Tahoejmfc

Hi Again, I have my 4 Skrams coupled together laying on there sides. Supposedly I get a 6db gain having the subs coupled the way I do. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxHiRfTORnW/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxBrd97yXa9/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxrt5nxLvu5/?img_index=1

BC21SW152 4 ohm drivers

I am using 2 QSC PL380 amps in Stereo

My generator is a gov surplus Onan Quiet Diesel HDKAV 6000 watt. I am starting to max this genny out, and when I add my lasers I have to put them on a differnet generator. 

I do not use any Dampening because I don't want the Playa dust having a media to cling to inside. 

I am Running Meyer UPQ tops with a 15" drive and 4" horn for my Mains, and Meyer UPJ's with 10" drive and 2" horn for my Fills. 

This System is OFF THE HOOK!!!!

Thanks again Josh, This years Burning Man was fantastic because of your design!!!! Edna is starting to get a big following of BASS HEADS!! YOUR DESIGN KICKS ASS!!! THANK YOU!!!

Hi Everyone, I have another art car project and am looking for a cabinet for 18" drivers. Im looking at the 18" BC Speakers 18SW152 driver and a powersoft plate amp. I currently own 4 SKRAMS, but cannot get another amp for the 2 new ones I have built. Do you have any suggested designs for a 18" driver? Thanks!

OOPS I DID IT AGAIN, and built 2 more SKRAMS making this 4 SKRAM's in my collection. I decided to do this because I upgraded my tops to Meyer Sound UPQ's and needed more BASS. Now I just need to find a amp and more money to afford it.

B&C 21SW152's cost 950$ each, 200$ more than pre-covid. My QSC PL380 amp is 700$ more now and backordered.

would using an Ipal Driver over the standard driver like its brother the 21SW152 make a big difference? would I see a larger return for my money?

30 minutes ago, Father Francis said:

And why would you think that ?, I think there’s only 9mm difference in the depth, and the box is half the Skp which is designed from Ipal, so I wouldn’t think there is any problems 

Because all of the Driver specs change, you cannot just look at the physical dimensions of the driver and say because it fits in the box it will sound ok. One major difference is the Vas changes from 7.0 ft3 for the 21sw152 to a smaller 5.47 ft3 for the ipal

21SW152 https://bcspeakers.com/en/products/lf-driver/21-0/4/21sw152-4

21ipal https://bcspeakers.com/en/products/lf-driver/21-0/1/21ipal

Has anyone used or considered using a IPAL driver in a Skram? Im guessing the box would have to change. 

13 hours ago, DJimbo said:

3. Im looking at using the B&C 21SW152's in 4 ohm. Which amps would yall recommend? I am powering my Danley's with Linea. Ideally Id like to power all the subs off one amp for simplicity's sake (Linea 44M20, 20,000wattsRMS) using three channels split to two subs each wired in parallel. The amp goes down to 2 ohm but output is 3,000wattsrms for the 4 ohm and 1,500wattsrms for the 8 ohm respectively. If I bridge them I can apparently get 10,000 watts RMS at 4 ohms from each pair.. I dont know enough about amps to know whether it would be better to run two skrams off on one output in series or parallel given the wattage rating changes. Any thoughts about this? I could always change the drivers to 8 ohm and run them in parallel but the 1500 watt rms rating seems undersized..?

Welcome to the Rabbit hole of BASS! Correct me if I am wrong with any of this.......

I use the B&C 21SW152's at 4ohm with a QSC PL380 amp. This amp drives 2 SKRAMS, with room to melt the coil if you turn the clip limit switch off.(I know from accidental experience) I have thought about running 4 x 8 ohm drivers with this one amp in series as well, but figure that would be pushing the amp alot and I typically use the amp at Burning Man and it was %*&#^@ hot this year so it prolly would not be the best idea as the amp would be turned all the way up instead of running at 50-60% like I currently am. I pair the 2 SKRAMS with Meyer Sound UPJ's and run the tops at -6db for most outdoor venues and -10db for most indoor venues (unless it gets really crowded, then I go to -4db outdoors for the tops and -6db for indoor.... Otherwise the tops are Too Bright). I have Meyer Sound UPQ's on order and will need to double my SKRAMS to keep up with the UPQ's output so I plan on building 2 more of these unless I just go straight to the Powersoft 30" M-Force subs but they are 12,000$ a pair with amp and you have to wait a year to get the drivers.

If you are going with 6 SKRAMS you will need quite the tops to compete as these Bass Bins output some serious BASS!!! Jay on here has quite the system with I think it was Danley tops, he might be one to DM. 

I would always cut in the grooves to build these boxes, serious forces going on here and you need the cabs to be rock solid, make sure you use the best Baltic Birch you can find, PU Glue and lots of pre-drilled screws. One option if you do not have access to a CNC router is to find a local makers space that has one, I used the TRUCKEE ROUNDHOUSE shop bot to make mine. 

