need advice on first build

Hello

2 friends and I saw couple of weeks back on a festival for the first time a 12V system (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mini-un-12V-Sound-System/318274691705361) in action. Impressed by the sound quality and strength, we've decided to look into building one ourselves. The only problem is that none of us has experience in building speakers. I've a good bit of knowledge of the electrical part but the sound engineering part is a bit more difficult for me. Hence these questions.

It would be for several genres but mainly dub and we'd be playing outside.
At first we would like to build a 3way system and depending on the costs with 1 or 2 amps with a DIY passive crossover. We should build for starters a 12" for bass, 8" for mid and horns for top. We thought that we should first buy high efficiency drivers and cheaper amps so that it is easier to upgrade (easier to buy a better amp and etc, instead of rebuilding the speakers). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My question now, what brand of drivers or which site do you recommend for buying the drivers? We're from Belgium.
Is there a lot of difference between a 12" or 15"?
Is 8" good for mid with looking forward for a 4way and reuse this driver?
How much wattage should the drivers be if we want to play it for at least 4 hours at 3/4 volume with an average 12V battery?

I'm sorry for these rather open questions but we want to inform us good so we can make up a cost estimate and see what parts we eventually have to limit.

Thanks

Greetings

Hello Swedgin. Lets start off with the easy answers:

1) where to get your drivers. On mainland europe Thomman are probably a good bet (as speakerstore seemed to have dissapeared - anyone? Have they closed down?)
2) 8 inch for mid should be good
3) wattage/ speakers to use: a more difficult one. If you are intending to hoof it out then expect your battery/s to run out quickly. If you use a bog standard car amp expect you battery/s to run out quickly. Have a browse through this forum for info on ta2020 or ta2024 for low power but battery efficient power. Alternatively look for a Sure or others for a bit more wattage.

Depending on what you want to do a low wattage amp will kick out a suprising amount on the right speakers. I have just bought 3 ta2020 ready made amps off ebay (20 quid ish each) to run my normal pa (horn loaded bass, horn mid and horn tweeters) 3 way active from battery. 120w only but with efficient speakers it will be suprisingly loud and enough for a party. It will also have more oomph than some crap mains rigs that i have seen but will run all night from 12v

As i said have a good browse of this forum. Also make sure you run a circuit breaker.

Without going into details, Thomann is a pretty cheap European site, especially if you look into shipping costs, after you have shipped it here. Two times 12-280/8a (the box) in what looks like 2 x THAM 12's and you're bass section is covered.

Johan

50? Build a Boominator and a Tham or Cubo15!

I hear yer...I was just saying as we've had upwards of 50 peeps partying to our Boominator Sub bike rig.

^thx

I did a bit of more research and talked with my friends and we came to this.

We found a small pand that we can play in. So we thought for starters.

1 cubo15 with fane sovereign 15-400, i think it's the best budget choice, closest T&S parameters with the recommended ones (<100ish euros)
(other 15" drivers i considered where fane sovereign 15-400lf and the box 15-300/8-A)

1 cubokick 12, dunno the driver yet. Or should we directly go for a 15"? if we decide to build another cubo15, then we don't need to upgrade this one

1 x10 or m102/101, bms 4538/4524 for comp, dunno yet the mid.

The cubo15 will provide up untill 110Hz, than the kick will pick up to 250Hz and than the mid top will take over.

will this be a good system that will be runnable from a 12v battery? how big of amps do you suggest for this? i'm looking atm at 100w for the bass an 40w for midtop
i also think the woodwork for this setup isn't that hard and will be doable for first timers

thanks


Edited by Swedgin - 17 September 2015 at 2:00am