Anyone build a small speaker cabinet?

[therecordingart]

With all of the submini tube amps, Noisy Crickets, and other small amps floating around has anyone built a small speaker cabinet? By small I mean using speakers between 4" to  6" or smaller?

[Scruffie]

No.. but I have designs sketched up ready for one, i'm sure a few people have built them out of random house hold objects too, like i'm building a Ruby Amp & Small speaker into an old 60s Radio Case.

[therecordingart]

Have you sourced what type of speaker you are planning on using? I've been looking around and not sure what to use.

[Scruffie]

Ah well when I dismantled the radios to put the amp into, they all had miniature 60's Celestions in which looked kinda cool so I stuck with those...



They're about 6" each I seem to remember... You can use any kind of small speaker really, or run it into a full sized cab if you wanted better quality.
Futurlec carry a selection of small speakers if they're a supplier you use, you could pick them up anywhere probably though or recycle some old ones http://www.futurlec.com/Speakers.shtml

[therecordingart]

Very awesome! Almost pornographic!

[Top Top]

I have built a few little ones and recently built a somewhat larger one (using two 8" and a 6x9" speaker). I am REALLY happy with the sound of my newest cab, but it is a little larger than I originally would have wanted (about 3ft tall for a 10W homebrew head), and probably larger than you are going for.

I have used mostly home stereo/radio, PA speakers (the type used in stores), and car audio speakers - all of which I look for in thrift/surplus stores and on the side of the road. There has been a lot of pessimism on using non-guitar type speakers, but they work fine. People say they have too much treble response, but that has not been my experience. Guitar speakers tend to be a little more efficient (louder), though I recently found these Bogner 8" PA speakers that are very efficient. I would look for a 4ohm speaker (if your amp can do that) because you will get more volume from them, again, in my experience.

If you build a sealed (closed back) cab, you will get more volume, but a more "boxy" round bottom end. Open back will be more like what you are used to in a small amp, but at the expense of volume. Also, thinner wood can help you get more volume out of a small cab. With proper EQing of the signal going in, a closed back can still sound good.

Here's the cab I just built. Sorry about the quality of the pics.

[Mark Hammer]

Does this count?

On a more serious note, there is a Hammond chassis in the 1590B, BB, C, etc series that is big enough to accommodate a hefty 4"-4-1/2" speaker and an 8-pack of AA cells.  I built a Pocket Rockit amp for a friend's kid in one and it made a great chassis.  Takes a licking and keep on ticking.

[zeta55]

Here's one a friend of mine built for me, it holds a 6" as I remember.
Soundclip recorded with the small red amp.

http://www.zeta-sound.se/Red_Head/90_grader.mp3



/Krister

[JKowalski]

It's going to get upgraded with a 3 watt rectangular speaker soon that sounds much better and will take up the whole front panel width + hieght

...Scavenged from a TV on the side of the road 

[therecordingart]

Here's one a friend of mine built for me, it holds a 6" as I remember.
Soundclip recorded with the small red amp.

http://www.zeta-sound.se/Red_Head/90_grader.mp3



/Krister

Which amps are those on top of the speaker?

[jkokura]

Does this count?

On a more serious note, there is a Hammond chassis in the 1590B, BB, C, etc series that is big enough to accommodate a hefty 4"-4-1/2" speaker and an 8-pack of AA cells.  I built a Pocket Rockit amp for a friend's kid in one and it made a great chassis.  Takes a licking and keep on ticking.

I didn't know you were Canadian Mark! I live in Northern BC, where are you?

As to the OP, I want to, but haven't built a small cab. I would love a 2x8 cab and a small firefly amp for practice.

Jacob

[sean k]

single 6" and a TDA2003 with a fet in front. Uses an ol' pressure cooker.

2 x 4" driven by an LM386 running on a 12VAC plugpack.

All sorts of boxes and pots etc can be used for amps enclosures... even ol' vacuum cleaner bodies, but , from another post about singing along with amped guitar, it really helps to have these little amps up in the air and towards the mid height of a room so some sort of stand with air all around makes them better to hear and get any bass going.

[phector2004]

now those are some sexy amps!

does the cooker cab "focus" the sound in any way? it looks like a top-secret weapon

is it really worth investing so much in expensive speakers for a small cab? i know high quality 12"s go for hundreds of dollars, but are there any decent 4-6" speakers for under $50?
if not, i'd better start salvaging through the junk in my basement!

[petemoore]

does the cooker cab "focus" the sound in any way?
  I'd call it more like 'wide dispersion', and a lot of the induced air motion wraps right around the corners toward the back.
  it looks like a top-secret weapon
  is it really worth investing so much in expensive speakers for a small cab?
  Only if you like 'em and...
  i know high quality 12"s go for hundreds of dollars, but are there any decent 4-6" speakers for under $50?
  Yes.
if not, i'd better start salvaging through the junk in my basement!
  Might find something cool in there.
  <8'' speakers that are 'for' guitar are kinda rare, ones that work really well 'with' guitar are fairly common.
  I'd say these days, really super duper speakers are very avaialable, not that expensive.

[Mark Hammer]

All over the world, offices, schools, hospitals, and commercial buildings have ceiling-mounted, or wall-mounted, full-range speakers, between 4-8" for public address purposes.  And all over the world those buildings either get renovated or torn down, and the speakers end up at a wreckers, or sitting in piles near the dumpster, or sent to a 2nd hand place, or whatever, and you can often buy them for $10@ or less.  They can actually be pretty decent speakers for guitar amp purposes.  The particular resonances they have may not necessarily make your guitar shine without the proper EQ, but it is easier and cheaper to tweak a couple of cap values than it is to hunt around for and purchase the "ideal" speaker.  You will find that they often come with a transformer attached so that strings of these things can be driven from a common single amplifier without  complication.  Remove the transformer and you're good to go.  I must have about 20 8" speakers obtained from such facilities.  A pair of them in a decent cabinet can actually sound pretty good.  Unless you design the cab appropriately and have the EQ set to do so, you won't get the sort of bass that comes from 10" and 12" speakers with such ease, but decent oomph is not that far out of reach.

They can be used for non-guitar purposes too.  I picked up some cheap carpeted MDF slanted cabs for car subwoofers and stuck full-range 8" speakers in them to make a cheap and simple small-scale PA powered by a low wattage amp.  One cab has the Anderton LM383-based practice amp sitting inside the cab, and the other two cabs are just passive with speakers in them and nothing else.  The cabs come with a 2.1mm jack for applying power to neon displays (or so the packaging of the cabs said) plus screw-on terminals for speaker connections.  In the powered one, I installed a mini phone jack for feeding a line-level signal in and wired the internal amp's output to the internal speaker and to the screw-on terminals, such that I could add another speaker in parallel if I wanted.  The 2.1mm jack is, of course, used by the wallwart power supply.  I loaned the setup to some folks recently for a small charity auction and it worked out great.

[yodude]

I'm in the middle of building a switchable cab.  If anybody wanted to chime in on my switching arrangement, I 'd appreciate it.  Thread here:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=82086.0

[bluelang]

i use a 2x1" speaker in a box for my bench amp... it also has a 386 stuffed in it. works great. even has "overdrive." 

it's right next to the breadboard..

http://picasaweb.google.com/bluelang/UltimateBassPedal#5437890880482155058