GOOD LUCK AND MAY THE BASS BE WITH YOU!

I love how many people have built these subs! Also, I just love these subs as well. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CalY8Y1Bi6D/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

33 minutes ago, jay michael said:

where is this war machine truck of yours Tahoe? We should meet up and let our Skrams have a play date haha 

I am in North Lake Tahoe, Truck is stored and worked on in Truckee. We rollout to the Black Rock Desert or a couple spots in the woods. You are in Canada?

Would love to combine forces!

Unfortunately this project has fallen through. Powersoft just had to up the price of the M-drive and Amp, They also want my 11,500$ now and delivery will be in June, Maybe. I said I cannot give you that much money and then wait that long. They just said well in June, if you try to buy then, the wait could be even longer. 

So I bought 3 X 10 Watt Pangolin Unity RGB lasers instead with the money. I will plan on chasing after this maybe next summer and try again. I put together all the cut files for the cnc, have the plywood and am ready to cnc cut when they do get back in stock with out the long lead time. The plans I have ready are for the EDM sub design if anyone wants the converted to proper scale illustrator files. 

Emmersive Audio in Venture was helping me with this being that they are the Powersoft west coast reps. Brion is really great with my questions and owns a set of the 1st version of these drivers with Danley tops.

I want these drivers on the art car alongside the SKRAMS, so this will be happening in the future. 

Here is the project that got me interested in these drivers, it was for a Roots Society project, built by Robert Lee of Bass Boss.

8 M-Drive 30" Drivers

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKYtbHjj5LL/?utm_medium=copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKBJI8-j1_-/?utm_medium=copy_link

This only partly worked, the sherpa bought the wrong plywood for the horn and the bass would bust right through the osb when turned way up. INTENSE even not fully turned up. as you can see the boxes holding the subs were built with the proper birch. 

I want to add the photo but Im capped at 33kB for pics

Being a dual SKRAM owner and using the B&C 21SW152 for the last 1.5 years in this setup, I agree with Jay's description of how they sound.

They are simply too brutish and over excited the room even at lower volumes. - This is in my 2 car garage/workshop. 

14 hours ago, jay michael said:

The 21sw152 is still one of the top drivers for war volume applications, but I think there would be better options for low volume listening. 

They are War Machines, these things kick ass and people take notice immediately. When paired with the right tops, like the Danleys or Meyers in my case, you're going to rock the house.

If I was to build a system for in my house, I'd go with the BC 18SW152 in a dual setup or something much much lighter. The 21's are just too much and there sound doesn't really fit properly in a small space. (Coming from a Strictly Bass Head Opinion and not a home theater guy opinion...yet)

Tops usually are not pointed so far down, was in backyard

Hi Everyone, I am looking into building the EDM version of the design that Powersoft has released for my art car. I currently have 2 SKRAMS with B&C 21SW152's on a QSC PL380 amp with 2 Meyer Sound UPJ Tops. The SKRAMS are amazing!!!! Thank you Josh!

Instagram @jackalotus

I have downloaded the plans from Powersoft and am working them through illustrator. I have spoken with the west coast Powersoft reps at Emmersive Production Services in Ventura CA who are Very Helpful. He has 2 of the 1st version M-Force Drivers he is using and loves them. I was originally introduced to the M-Force at Burning man by David Lee at Bass Boss. He had 4 of these drivers set up on a walk in horn design subwoofer running just under 60,000 watts of total power. You can see Emmersives subs on their instagram @emmersiveproduction

Current Cost of 18mm Baltic Birch in Reno is 158$ for a 4x8 piece and 105$ for a 5x5 piece. The Design takes 4 sheets of 4x8 18mm Baltic birch. The CNC routing is a bit more complex, multiple pieces need to have grooves on both side of the plywood which will take some time to do properly. 

11 hours ago, Ricci said:

Crispy coils are what's for dinner! 

Sorry to hear about that Tahoe. PL380 is a serious amp. How many Skrams do you have? All 21SW152 loaded? 

I have 2 SKRAMS, both with B&C 21SW152 4ohm. And Yes, Crispy ass coils, wow did it ever fry those wires. i did learn while rebuilding, that their is alot of space inside the space the coil moves within. The backside of the 21SW152 has multiple holes that vent heat and the space is about 5-8mm wide. 

On 10/20/2020 at 6:01 PM, jay michael said:

Bummer about the drive man, that sucks. got any deployment pictures from the playa?

https://www.instagram.com/jackalotus/

you can see the driver being taken apart as well as the Playa deployment in my feed and my story and story archive for BC speakers has more

Well, I finally blew a B&C Speakers 21SW152- 4ohm in a SKRAM running a QSC - PL380. Burnt the coil up real good. In my rush to get the system running on the Playa I accidentally hit the clip limit switch OFF on the PL-380. I currently am working on a RECONE and am having trouble deciding on the glue to use. 

