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Author Topic: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.  (Read 47603 times)

Nimrod Webber

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #20 on: March 15, 2010, 02:40:54 PM »

Doug Fowler wrote on Mon, 15 March 2010 18:34

hey Nimrod -

"About" how loud will the van sub get, C weighted?  How much headroom do you think you may have above your 100w amplifier?

thanks

-df





I'll measure tomorrow.

Smile
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Jeff Babcock

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #21 on: March 15, 2010, 04:25:40 PM »

Phil Lewandowski wrote on Sun, 14 March 2010 22:07



But Jeff Babcock, Adam Schiable, and hopefully a couple others should at least be able to give you some very good real world info that isn't just raving.




Scott,

Technically speaking I'm not a user of any BFM designs anymore, I have sold anything I have built and have not been actively building for a couple years.

If you want specific comments on a particular design, let me know and I can PM you some more specific details.  I would prefer to keep serious design discussion about the cabs limited to PM or to  the bfm site, as there is a history of tension surrounding PSW over there that I do not wish to stir up.

I would suggest that most of the products are intended for a different market than the majority of PSW readers.  Low build cost and output seem to be the primary focus of the designer.  As we all know, there is no free lunch in audio, so those design choices come with some tradeoffs.  

Typically I have seen that those who rant and rave in a super positive manner about the sound of various designs tend to have minimal experience working with modern professional designs and thus a less than ideal point of reference.  

Regarding loading better drivers, typically the LF/mid designs are optimized for the rising midrange response of the Eminence drivers chosen for them.  It's not necessarily easy to find a "better" replacement that is ideal.  You may have success with higher quality HF drivers as Connif B mentioned re the BMS 4552ND, though in that case you need to be extremely careful about using an appropriate horn that plays well with the driver.  With the internal dimensions of some of the designs this can be a significant challenge.

The website does provide very good support and step by step build instructions if you wish to try the designs, so it's a fun woodworking project if you like making sawdust.  

As mentioned by others however, there are plenty of other DIY designs available on the net as well.  It's worth doing your homework on this.  If you are looking for something simple, a basic front loaded design with high quality drivers and a well matched HF horn might be a route to consider and would be the most likely to easily achieve good sonic results.  

You also may wish to see what else is available on the used market, depending on your needs.  Given the market turmoil, a lot of stuff continues to appear at reasonable prices.  I have had excellent success buying good quality pro gear on the used market.

Jeff Babcock

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #22 on: March 15, 2010, 04:42:51 PM »

Kevin Unger wrote on Mon, 15 March 2010 02:18



.....nothing but ear to ear grins about the sound.......

The melded arrays sound fantastic. Small rooms are covered with ease and with very little power. As far as DIY designs go, the support and sound can't be matched anywhere, and the price is right.





Not that I intend to pick on Kevin specifically, but comments like this are common on the BFM forum.

While I'm sure they are well intended, such broad comments are misleading to others, as the posters rarely are qualified or sufficiently experienced to make such statements.

Kevin, I'm happy that you are pleased with your DIY build, but please understand that based on your statements we can only conclude that you have a very narrow frame of reference that you are filtering everything through.



Tom Young

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #23 on: March 15, 2010, 05:10:10 PM »

Jeff-

VERY nicely written, thorough and "balanced" reply and advice.

Thank you for this.

As a skeptic-from-a-distance and one who has not heard or seen any of these recent designs, my cautionary/critical comments are likely to be disregarded by those who are attracted to this sort of more cost-effective (in appearance) alternative. (what else is new)

But hopefuly your words will be perceived as more relevant and based on first-hand knowledge.
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Tom Young
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Connif Boudoin

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #24 on: March 15, 2010, 05:28:54 PM »

