The weather finally broke enough to work in my shop (100% outdoors) so I put togeher my first buld of the year. It's a Karlson cab with a pair of full ranges inside (125 W 4 ohm Alpine 6x9 coax 3 ways), and a pair of 4" K-tubes on top (Sony 5" 50 W 8 ohm poly cone neo-mag 40-4.5k Hz). Since the Alpines handle the same range as the Sonys ands more, no need for Xover. I wired it for 6 ohms, to go with either 4 or 8 ohm outputs. It's for space filling with a PA, but I couldn't wait, so I tested it alone. I used a Kustom K200 head (100 WRMS). Two channels were the left and right line out from a laptop, playing a few hard driving FLAC files (Suzi Quatro -- Your Mama Won't Like Me; Billy Thorpe -- Children of the Sun; Santana -- De Ya Lo). The other two channels each carried one of the quad rail humbuckers on my Tele. Output was set to 60 W by the simple paralleled VOM method, sending a 1 kHz sine tone and adjusting AC volts according to P = V^2 / R. I decided not to try full output because when all channels were turned up to only 4, it was already making neighbors poke their heads out to look. Yes, the front vent is foreshortened. It's only 2/3 normal. But inside is a scoop with the same curvature, to push out what comes from inside.
The tubes are from several previous projects and they do their job just fine. The cab sounded slightly boxy with the FLAC files, and I could feel it throbbing so much that I just know there were some resonance problems. Anti-resonance cab wall mods under way. The guitar alone didn't have such problems, probably due to not much going on beyond 6 kHz. It might with full f/x added, but if it did the mods should take care of it. But then as I said it's not meant for stand-alone use, and what I got in volume, depth and dispersion out of 60 W and the Karlson vents did me just fine. I've got a Fender Frontman 65R chassis needing work, so if the cabinet mods work out, I just may turn this thing in a combo unit so use requires only a line out feed from mixer or PA monitor jack.
The tubes are from several previous projects and they do their job just fine. The cab sounded slightly boxy with the FLAC files, and I could feel it throbbing so much that I just know there were some resonance problems. Anti-resonance cab wall mods under way. The guitar alone didn't have such problems, probably due to not much going on beyond 6 kHz. It might with full f/x added, but if it did the mods should take care of it. But then as I said it's not meant for stand-alone use, and what I got in volume, depth and dispersion out of 60 W and the Karlson vents did me just fine. I've got a Fender Frontman 65R chassis needing work, so if the cabinet mods work out, I just may turn this thing in a combo unit so use requires only a line out feed from mixer or PA monitor jack.