Regarding the SKRAM design after using them now for 6 months. 

OUTSTANDING!!!!  With a quality driver like the B&C 21SW152 the Bass is as others put it, LUXURIOUS! Paired with Meyers Sound Tops, incredible!

On 3/4/2020 at 8:47 AM, Ricci said:

Only concern of mine is the front and possible vibration.  I am thinking of making this smaller box for another 21SW152 I have... I will need to mix it with my original SKRAM and see what happens. Maybe it will hit different and fill in what is lacking in my SKRAM.  Not sure if I will need to mess with the time delay for the different subs in combo and the distance differences in the design. I have never really felt much of a chest pounding with the SKRAM, but gosh damn it hits and is loud. It's pretty incredible how the SKRAM hits but with very little air movement out of the ports. 

CKRAM print.pdf 110.13 MB · 2 downloads

I understand wanting to go smaller on the box design. But after the last 3 weekends using the SKRAM with a B&C 21SW152 4ohm and a QSC PL380, I'm convinced that lugging around the box is well worth the output the original SKRAM design puts out. It is heavy yes... it take 2 people to load it onto a snowmobile deck on my truck, yes.... it takes up alot of space in my garage for storage, yes.... but when you crank it up with some Meyer Sound UPJ's, its worth the tried and tested design that Ricci put a ton of time into designing. 

If you have a alot of free time on a CNC router and free time in your shop building this and want to experiment then this is why I love this conversation. Can't wait to see your results. My experience with the original design is pretty ear blowing for bass music as well as for all around boring club music.. which I will never let happen again on my system after the shit that was played on it last weekend out of my control....

Ricci, the forum is still limiting me to 0.41 megs of image upload. would love to share photos, but the forum won't let me

5 hours ago, peniku8 said:

When converting a circuit down in amperage, remember that an additional breaker is required.

8 AWG is way over the top for any normal speker application (unless you have 100m+ of wire run maybe) and is only used in this case to keep the testing environment as linear and constant as possible to get accurate test results from the DUT. For usual PA applications I'm using either 11, 13 and 15 AWG, depending on what I'm powering.

For when we set up the PA for not-so-small stuff, it is usual to have at least a 63A 3 phase 230V service.

I have not come across Powerlock/Camlock yet.

I don't know why you would link ground and neutral. That sounds like a horrible idea to me.

Yes, If you are coming from a 50 amp circuit, you should be adding a 30 amp circuit breaker where you change your plug type/voltage/amperage

Yes 8awg is overkill, as that is what I had handy in the shop that day. When I make up my proper subwoofer extension cords from the amp to the driver, I will be using 11awg or 12awg class 2 wire to connect to my neutrik connectors. 

63amp? must be some European standard, odd number.

Powerlock/camlock is what comes off of large generators and goes to a break out box

We don't link ground to neutral, it is done for you in the main panel/breaker box at the service drop in your house. You always run them separate, but Klipsch is correct, they are one and the same and are joined at the root house panel on the same bus bar. Yes it is weird.. basically you have 2 grounds in your wiring here in North America. Below explains it further.

6 hours ago, peniku8 said:

I'll be using 30m (100ft) of 8AWG speaker cable for heavy duty sub testing to mitigate cable losses (with the amp on a 230V 32A circuit).

Currently I'm using 8 AWG class 2 for my short run of speaker cable from the amp. It is what i had in my shop for welding and I still need to do some cnc routing to mount the nuetrik connector flush to the back of the sub..

Google Images wire gauge charts to get the proper wire size according to the amperage of the circuit required. Wire size gets smaller with a larger number. 

Referring to the 120V 30 amp circuit feeding the amp... I used 10 AWG for a 7' run from my main panel 30 amp D-Square fuse to the L5-30 (120V 30A) Connection for the amp(Amazon has these connectors for cheap).

It seems like here in the US, most amps run off of the 30 amp 120V L5-30 connection (correct me if I'm wrong please)

A friend's theater has the same connection for when they host Tahoe Wormhole (Bass Heavy Whomp Whomp) with a PK system and it crushes using just that one connection for 6 double 18 subs. The remaining highs/mids of the system are powered by 4 different 120V 15 amp Edison plugs.

I know you can get all sorts of adapters from a 240V 30 or 50amp welding connection on Amazon.. to convert down to a 30 am 120V by just grabbing one of the white, green and black leads. The white(neutral) and green(ground) are actually bonded together at the panel.. so you technically have 2 grounds and one hot (black) connection at the circuit breaker making 120V at the rated amperage of the circuit breaker that the black is connected to.  