Hey Jeff, I tend to agree with you. It has to do with what you have heard in the past and what experiences you have had with higher end equipment. Sometimes even then you need to have the equipment side by side so you can A/B them. I know you have dabled with building some of his designs also. I have been playing with our setup for about 2 years as stated previously and have good success. We did have driver problems but even then it was only on the large outdoor gigs that we tried to play loud that we had problems. The cab design seemed to be able to get louder but the drivers couldn't stand the longer play times at high volume. That was why we looked for the better drivers. I don't think the design is perfect, no-one's is. I have had experience with operating a Nexo Alpha setup, PAS, and Martin 8 inch line array, so I do have some pretty good reference to compare to and I think that the DR290 design I have has done well against them. Also when comparing driver to driver it has done really well. Now we aren't comparing apples to apples but just the same We are trying to provide PA for higher priced local bands and small festivals and have done really well with what we have. It is hard to justify $100,000.00 dollar PA for bar gigs and small festivals. Everyone would surely love to own the NEXO and Martin but only a handful can truly afford it. One problem with the Bill Fitzmaurice stuff is that no 2 will be built the same because it is a DIY design and lots of small pieces to assemble them. Some guys just throw them together and they tend to look like a homemade pile of wood and some do a great job as with Nimrods. Some are using Piezzo's and some like myself are using nice drivers. I think the design is pretty solid but like any horn loaded top they do take some eq'ing to get them to sound good, No different than Nexo or EAW850s. We all know it takes a good system tech and Sound Engineer to make them sound good. I have been to several events where the Nexo stuff sounded like crap and the next gig sounded great. One big down side to the DIY stuff that everyone knows is it will never meet the tech riders. When I asked about that someone told me that it won't matter if the system sounds great but we all know that sometimes you can't even get your foot in the door if doesn't meet rider no matter how good it sounds. It will make you money though to buy the tech rider stuff if you want to. But it won't change what you hear. Just my humble opinion the cab is a unique design and I am happy with it and I am willing to talk to anybody about the design good and bad. I hope this helps because I do respect a lot of the guys that post here and would never think that the cab I own is better than everything else just because we own it. But it will be hard to beat for the price we payed. It was the only way I could afford to have a great sounding system.
(Edited for spelling)
Thanks
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Phil Lewandowski

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #25 on: March 15, 2010, 05:42:05 PM »

No matter how hard you try to not start a war...and just want honest real world results  Wink

http://www.djforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230199


Take Care!
Phil
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Bennett Prescott

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #26 on: March 15, 2010, 05:51:45 PM »

Anyone who responds to this thread like this:
Bill Fitzmaurice

To say that their average 'expert' is an elitist gear snob would be putting it kindly. A few of their regulars know what they're talking about, but they're heavily outnumbered by sniveling sycophants of the pro-sound industry.


And posts "frequency response graphs" like this:
index.php/fa/28739/0/
(In case it's not clear, that is not what a cabinet measurement looks like. That is what a hand drawn line looks like.)

Immediately goes on my "something is wrong" list.
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Tom Young

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #27 on: March 15, 2010, 06:31:29 PM »

Pathetic.

(don't need to elaborate)
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Tom Young
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Moby (Mike Diack)

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #28 on: March 15, 2010, 07:09:35 PM »

I have built and used BFM's Omnitop dual 12 cabinets (purely as an age related inability to lift my previous mids - roybins loaded with E120s). I have very mixed feelings about these boxes. Yes they do what was stated on Bills forum (which is hardly unbiased - his users support him with an almost evangelical fervour). My concerns relate to the off axis response - at some frequencies these things chuck almost as much out the sides as they do out the front, hence can be hazardous in cramped stage conditions. None of this is mentioned and when I raised the issue in forum, I got no satisfactory response. Because of my results thus far, I'm not likely to bin my 2452SL tops and start glueing dozens of $2 piezos together Smile.
I'm tempted by SRX725s and would change in a flash if I could be assured that the efficiency loss would not be to great (I'm totally unconcerned by the "name brand"/rider issue but being able to run a whole PA of a 230v 20A outlet IS important to me)
M
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John Chiara

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Re: User's of Bill Fitzmaurice designs.
« Reply #29 on: March 15, 2010, 07:22:03 PM »

Jeff Babcock wrote on Mon, 15 March 2010 16:25

Phil Lewandowski wrote on Sun, 14 March 2010 22:07



But Jeff Babcock, Adam Schiable, and hopefully a couple others should at least be able to give you some very good real world info that isn't just raving.





You also may wish to see what else is available on the used market, depending on your needs.  Given the market turmoil, a lot of stuff continues to appear at reasonable prices.  I have had excellent success buying good quality pro gear on the used market.




Ditto on that. There is a lot of good last generation gear floating around that can be had for a small percentage of it's cost new. Pro analog consoles are going for pennies on the dollar....kills me when I see local/regional guys doing a festival with a Mackie 24x4 @ FOH!
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