{"id":1005,"date":"2025-07-27T16:26:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T14:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/?p=1005"},"modified":"2025-07-27T16:26:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T14:26:49","slug":"2x6-two-way-horn-reflex-bass-practice-cabinet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/?p=1005","title":{"rendered":"2&#215;6&#8243; two-way horn reflex bass practice cabinet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>January 2015, text\/instructions from back then too. I&#8217;m a little sad that I mounted the tweeter up top, and not in the middle as a &#8220;nose&#8221; with little teeth as drawn as an option in the cutsheet picture. Still, I love how it sounds for bass guitar. Still a great practice amp, only thing I changed since 2015 is put little wheels under it. Might one day make it active by putting a plate amp in the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>2x Fane Sovereign 6-100, 1x Mivoc XGH 258 ALU<br>4 ohm, 96 dB\/W, 200W RMS, -3dB @ ~75Hz<br>Passive crossover @ 2550Hz (with switch)<br>25x35x35cm, 8.4kg<\/em><br><br>For this 2&#215;6&#8243; top cab, I was mainly inspired by Arjank&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.talkbass.com\/threads\/piccolo8-cab-build-for-piccolo-bass.1010311\/\">Piccolo8<\/a> horn reflex cab, since I really liked the clarity of bass lines on my small horn reflex bookshelf speakers. I was also inspired by <a href=\"http:\/\/greenboy.us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">greenboy&#8217;s<\/a> cabs that have 6&#8243; mids and a tweeter as a vital part of the sound. I was also inspired by Bill Fitzmaurice&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billfitzmaurice.com\/XFCabs.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">XF guitar cabs<\/a> that mount two speakers in a cross-firing position and with a rear tilted baffle. I designed the cab using Hornresp. When I&#8217;d finished it, it was a bit peaky in the 100-300Hz region but after stuffing the driver volume it sounded a lot better.<br><br>At practice volume, the 2&#215;6&#8243; goes low enough on its own. Over ~40W, I needs a high pass filter >150Hz to keep from farting out (xmax) and I add one or two of the TH cabs.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P1350280.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1009\" style=\"width:466px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P1350280.jpg 640w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P1350280-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P1350280-210x158.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; Wood &#8212;<br>This design uses 12mm plywood. If you are REALLY careful, you can cut all but<br>the tweeter baffle from a quarter sheet (1220x610x12mm). See the cut sheet in<br>the Sketchup file.<br>The entire driver enclosure is tilted backward 9 degrees compared to the horn<br>port. The two 6&#8243; drivers are crossed inward at 20 degrees each. NOTE: the two<br>baffle pieces, the piece at the top of the baffle and the top part of the cab<br>therefore have a few 9 or 20 degree cut angles that you should not overlook!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"832\" height=\"606\" src=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-horn-reflex.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1006\" style=\"width:477px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-horn-reflex.png 832w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-horn-reflex-300x219.png 300w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-horn-reflex-768x559.png 768w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-horn-reflex-210x153.png 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 832px) 100vw, 832px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; Drivers &#8212;<br>This design uses two Fane Sovereign 6-100 6&#8243; drivers. The volume behind the<br>drivers and the length of the horn are based on Hornresp simulations of the<br>frequency response of the cab with these particular drivers in it. Using<br>different drivers will have a very big impact on the frequency response of<br>the cab; you will probably get a big thump around 150Hz and not much response<br>in the frequencies below that. At the bottom of this file, you will find the<br>Hornresp values that I used if you wish to try modelling different drivers.<br>That said, the tweeter (Mivoc XGH 258 ALU) could be replaced by a different<br>model or even omitted. If you go for a different model tweeter, you may need<br>to change the crossover.<br>My cab benefitted a lot from stuffing the volume behind the drivers with the<br>insides of a pillow. You could also use actual BAF wadding or wool, and\/or<br>line the inside with felt. This will help dampen unwanted sound reflections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HR2x6.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1007\" style=\"width:473px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HR2x6.png 640w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HR2x6-300x205.png 300w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HR2x6-210x144.png 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; Crossover &#8212;<br>The crossover that I used is a simple passive second order crossover around<br>2550Hz. The woofers have a combined impedance of 16 ohms around this<br>frequency and the tweeter as well. I used a 3.9uF capacitor and a 1.0mH<br>inductor for both the low pass and the high pass sieds. Make sure the<br>capacitor is bipolar and the inductor is of reasonably low resistance. I am<br>new to crossover design though so I&#8217;m sure there are better ways to go about<br>it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; Crossover switch &#8212;<br>If you want to be able to switch between running the 6&#8243; drivers full range,<br>or adding the tweeter via the crossover, use a rotary switch. I&#8217;ve used a<br>4P3T rotary switch that in the third switch position adds an 8 ohm resistor<br>in series with the tweeter. This pads the tweeter a bit, but it also changes<br>the crossover point slightly so this is not the best way to pad the tweeter.<br>I mounted the rotary switch in the horn mouth, where you can easily access<br>it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"867\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-filter-switch.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1008\" style=\"width:422px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-filter-switch.png 867w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-filter-switch-260x300.png 260w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-filter-switch-768x886.png 768w, https:\/\/invar.nl\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2x6-filter-switch-182x210.png 182w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; Using the cab &#8212;<br>If you use the cab on its own, note that it will fart out if you push more<br>than approx. 40W into it. If you wish to get more output, you can add a high<br>pass filter and cross over the lower frequencies to a different cab. That<br>way, the cab can handle about 200W. I use a tapped horn cab crossed over to<br>the 2&#215;6&#8243; cab around 175Hz. The TH design that I used (THAM10) is freely<br>available on the website of Anders Martinsson, the designer, at<br>http:\/\/www.martinsson.cc\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; A suitable amplifier &#8212;<br>If you wish to make the cab into a combo, or just want to have a small amp<br>for it, I recommend looking into the TPA3116D2 amplifier. You can order a<br>board cheaply from China (&lt;$20) and its output is perfect for this cab. If<br>you use a 19V laptop power supply, it can push about 35W into the cab at<br>below 0.1% distortion. With a 24V power supply you could get about 60W out<br>of it. If you run in PBTL mode, it is 2 ohm stable and you could get up to<br>100W if you add another cab.<br>You can set the gain at either 20, 26, 32 or 36 dB. With both pickups at<br>100% on my jazz bass, I found that the gain was enough to practice without a<br>preamp, but I recommend setting the gain to 32 if you have a passive bass<br>and will not be using a separate preamp. More on this amp at diyAudio here:<br>http:\/\/www.diyaudio.com\/wiki\/TPA3116D2_Boards<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; Hornresp input data &#8212;<br>Ang 2.0 x Pi<br>Eg 2.00<br>S1 70.00 S2 280.00 Con 47.00<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sd 139.20 Cms 8.00E-05 Mmd 23.94 Re 6.90<br>Bl 13.25 Rms 1.35 Le 1.15 Nd 2P<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vrc 0.00 Ap 255.00 Vtc 8500.00<br>Lrc 0.00 Lpt 0.00 Atc 500.00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January 2015, text\/instructions from back then too. I&#8217;m a little sad that I mounted the tweeter up top, and not in the middle as a &#8220;nose&#8221; with little teeth as drawn as an option in the cutsheet picture. Still, I love how it sounds for bass guitar. Still a great practice amp, only thing I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio","category-oldspeakers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1010,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions\/1010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}