On 2/6/2020 at 2:12 PM, klipsch said:

I was looking at the 380 as well. It was well regarded in the forums I came across. I was convinced to try a clone though. So I ended up buying a sinbosen 20000q. 

I know many of us understand the circuit board experience, but I think many of us are interested in the route 66 dead hooker story.

I ended up getting a QSC PL380 from a Guitar Center employee willing to shave 20% off the price, so it arrived yesterday for about 2047$ shipped brand new. 

I have only turned up the amp to about a 3 out of 10 so far. The sub is in my workspace in the garage paired with Meyer UPJ-1p tops and a Dbx PA2 DSP. 

My partner says that the windows upstairs were rattling so hard she thought they could break.. She is a bit of a pussy foot when it comes to her experience with Bass. Me on the other hand can't wait to turn these SKRAM's up to 11. Currently the ports barely show much air movement... but the way the bass hits, it is so thick, deep and powerful. The box I built really is a solid cabinet that should see years and years of use after the local temps come up enough put a good thick coating of Duratex on it. 

I ended up pulling new circuits off of the main breaker panel for a L5-30 30amp 120V connection for the amp and another 15amp connection for the tops. Previously the Sub amp was connected to only a 15 amp circuit and I could tell it was somehow limiting the real output of the amp when turned up. ( I might be wrong here but I swear the subs drive better when the PL380 has a 30amp circuit dedicated to it.)

Next step will be to get the Sub and tops to the local movie theater in Tahoe City a friend owns and set up there to do real full volume tests of the output

Well i got scammed pretty hard on the K10 amp. Sold to me as a lightly used amp with very low hours....  I pulled the amp out of the box and within 2 seconds knew the guy that sold me the amp was full of sh....... in his lightly used statement.

It looked like it had been on tour for 10 years, never once cleaned and covered in RUST, GRIME and had a bent case as well. The dust screen was full of grime and had never been cleaned. I didn't even want to have a look at the circuit board as I knew from my electronics experience that it was going to look like a crusty 5 day old dead hooker on the side of route 66.

Any thoughts on the QSC PL 380 for driving a B&C 21SW152 4 ohm?

or recommendations for another amp choice in the under 3000$ range?

4 hours ago, Ricci said:

Thanks for giving a quick review.

Good set of notes.

Sorry I thought I mentioned leaving the handles off on this page! It is recommended to leave the side handles off until the driver is installed. It helps a lot. Extra space and access to the screws. I always use gasket tape on the handles so they can be easily removed. Gorilla glue!?

#5 is DB approved.

Not sure about the photo limit. I'll ask about it. 

 

What kind of gasket tape?

Yah, Gorilla glue, Im not a wood worker, but more of a mechanical engineer so I don't really know what is the correct method for assembling wood, it was a learning experience....

- sent from my vibrating keyboard with occasional shit falling off the walls of my garage

OH MY GAWD!! WELL WORTH THE BUILD. These things pound!!!! FUCKINEH

I will have my Powersoft K10 here next week and start to really set things up with tuning with a sound engineer friend from Meyer.

THANKS RICCI & Everyone else that has contributed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Notes from first build.

1. Don't rotate the mounting hole pattern, the handle will be in the way, making tightening 2 of the screws a slow process.

2. Don't install one of the side handles until the driver is mounted. Otherwise you end up hitting the inner part of the handle with a sledgehammer to make it fit because I used gorilla glue to put in the handles with and couldn't remove a handle..

3. Don't install the handles with Gorilla glue, its a mess and squeezes out on the frontside.

4. Have a friend there just incase when glueing and screwing the final piece on in, mine was the bottom with vents attached and I could have used a hand to hit it with a block and hammer from the front to seat it proper as my arms are not 4 feet long and I had to run the screw gun on the other side.

5. Do apply liberal amounts of Sake to the process.

6. Bondo works great, so does the Gorilla glue, I used 2" screws on the perimeter, 1.75" on interior work, and a few 1.25" here and there. 

Don't know why I cant attach photos over .41 mb?

Just spoke to my Powersoft connection and have been informed Powersoft has discontinued the K lineup of amps except the K20. They have existing stock of K6's that can be modified to K10 levels with DSp for 3250$ at discount

14 minutes ago, jay michael said:

Looks great Tahoejmfc! I run 4 Skrams on a k10 and have been very pleased. 

Ive been looking at your system, love it, and nice furry hat! I would love to talk about your system on the phone. I am running B&C 21SW152's which are rated at 2000W, peak 4000, so I'm not sure what would be the best option. 530-three-eight-six-0649. I am in Lake Tahoe California right near Reno and the Playa. would love to chat.

-fellow furry hat collector (I've been to Mongolia several times so Ive ended up with 4 fox fur hats)