Big Cans

For those who already own tower speakers;

1) What kind do you own? (boss, wetbox, etc...)
2) Why did you buy that brand?
3) What do you like or dislike about your current tower speakers?


For those looking or thinking about buying tower speakers;

1) What sort of features are you looking for?(price, performance, looks, etc....)

YOU WANT POWER
These are Image Dynamics, With the right amps powering the sets, I promise you these are the cleanist, Loudest speakers in the world.. they are 2 horns and 2 6.5" with active crossovers.. MB Quarts etc... and all others dont stand a chance..
I already went down that road

The horns are excellent for clean sound in outdoor settings.. We are the most hated people on the lake

Nice Setup Tom.

DC,
I went with Fluid Concepts for my board racks and Speakers. They make some really good products and I am happy with my setup. http://www.fluidconcepts.net

SAMSON towers and speakers. They are detachable and swivel 360 degrees. I have NO dislikes about them. When I pull up to a beach I can rotate them for the front "tunes". But when riding I can rotate them for the Rear "tunes". When Im done for the day I can remove them for security.

i could easily find louder, and likely just as clean horns pretty easily....but those are pretty phat! i like the setup

I'm curious Tim...what horns do you feel are louder, and just as clean as the ID's? I have yet to hear a Horn/Midbass setup as good as them.

KG

in another post he says 109 dB. An example is a meyer sound MSL-4 with a horn loaded 12" and a horn loaded 4" diaphram with 2" exit. 140dB. of course size is an issue. and you cannot purchase those components separately.

http://www.meyersound.com/products/concertseries/msl-4/specifications.htm

a good built horn produces some of the best sound in my opinion, and it is GREAT to see someone using them on a tower. i would agree that they could be the cleanest, loudest car audio speakers, but one must look beyond that realm to speakers built for long throw applications.

Tim - the ID web site says 109 db, True - I had four of these throwing out a total of around 124 db, but yes , if you are looking at one seperate and a horn then 109 seems logical. FYI - Plus my gains of the 2 McIntosh amps were a little over 1/2...

Tim - How are you going to mount a pair of your MSI-4's on a tower???? You cant?? the weight and height restrictions are crazy

21.26" W x 36.00" H x 30.00" D
(540 mm x 914 mm x 762 mm)

Weight per speaker... 180 lbs (81.67 kg); Shipping: 215 lbs (97.52 kg)

Tom, again, sweet setup! (best tower setup I have ever seen) I was just saying that there were louder high quality horns out there.

Tell us more about how you made the box and such, and perhaps a ballpark figure on what a tower box like that would run. (non inclusive of the amps)

We had some problems with the tower box because we first made it out of 1 1/2" wood and stretched the box to match the 2002 Typhoon tower specs @ 55". Thats the white one in the picture. It weighs in with 2 pairs of ID (8 speakers total) at over 100 pounds. It was just too heavy and seemed to strain the tower moving left to right when we hit rough water. Kind of scary when you have 13 people in your boat

We decided to get the box down to 48" and made it out of 1/8" Aluminum increasing the strength but decreasing the weight down to around 50 pounds fully loaded. MUCH BETTER. We bought some custom quick release Abrushed aluminum brackets that allow us to take the box down in 10 seconds, they directly bolt on to the tower and match everything. I will try to get a picture to you soon.

The tower fires out of both ends, the front and the rear of the boat, we installed a amp on/off switch on the console that can turn off the front speakers when we are boarding, so we can have a little control and not piss everyone family off at the lake with loud music..

As far as price goes, I got a Aluminum Fab shop to copy the original tower for about 800.00. They matched the new tower on my Tsunami which in due in April 15th, its a brushed aluminum tower. The Image Dynamics Speaker sets with Horns are about $600 per pair.

(Message edited by tabiggs on March 07, 2003)

Tim,
Two things...
A. I was speaking in realistic terms. While those MSL-4's might sound very nice, you would need a 40ft Bertram tower just to house them. I proabably should have narrowed it down to (consumer car-audio products readily available to the public)
B. The 140db spec you mention is the MAX SPL, and the notes on the bottom mentioned specific factors to those numbers. The Dynamic Range listing is >110db, which is very similar to the ID's 109db Sensitivity @ 1 meter.

Based on the specs, they are nearly the same!

KG

Cool, thanks Tom!!!! VERY VERY NICE!

Definitely post the pics of the new box and especially the "quick release" brackets.

Anyone else got some good custom or regular setups they would recommend? or even your dislikes and what you would do different the second time around?

The tower consists of 4 MB Quart 8" co-axes bi-amped by a Xtant 604.

Here is my attempt at tower speakers. Took two 6 1/2" pipe, had a plate welded on one end and a flange on the other to mount the speakers. Next will be putting the wire clips in, dynamat and polishing. Still working on how the mount will work.

keith - how much did you spend to make does custom can and how long did it take?