Let's talk sound systems

[mshadetek]

I'm doing a bit of research into this area at the moment and am shocked by how little useful info I can find on the net (links to good resources very welcome).

Any sound-men (in the true, sound system owning and building sense) out there?

What would be your ideal setup for playing dubstep amps and boxes wise? And I'm looking for realistic setups, not imaginary stuff.

The Valve system is a three truck affair and is way bigger, but size is not really what I'm interested in, so I posted Coxsone's setup which seems to opt for sound rather than power, it's below.

Anyone know about the technical side of the Plastic People system? Wattage, number of subs, etc?

Building your own boxes aside what do people know about the commercially available subs on the market?

SIR COXSONE HI-Fl –TECHNICAL INFO
AMPLIFIERS: five pieces of 600 watts
(valve) – weight; four pieces of 600
watts (transistor) – treble. Use
depends on size of venue: Brixton
Town Hall determines three pieces of
valve and one piece of transistor.

Pre amp with built in equaliser to
cover weight, treble, midrange.

HH Echo Unit.

Special percussion box.

SPEAKERS: on average play 19-20 bass speakers ("other sounds play around 50 and still don’t sound good," says Lloyd Coxsone.)

Many different horns in treble
section and small speakers.

Several thousand yards of cable.

Seven ton truck and transit van.

[shonky]

Should be some help here

http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t ... light=rigs

[electric eliminator]

yo matt, from my limited knowledge if you really want to invest time, money and effort in to having your own sound, then building your own is the only way. i'll get some techy info from the mugos lads, from what i know about them is they found a couple of subs in a skip, took them and copied the construction. the cost of building a sweet sounding sub yrself? they recon all the materials comes to about £70!! obviosly building the amps and crosovers yourself would be impossible, so this is where the money you save by building your self should get spent.
also i think that premade market cabinets are never gonna use as heavy construction as you will be able to so this is another reason for doing this bit ar home(you want something that will be able to withstand the air displacement that the actual speaker itself is pushing out)
Be prepared for some heavy lifting!!

[mr. messer]

not another sound system

[unlikely]

check out void acoustics, seem to make some of the best drivers out there according to the sound boy i know, theres another company that makes cabinets for them called "looney bins" which are what we use at dubpressure

[mshadetek]

thanks guys. Building boxes seems like the more interesting and fun way to do it anyway. Certainly learn a bit more doing that.

[ramadanman]

at this house party on saturday, one of the guys had built a small soundsystem. once it had got started, it sounded great

[narkotik]

yea we had a little set up in ma boys bassment on friday, only small but it wo kickin out enuf bass n sounded crisp so it wo all good.

[crazy.69]

This system is awesome for Dubstep



Proper eye wobbler

They are RCF 18"'s on bottom
Then http://speakerplans.com/index.php?id=gsub in the middle
Then http://speakerplans.com/index.php?id=hd15horn on top

Not sure what tops are but can find out if needed, apart from the RCF's this entire system is self built sounds awesome for Breakz, RaggaJungle, Dubstep, Reggae and Wonky Tekno.
It's power is 22k and it rocks

Hope thats some help if you need more info give us a shout

[hate recordings]

deep down i got a secret soft spot for these types of ladies. hippies

oh yeah, and this thread certainly has me now obsessed with finding out how soundsystems are built. i spent about 6 hours after reading this post browsing the speakerplans.com forum. AWESOME place!

[bedward]

http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8609&highlight=

I'm in the middle of building a cab for a 12" sub. If you want to do it right it takes a bit of research. If you have the technical specs, life is a hell of a lot easier for you - measuring them is a real pain. Check this site for basic info http://www.diysubwoofers.org/

Also check this software that calculates the size of the box for you http://www.ajdesigner.com/speaker/index.php - I found it quite helpful.

I haven't tried these guys out yet, but they sell all manner of speaker building stuff - useful for getting stuffing material and flanged ports (if you need them)http://www.wilmslow-audio.co.uk/

Edit - there is a trade off between speaker efficiency and frequency response -there is no right or wrong way as far as this is concerned - depends on what you want.

the diysubwoofers place is great with some interesting links.
e.g. http://www.decware.com/newsite/speakers.htm
scroll down to the "wicked one" and the "house wrecker."

that's just subs tho, haven't found much online about the whole system.
seen a few books on the subject, that's probly the way to go, more comprehensive info etc.

best of luck 2 ya.

[hate recordings]

valve soundsystem documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62jjsbhNdGs

[t-woc]

http://www.jahtubbys.co.uk/

[thinking]

Google for LAB subs man - LAB is a tried & tested design for a tuned sub cabinet that sound fantastic - pure transparent lowend. There's whole forums dedicated to them: http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/f/3/0/