, its nearly finished, just the covering etc. to do

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Yeah they are front loaded, i actually attempted to take it apart one time. BUt it was definately more effort than it was worth. For the amount i spent on it... and it being an "off brand" from ebay, its a damn good cabinet, i just wish it was bigger cause my head dwarfs the cabinet.

Definately doesn't feel that steady of a combination as it hangs off a bit and is supported by the wall haha.

The bass response of this cabinet is rediculous, it can handle any lows no matter what i attempt to throw at it (regardless if i want that much lows) not to mention is punchy. Its loaded with Madison archer speakers. My experience with madison has been pretty pleasant.

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its pretty nice are you gonna have rack gear pre-amp, etc etc or a head unit going into it?

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DUDE!! ANAL!!!

When it comes to my gear and tone...

Yes, indeed. I am a little anal. I know what I like and I like nice sealed up cabs with good wiring and some added foam now.


BTW, hows the cab, Killa?

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The cab is in transition between here (el paso) and florida. The board is still in the progress of being rewired.....so when I get home I will try it out and play my Ran through it.

Speaking of which, I just got it back from the shop...and it fucking KILLS now....holy shit its badass.

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What? Your Ran? What did you have done to it?

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The neck went through some serious shock coming from poland to el paso...so basically it got warped.

I had a tech take care of it though, and now it is playing fucking sick. I'll make a vid of it through the recto as soon as I can, so you can see what I mean.

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Awesome!

Damn dude, I hate hearing about any guitar neck warping, so lets not even talk about Ran guitar necks warping, because I know the fast thin necks they got. As far as I can tell, and I inspect it about 3-40 times a week, mine hasn't changed from the last itme I adjusted the truss rod and leveled the action about a year ago. I expected to have to do so at least once or twice since it was a newly constructed guitar, as is normal, but if ever a neck is going to start to warp it will start to happen within the first years of a newly constructed guitar. It doesn't matter who or how its built. New built guitars can warp no matter how much care is taken during sonstruction. It is just the nature of wood to warp somtimes. So far mine has stayed good. I had to tighten my truss about 3/16 a turn to flatten the relief but both E strings are still the same distance off the frets when I check relief. My Ran is 2 years old now but in another year I will not worry about new construction warping. All I will ever have to do is keep it cleaned, dry, oiled, and calibrated.

Btw, what was done to yours to fix the warping? Heat stress treatment on the neck?

Eitherway, get the cab, Mesa, and Ran on soon dude. I want to know how it sounds to you. My cab can now handle more bass ( it flattened the natural peak bass freq responces but widened the overall bass freq ranges ) then before and is far more clear sounding. I'm still exploring just how far I can push the tone of the cab with different EQ settings. So far I'm very happy, but I might just add some more foam just to compare everything.

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I believe he removed the fretboard and "heat treated" although I'm not totally sure. However, it plays amazing now. He assured me that when I get it to Florida, and should do better anyway compared to the dryness of dead-ass El Paso.

It sound great, full 6-7 string chords, every string resonates clearly and low chords really have some serious crunch to em.

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Now that I am back in jacksonville florida, I finally tried my cab AND my Ran with the recto. I am proud to say it is a resounding success. I've taken it lightly so far, but I can already tell that some of sag and lag of the recto has been lifted, and the gain seems punchier as well. All in all, I think it was worth it, and I will do this to every cab I own, as well as my bandmates.

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Lol, I know I'll be doing it to every cab I ever own too. I'm not sure I could live with a factory cab knowing what I know now.

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Soulinsane. How does adding the foam to the inside of the cabinet affect the airspace the speaker needs to work efficiently? From what I remember about designing cabinets is that the speaker needs a certain amount of airspace on the backside of the speaker to work correctly in a closed cabinet configuration? Would not adding the foam minimize this resulting in a less efficient working speaker? I'm not saying anything about how it tunes the cabinet as I am sure it does. Would this shorten the speaker's life, by making it work harder?

Also how does using silicon caulk help when the corners of the cabinet are glued together and even if in the small chance there is a gap in the wood, the gap is caught by the glued on vinyl?

The foam I used was very porous and if compressed into a solid block of foam would be only be a few cubic inchs. Its reduction on cab airspace and volume is effectively null but it all depends on how dence the foam is. Its volume is relative to how porous the foam is. Since most foam is so porous air creates most of its volume, so the cabs airspace is still about the same. The speakers still have far more than ample airspace to work safely and effectively for their natural lives even in the smallest cab nearly completely filled with foam. Like you said, it's a tuning tool. As long as the speaker has room to move they will be fine for a very long time.

What is important about foam is air that is vibrated by the speaker becomes dampened once contacted. The foam absorbs the energy and vibrations from that air in contact with it and doesnt bounce it back like solid ( wood ) surface would. These bounced back vibrations inside a cab are like an echo and will influence other vibrations and speaker vibration ( most times in a unwanted way ). You don't want foam in contact with the speakers ( so don't add foam to the speaker baffle ). Parallel solid surfaces benefit the most from having foam attached. A cab doesn't have to be packed with foam to achieve the desired effect.

As for the caulking, I wanted to insure that the cab was air tight. I also built an isolation box around the input jacks on the inside of the cab to completely seal the cab air tight.

What can I say. I love what foam and better wire did for my cab.

I got some links that I learned some of this from but there is far to many to post them all. You can find a lot more information online about speaker cab design, insulation, and tuning with a few searches.

http://www.dancetech.com/aa_dt_new/pa/construction.cfm
http://www.yellowcabamplification.com/design.htm
http://www.duncanamps.com/technical/speaker_cab.html
http://colomar.com/Shavano/pa_speaker_project.html

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Interesting. Thanks for the info. I am planning on trying at least to cover the back panel to my Marshall cabinet today. Just to see what effect it has on my overall tone. I do remember that my first Marshall cabinet I bought from another local band was completely packed with old blue jeans. Tonally it wasn't very good, until I pulled the jeans out.
Also thanks for the links. I plan on doing some reading today.

Lol, I'm betting foam works much better then blue jeans. Good luck on your modification. Remember to allow the adhesive enough time to dry completely.

Lets us know how it works out for you.

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well, i may have accused you for being a little picky, but whenever i ge around to putting my new speakers in (had em since christmas!!!) ill be upgrading the wire, calking the seals and applying a little foam. the reason i havent put em in is i couldnt decide how i wanted to wire em, then i found a way to do it a bunch of ways but i dont know enough about anything so its just good ole 8 ohms with daisy chain ability for me.

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Can't go wrong with an 8 ohm stereo configuration. Best of luck on your upgrade. Better speaker wire really makes a huge difference in bass response, even more than insulating the cabinet with foam.

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Soulinsane, whats the best way to take advantage of a stereo cab? The Crate BV cab I have (soon to be replaced) has 3 selectable configurations: 4 & 16 omhs mono and 8 ohms stereo. Ive always just used the 16ohms mono with my hotplate so am I missing anything?